Exclusive: Jamie Campbell Bower Character Details Revealed for Rings of Power Season 3

Elven hair, Arlen and asked-for aid

Those waiting for the next season of Rings of Power are in the middle of the long dark night. We are nearing a year since season 2 aired, and with presumably more than a year to go until season 3. Filming started only a few months ago, and the official marketing has only so far given a single short video teasing the reworked crown of Morgoth being handed to someone in an actor’s trailer. But! fear not, Fellowship of Fans is here to whet the appetites of those thirsting for news.

Fellowship of Fans being leaked RoP Season 3 info

Today we have not one but three exclusive tidbits of information, one of which may have big story implications, and which I will unpack later on, with a book-spoiler warning.

Previous articles have discussed the impact of the coming inter-season time jump, namely on the Númenórean storyline and on the War of the Elves and Sauron but no one has so far mentioned how this will lead to changes in … hairstyles? This is obviously, based on how much digital ink was spilled in pre-Season 1 angst, one of the more important lore aspects from Tolkien’s writing, with high dudgeon erupting over (barely visible) beards, and over hair that was distinctively not in line with this description of the Noldor from the note in Tolkien’s late essay “Hair”, included in 2021’s The Nature of Middle-earth:

Finwë (and Míriel) had long dark hair, so had Fëanor and all the Noldor,…

Well, FoF can EXCLUSIVELY reveal that some of the Elven characters will start to have longer hair in Season 3. Perhaps a dearth of Elven barbers out on the campaign in Eriador, or perhaps building Rivendell doesn’t leave much time for a cut and blow-dry. In any case, fans of tidal-haired Elrond’s Season 2 battlefield curls may well be breathing even more heavily in Season 3.

Season 1 RoP fans: “Long hair will come… Long hair will come…”

Speaking of swoon-worthy Elven gentlemen, everyone’s favourite mystery casting, Jame Campbell Bower, is said to be playing a character codenamed ‘Arlen’, described as a ‘High-born Knight’. We can now tell you the next EXCLUSIVE: JCB is Arlen, and Arlen is not just an Elf, but he is a “leading book Elf”, the “biggest character cast for Season 3″… and he is not Thranduil. This leaves very few options, because, recall, the show only has blanket rights to the text of Lord of the Rings including Appendices. Details from other books can only be used with special permission of the Tolkien Estate (like the name ‘Annatar’), and the showrunners are being sparing with asking.

Before being told of the latest news, I asked several FoF members their theory on who JCB was playing, and not all of them made the fan-favourite guess:

• Webcrawler: “I’m gonna say Oropher” (more broadly, “I think the only options are Celeborn, Oropher, Thranduil, and I guess Witch King is the farshot”)
• Sabrina: “My top guesses would be Oropher, Celeborn or Glorfindel.” (in that order)
• Aidan Pocock: “I think he’s going to play a Fallohide love interest for Nori named Bingo Boffin Bolger” (but more seriously, when pressed, he said Celeborn)
• Austrawandil: “I think Celeborn is most likely.”
• Christopher: “Celeborn is 100% my pick.” (“He’s the same age as Morfydd, they’re both stage actors, and they’re following each other on Insta.”)

Just to recap the scoops from today’s reveals:

Further Speculation

We also do know (h/t @NerwenNenya/@galadrielswife) that JCB is also following Ismael Cruz-Cordova and Morfydd Clarke on Instagram, and no other cast members (though he started following Bear McCreary just recently).

Insta detectives on the case

In a recent fan video at a signing, JCB mentioned that he is “having fun” and “it’s a beautiful show”, which would align with the re-uniting of a long-lost husband to Middle-earth’s most damaged girl-boss—but maybe it’s just relative to coming off playing the monstrous Vecna in Stranger Things.

After getting people’s theories I then shared part of the new info (not all the specifics of what book character) and asked everyone if they wanted to update their guesses.

• Webcrawler: [no change]
• Sabrina: “In that case, I will change my order to: Celeborn, Glorfindel and Oropher”
• Aidan: “with the notable absence of Celeborn through seasons 1 and 2, now is the time to introduce him. I imagine JCB will portray the aforementioned elf, and if not, I struggle to imagine what they could possibly have in mind withholding that character for another season.”
• Austrawandil: [no change]
• Christopher: “100% Celeborn!”

The options for JCB’s character seem very narrow indeed!

Lastly, in a plot-related EXCLUSIVE, FoF has heard that the “Elves will send a plea to the Numenoreans for help against Sauron who’s advancing in Eriador”. There have been theories floating around for years around how the folding together of the Second Age storylines might mean the War of Elves and Sauron, the major Middle-earth conflict of season 3 might be dovetailed with another military action that Tolkien placed later (no, not the War of the Last Alliance) in the timeline. However the showrunners have decided to adapt the precise events, this confirms we are ticking off another one of the major events described in the timeline in Appendix B. The first two-and-a-half entries here were (essentially) portrayed in Season 2:

1693 War of the Elves and Sauron begins. The Three Rings are hidden.
1695 Sauron’s forces invade Eriador. Gil-galad sends Elrond to Eregion.
1697 Eregion laid waste. Death of Celebrimbor. The gates of Moria are shut. Elrond retreats with remnant of the Noldor and founds the refuge of Imladris. [founding of Imladris may have happened in the time skip]
1699 Sauron overruns Eriador. [this has probably also happened during the time skip]
1700 Tar-Minastir sends a great navy from Númenor to Lindon. [….] [this links up with the new info]

Obviously Tar-Minastir is not the King of Númenor in the show’s timeline, with the decidedly anti-Elf Ar-Pharazôn having seized power in Season 2. However, in a perceptive tweet from July 2022, before Season 1 aired James Tauber of the Digital Tolkien Project (and Rings of Power Wrap-up) suggested in a tweet that the show might merge Tar-Minastir and Ar-Pharazôn. A follow-up tweet suggested a more ambitious program of telling the story of Númenor by having Pharazôn embody the roles of different kings at major turning points of Númenórean history:

Source: @DigitalTolkien

Not all of these fit with what we have seen in Seasons 1 and 2. But will Ar-Pharazôn send forces to Middle-earth, playing the rôle of Tar-Minastir here? We will have to wait and see. We have seen location filming in Old Windsor that seems to show Elven tents, and the night shoot includes actual and simulated fires. Additionally, our very own Harry mentioned on a recent stream that there appeared to be a Númenórean location shoot nearby, though this in no way indicates whether the two sets are connected in the story or not; it could well be the countryside near Andúnië.

Gil-galad banner at the location shoot (credit: u/Unfair-Ebb-5741)

From here on down, I will give some theories that contain book spoilers, and my own thoughts and analysis. Nothing from now on is based on any other inside information.

Adar wasn’t Maglor, but could JCB be playing him?

Fans with long memories may recall that famous Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey was a consultant for the show in the earliest days, then gave what seems to be an unsanctioned interview with a German website in 2019, and may have said too much. At the time everything looked fairly innocuous, though an NDA is an NDA [editorial note: nobody but the people involved know exactly why Shippey stopped working on the show]. One of the things he said was this (emphasis added):

The Tolkien Estate will insist that the main shape of the Second Age is not altered. Sauron invades Eriador, is forced back by a Númenorean expedition, is returned to Númenor. There he corrupts the Númenoreans and seduces them to break the ban of the Valar. All this, the course of history, must remain the same. But you can add new characters and ask a lot of questions, like: What has Sauron done in the meantime? Where was he after Morgoth was defeated? Theoretically, Amazon can answer these questions by inventing the answers, since Tolkien did not describe it. But it must not contradict anything which Tolkien did say. That’s what Amazon has to watch out for. It must be canonical, it is impossible to change the boundaries which Tolkien has created, it is necessary to remain “tolkienian”.

We now know that “what Sauron has done in the meantime” was actually answered in the flashback the start of Season 2, though I note that the script wasn’t written until 2020. But that’s not what interests me now. Most of the first bolded sentence is per Tolkien’s timeline of the middle Second Age, but the last bit isn’t. That’s supposed to come during the reign of Ar-Pharazôn, centuries later according to Appendix B. Sauron is “captured” by Ar-Pharazôn who has come to Middle-earth to reclaim the title from this upstart “King of Men” (a Silmarillion-only name that Sauron takes). Here’s James Tauber, again in July 2022, earlier in that thread:

Source: @DigitalTolkien

Again, not everything here panned out, with the colonising effectively kicking off at the end of Season 2—but the second half is probably right on the money. It turns out I truncated the Appendix B timeline entry earlier, it really goes like this:

1700 Tar-Minastir sends a great navy from Númenor to Lindon. Sauron is defeated.
1701 Sauron is driven out of Eriador. The Westlands have peace for a long while.

One could read that last item, “the Westlands have peace” as being adapted for the show to last during Sauron’s island holiday
on Númenor…

The “great navy” is described in Unfinished Tales as being led by Ciryatur, but the options for who might lead the second Númenórean expedition to Middle-earth in the show are open. Will it be Pharazôn, filling his role of wanting to be the swaggering saviour of the Elves, and conqueror of Sauron/Halbrand? Or perhaps sending a force meeting Sauron’s army in the Battle of the Gwathló, with Pharazôn then going to Pelargir or Umbar and mopping up the forces of Sauron that had been driven out of Eriador. In Appendix B we read:

3261 Ar-Pharazôn sets sail and lands at Umbar.
3262 Sauron is taken as prisoner to Númenor;

If the showrunners are trying to squeeze as much plot out of the timeline that is a large part of their source material then one can imagine that this could be the source of ideas. It might even be a Faithful expedition to Eriador, in light of Ar-Pharazôn refusing help, as part of the establishment of the relationship with the Elves of Lindon, needed for Season 5. In any case, Tom Shippey’s rough outline in the interview might be more accurate than when it first appeared.

All of this is ignoring other factors that are expected to or need to happen in Season 3: the forging of the One Ring, and the Dwarf plotline and how that will interact with the ongoing war in Eregion. You can read Jaron’s article that discussed the time skip for discussion of those.

That Gift of Men lookin’ not so good now

Exactly how Gil-galad (presumably) asks for aid is not clear, but FoF member Dunaidan mentioned on a stream the theory that perhaps Elrond will be sent to Númenor, which will almost surely be a trigger to Ar-Pharazôn, who will see the resemblance to Elros, Elrond’s twin and first king of Númenor. It would be a very interesting discussion between these two indeed, and a chance for the show to explore Tolkien’s theme of the desire for deathlessness, which was named by the showrunners in May 2022 as a main theme they take away from the whole Second Age story.

Until next time.