Who Is Adar in Rings of Power?

While Amazon’s spin-off show is based on Tolkien source material, there are plenty of original storylines that feature entirely new characters which have been created by the showrunners for this debut season. This includes one spooky antagonist who looks set to become the series’ big baddy. Here’s who Adar is in Rings of Power in The Rings of Power, or at least what we know about him so far.

Who Is Adar in Rings of Power?

The introduction of Adar serves as the cliffhanger ending to Episode 3. It’s clear that Adar is the leader of the orcs who have been tunneling across Middle Earth and destroying villages of the Sutherlands, but who is he exactly? Well, the answer is that we don’t really know yet, and since the whole Adar storyline is all-new for The Rings of Power, there’s not any Tolkien lore we can really draw on to provide a concrete answer.

Still, we can do some guesswork and deduce who Adar might be. First, let’s take a look at Amazon’s Adar casting call for his character before filming had commenced:

A villain who can also evoke a deep sense of pathos and wounded / fallen nobility. Must possess a certain degree of physicality. Should seem middle-aged, though must also project a sense of timelessness.

The “fallen nobility” aspect of Adar’s character is especially interesting; could it be that Adar is an elf? These are the noble beings of Middle Earth, after all, and Arondir has already pondered why the orcs refer to their leader as an Elvish word. A quick check of the online dictionary for Tolkien’s languages, Parf Edhellen, explains taht “Adar” is Sindarin for “father.” Could it be that Adar is some fallen elven lord who has been turned to darkness and has now rallied orcs to a quest to restore Sauron’s evil? It seems highly likely.

Could it even be that Adar is even Sauron himself? Possibly, but it seems unlikely that The Rings of Power would reveal its most anticipated evil bad guy on which the entire show revolves around, so soon. Instead, our leading theory is that Adar is some sort of henchman who’s intent on restoring the Dark Lord for his own gain or revenge.

We’ll just have to wait and see how the show unfolds. Until then, that’s everything we have about who Adar is in Rings of Power in The Rings of Power, search Twinfinite; the site has all sorts of interesting guides reviewing popular questions about the lore of Tolkien’s fantasy world, including the meaning of Mana Ure and the origins of The Stranger.