The Lord of the Rings is famous for its terrifying Ringwraiths, petrifying Hobbits on the road since 1954, and kids at the cinema since 2001, but their evolution isn’t totally clear to many. Peter Jackson’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy, with full rights to the eponymous novels by British fantasy pioneer J.R.R. Tolkien, adapted Sauron and some of his followers outstandingly. The Nazgûl of the first trilogy approximated Rankin and Bᴀss’s animated villains in many ways, speaking to the early movies’ deep influence on Jackson. However, these Third Age flicks don’t clarify the Second Age.

Lord of the Rings’ Second Age is the preserve of Amazon Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, launching in 2022. This show has full rights to the same texts as the movies but has uniquely been acquiring one-off rights to other Tolkien books as needed. Nazgûl have not yet appeared in the show, but may soon be destined to, as per the lore laid out by Tolkien in Lord of the Rings’ appendices and The Silmarillion. The show may partially explain where the Ringwraiths were in the Second Age according to the books.

The Nazgûl Came Into Existence In Lord Of The Rings’ Second Age Due To Sauron’s Rings

The Ringwraiths Formed Halfway Through The Second Age

There were no Ringwraiths until about halfway through the Second Age when Sauron had finished creating the Rings of Men. Of Lord of the Rings’ 20 Rings of Power, the Rings of Men were, by far, Sauron’s most effective weapon. They weaponized nine unsuspecting humans, turning them from average Men to leaders and then into zombies enslaved to Sauron’s will. Only two Ringwraiths were ever named throughout the legendarium and none of the nine have any backstory fully developed. Of the two named Ringwraiths, only one has a birth name – Khamûl the Easterling.

The Witch-king of Angmar has no birth name, but more lore than Khamûl. Of the rest, all that is known is that three were probably Númenóreans. It will be interesting to see how The Rings of Power season 3 treats these characters. As of the year 1697 of the Second Age, Sauron started giving out his Rings of Men. But these leaders didn’t become wraiths instantly, and Tolkien wasn’t totally clear on the timeline of the transition. However, they started appearing in S.A. 2251, so their rings could have afforded them a long life before they succumbed to the Unseen world.

J.R.R. Tolkien Doesn’t Reveal Where The Nazgûl Are During The War Of The Last Alliance

The Ringwraiths Are A Mystery During The Second Age’s Biggest War

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring movie adapted the War of the Last Alliance in its prologue, which is where The Rings of Power is due to end, finishing off its fifth and final season with the dramatic battle. Although the Ringwraiths were present and ready to destroy throughout the Third Age shown in the rest of the trilogy, they weren’t actually present in the War of the Last Alliance. If Sauron created the Ringwraiths in the Second Age, this begs the question of where they were during this major war.

One may have thought they would be fighting on Sauron’s side, especially considering his struggle. Famously, Sauron lost this war brutally, having Lord of the Rings’ One Ring cut from his finger by Isildur. This saw his body destroyed and his soul fated to slowly rebuild a body. But as per The Silmarillion, Sauron was actually besieged in Barad-dûr for seven long years before this. Perhaps the Ringwraiths were fighting other battles in this war, or perhaps they weren’t yet fully controllable and were therefore doing things less hard than fighting Elves, who could beat them far more easily than Men.

The Rings Of Power Can Finally Account For The Nazgûl’s Whereabouts In The Second Age

Amazon’s Show Isn’t Canon But Its Interpretations Of The Books Are Intriguing

Anyone looking for a word-for-word adaptation of Tolkien’s legendarium in The Rings of Power will be disappointed, but those interested in a high-budget interpretation of the text may enjoy the show’s Ringwraith offering from season 3 onwards. Sauron grabbed his Rings of Men from Galadriel in The Rings of Power season 2 finale and will presumably give them out in season 3 unless the show veers very seriously off course. The show will have to invent original material around whom these figures are, with some original characters already looking like Ringwraith candidates.

The show has already explored Lord of the Rings’ eastern land of Rhûn, situating Gandalf there with a Harfoot original character. It may use this setting to explore Khamûl the Easterling, who may be one of the show’s invented Gaudrim, a tribe loyal to the Dark Wizard. It is hard to see why else this mysterious tribe was introduced. Meanwhile, at least one of the show’s Númenórean characters is already looking like a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ringer for a wraith, with a spoiled soul even more corruptible than it is already corrupt.

Kemen, of course, may create an interesting “fanfiction” of sorts about one of the Nazgûl being awful from the start. Other Ringwraith candidates would create a more tragic piece of lore: desperate, disadvantaged Men, good at heart with obstacles piled against them, like Theo. Although nowhere near Tolkien’s story, the series can do some fun things by speculating around the origins and lives of the Ringwraiths. Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings show can now try to account for what they were doing the whole time during the War of the Last Alliance.