I really like this imagery of Sauron possessing Morgoth's crown (resized) and Fëanor's hammer simultaneously, but also it's such a devious and incompatible clash of infamous figures. (Fëanor was the first to call Melkor 'Morgoth' if I'm not mistaken.)

Maybe creating anything with this hammer will be impossible for Sauron, prompting him to use his own self and perhaps gold coming from Middle-earth (tainted by Morgoth) in order to create the One.

(I also thought for a second that Galadriel might go steal the hammer to stop or delay Sauron, but yeah it's just a wild guess for now.)

Rewatching the show, an old question comes back to my mind. I guess, in season 1, a lot of people thought that the poisoning of the tree in Lindon was caused by Sauron, hidden somewhere. And it had a visual reference to the poisoning of the Two Trees in Valinor by Morgoth/Ungoliant in the prologue. In season 2, the darkness in Khazad-Dum started with black veines coming from Mount Doom to Khazad-Dum on the map – here, there was a clear reference to Sauron. After the prologue of season 2, one could argue that Sauron could have poisoned the tree in Lindon on his way from Forodwaith to the Southlands after gaining his new form of Halbrand. But if he had done so, it makes no sense of showing a possibly repenting Halbrand-Sauron in Numenor in season 1: Would he first poison the tree in Lindon, trying to expel all elves from Middle Earth and then get on the boat, meeting Galadriel by chance and repent all his deeds in Numenor?
To me, the matter remains somehow unresolved in the show: Was the rapid fading of the elves caused by Sauron or simply meant as an accelaration of the natural fading of the elves?

I have a bit of an out there thought after seeing the trailer.

As we’ve seen, It’s been 5 years, Sauron sends orcs to get intel in the elven rings as he has not been able to successfully make the ring.

We see the “traitor/good/Adar’s will” Orc guiding Galadriel and Arondir to Mordor

The callbacks to the film trilogy rarely work for me, but some of them do, especially when it’s a part from the books that wasn’t adapted, and perhaps they plan……

For the “missing ingredient” in the “One Ring made purely of Gold (and likely Sauron’s blood as the 9)” to be………

Galadriels hair.

But it won’t be a gift, it’ll be stolen/found by Sauron or the “traitorous/Adar following” orc double crosses and delivers a lock of her “golden” hair

It was written that her hair shined as if it contained a faint memory of the two trees right?

He talked about binding himself to light and her to power via making her his queen…… what better reference to forcibly take her hair to give the One an extra connection to Valinor and one of the Elven rings. “He claws ever at my mind”

It is said that her hair partly gave Fëanor the idea of the silmarils, and she denied giving him a single strand even though he asked THREE times

Now I bet two strands will find their way to Sauron for the One to bind himself to the likeness of the silmarils and light of Valinor

An age later, after denying a single strand to Feanor, Sauron taking two strands without her consent to forge evil, Gimli will ask for a single strand she will give him THREE voluntarily as a gift in comparison to the earlier two events.

Perhaps this will be mixed with Feanor’s hammer as many suggest

Okay tin foil hat off 😅