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The real star of The Lord of the Rings: the Rings of Power isn't Sauron or the One Ring - it's Mount Doom

Charlie Vickers's Sauron finally enters his lava-decorated workshop in this season of Prime Video's Lord of the Rings prequel, and The Rings of Power producers made sure the setting was exactly as intimidating as it needed to be

News by Grant DeArmitt, Staff Writer

Published on Wed Aug 05 2026

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The closer we get to the debut of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 3, the more we learn about the gargantuan scale it will be working with. We’ve heard about the crew actually filming in the valley that inspired Rivendell, but it’s possible that even that titanic achievements will feel small when compared to what promises to be the biggest moment of the season - the forging of the One Ring in Mount Doom, the filming of which required Tolkien’s most infamous geological feature to take on a life of its own.

Somewhat literally, apparently.

Details of the sequence were recently revealed by way of Empire Magazine, which published a Rings of Power season 3 cover story in its latest issue. Speaking to showrunner Patrick McKay, Empire learned that this season’s scenes in Mount Doom were "the single most ambitious, technically challenging sequence we’ve ever done on the show."

The reason for that claim seems to be two-fold, and the first part deals just with what it took to film the scenes. Just as Sauron forged the One RIng in the Fires of Mount Doom, Prime Video apparently forged its own Mount Doom, which McKay called “massive in scope.” Even more wild is the fact that a full two full weeks of production went into just these scenes, a staggering percentage of the season’s 7-month filming schedule.

But the second apparent reason for McKay’s claim is where things get very interesting - that is, that Rings of Power season 3 will be breathing life into Mount Doom in a way we’re not totally sure is metaphorical. Charlie Vickers, who has played Sauron ever since season 1 (well, except that time he was Jack Lowden, or that other time he was goo), said that season 3 will be about Sauron "communing with the mountain," in order to forge the Ring, a quote that got even more interesting when McKay referred to Mount Doom as feeling “like it's a living, breathing, gargantuan beast with a heart of lavas.”

We obviously know that Mount Doom won’t be a character in Rings of Power in the traditional sense, but at the same time, inanimate objects in J.R.R. Tolkien’s canon have been known to have certain personality characteristics before - the best example of course being the One Ring itself. So just how much agency will that fantasy volcano have in this upcoming chapter, and will it clash at all with show’s Dark Lord? If so, who really is the more powerful among them?

We’ll find out when The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 3 streams on Prime Video November 11.

Whether you're Shirefolk, Elven, Dwarven, or something else, there's a good reason to love Lord of the Rings. We do! With that in mind, we have a dragon's horde of goodies for you:

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Grant DeArmitt: Grant DeArmitt (he/him) likes horror, comics, and the unholy union of the two. In the past, and despite their better judgment, he has written for Nightmare on Film Street and Newsarama. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, Kingsley, and corgi, Legs.