Why Are Sauron and Adar Enemies, & Were They Allies? What Happened Between Them?

One of the things that the season 1 finale of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power revealed was the fact that Halbrand and Sauron are actually one. Despite Halbrand being the dark lord, we also know that he was against the Orcs during the earlier part of the season as well because he was enemies with their master, Adar. So, why are Sauron and Adar enemies? What happened between them?

Sauron and Adar are enemies because the dark lord was sacrificing the lives of his children for his ambitions. Sauron was using the Orcs for his experiments on how to use the power of the Unseen World. Adar had enough of Sauron sacrificing the lives of his Orcs as he “killed” the dark lord.

The fact that the Orcs are not allied with Sauron in The Rings of Power is quite interesting, considering that we’ve always thought that they blindly followed the dark lord their entire lives. This is where the season 2 events between Sauron and Adar would become interesting, especially when it comes to how Halbrand will try to take his command over the Orcs back.

Why Are Sauron And Adar Enemies?

The biggest revelation of the season 1 finale of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was the fact that Halbrand was actually Sauron all along and had been deceiving Galadriel the entire time because he wanted her to become her ally. However, the thing is that Sauron hasn’t been the dark lord we’ve always known him to be, as he did see his human side throughout the entire season when Halbrand was talking about the bad things that he did in the past and when he showed a lot of emotions when he confronted Adar in the battle for the Southlands.

Speaking of Adar, what was also made clear was that he is now the one in command of the Orcs in Middle-Earth and was the one who transformed the Southlands into Mordor so that his Orcs could have a home that they could call their own. But in the battle for the Southlands, it was clear that Halbrand was on the side of the Númenoreans and was killing Orcs. On top of that, he was clearly angry at the master of the Uruk, as it was obvious that Sauron and Adar were enemies. So, why are Sauron and Adar enemies?

Sauron, when he was confronted by Galadriel, said the same thing that Adar told her regarding the dark lord when she confronted the Uruk in the Southlands. The goal of Sauron was to “heal” Middle-Earth by trying to master a power not of the flesh but over the flesh (the same exact things that Halbrand told Celebrimbor). In turn, he wanted to use the power of the Unseen World in his ambitious goals.

However, Adar said that Sauron was using his Orcs for his ambitions. We saw in episode 1 that Galadriel found a northern fortress that Sauron once occupied. He saw an anvil marked with the very same symbol of the Southlands. And all over that anvil, there were Orc corpses that had been clearly used for some sort of sorcery.

During the same scene where Galadriel was interrogating him, she was able to learn that Adar was one of the Moriondor or the First Orcs. That meant that all of the other Orcs were spawned from him and that he was basically the father of the Orcs that we saw in The Rings of Power. Even his name, Adar, means “father” in Elvish. As such, Adar cared for the Orcs as a true father would.

Adar explained that Sauron was using the Orcs for his experiments while he was trying to tap into the power of the Unseen World. However, Adar saw how the dark lord consistently failed in his attempts to succeed, as Sauron was missing a vital piece that would have made him successful in mastering a power not of the flesh but over the flesh.

Because of Sauron’s constant failures, Adar realized that he had lost too many of his Orc children to the dark lord’s ambitions. That was when he said that he “split Sauron open” and killed him, and that was not something that Galadriel believed that Adar could do to the powerful dark lord that she and the other Elves had been searching for the entire time.

Adar’s anger at Sauron was clear when Waldreg mistook him for the dark lord. This caused him to lash out at the old man. That meant that he truly cared enough for the Orcs that he hated Sauron for the things that he did to his children.

Sauron, of course, could not truly die because of his status as a divine spirit or an Ainur that essentially exists in spirit form. He was probably able to muster up enough strength to take the form of a fair man named Halbrand. Obviously, the Sauron that Adar knew didn’t look anything like Halbrand. When Halbrand confronted Adar, the Uruk couldn’t recognize who he was or what he did to him, but it was clear that Halbrand was angry at him for doing something to him in the past.

Obviously, Halbrand was referring to the fact that Adar betrayed him and killed his former shape. That was what weakened Halbrand to the point that he had to take the form of a fair man that was seemingly weak and powerless. As such, he now sees Adar as an enemy because the father of the Orcs betrayed him. And that is the reason why Halbrand wanted to take the Southlands back, as he was always the one meant to rule Mordor.

Were Sauron And Adar Allies?

As Galadriel mentioned, the Moriondor were Elves that were twisted and corrupted by Morgoth to turn them into the First Orcs. That means that Adar, as one of the First Orcs, was allied with the original dark lord before Morgoth was defeated at the end of the First Age. By extension, he was also allied with Sauron, who was Morgoth’s most trusted lieutenant and second-in-command.

In that regard, there is no doubt that Sauron and Adar were once allies. Adar could’ve actually been one of Sauron’s underlings, as he was the designated successor to Morgoth. As such, Adar was not only one of Sauron’s allies but was probably one of the captains that he trusted to command the Orcs, considering the fact that the Orcs were loyal to their Uruk father.

But while they were allies, it was clear that Adar was more loyal to his children than he was to his master. That was what caused him to betray Sauron and destroy his former shell and force the dark lord to take on a new shape. Nevertheless, Adar still served Sauron without even knowing that he did so, as he was the one who led the Orcs to the Southlands and turned the land into Mordor, which is the realm that Sauron was supposed to create after the fall of Morgoth.

Considering that Halbrand told Galadriel at the end of episode 7 that he wanted to take the Southlands back, it is clear that his next goal is to take Mordor back from Adar, as he was always supposed to be the rightful ruler of these lands. And, of course, he would need the fires of Mount Doom to forge the very essence of the entire storyline of The Lord of the Rings—the One Ring to Rule Them All.