The abandoned redemption arc

This was posted a while ago but I’ve only now seen it, so I’m addressing it now. I have seen someone complain that the first episode of Rings of Power season 2 set up a mini redemption for Sauron and abruptly ended it 3 seconds later. This is a take I absolutely disagree with. My initial thought was that it was hardly abrupt, but it didn’t take much thinking about why it didn’t feel abrupt for me to realize that this take is wrong because that flashback was never a redemption arc in the first place.

In “Elven Kings Under the Sky”, the flashback we see as to how Halbrand/Sauron ended up on the raft was an explanation of how he got to that point in his story. He was betrayed and killed by the orcs, left trying to take form again for a thousand years, seemingly sought out death, and decided to run from his problems. When he joined the men that were escaping from the Southlands, he decided to turn his back to his past. The man he met encouraged him to turn toward life and turn toward goodness. Halbrand asked about the possibility of him turning evil again and our man continues with the advice.

Important thing to address is that after all the time he spent with Morgoth, Halbrand has a messed up sense of right and wrong and can straight-up fool himself to make himself believe that his objectively horrible actions are actually someone else’s fault. That is not the type of person that easily gets redeemed. Whether or not he listened to that man from the Southlands about choosing good every day until it became part of his nature, we cannot tell what “good” would have meant for him, as we have seen him consider objectively bad things good.

If we look at his character further, he doesn’t seem to want redemption at this point. He doesn’t want to be evil, but he is hardly out there to seek redemption. At this point in his life, he really is just running, trying to get away from Middle-Earth, as evidenced by how badly he wanted to stay in Númenor. And he didn’t show any desire to redeem himself until Galadriel convinced him to fight for the Southlands.

So, in short, at the point in Halbrand’s story where he’s on the boat and leaves that man there instead of helping him, it is not the show abruptly abandoning a redemption arc, because it was never a redemption arc to begin with. The ship got attacked and Halbrand, true to who he is, opted to save himself, knowing that the rest would likely die. It was a mere step in his story toward getting to where we met him.