The Rings of Power's Sauron Reveal Ruins LoTR Canon
Halbrand's reveal as Sauron in the final episode of The Rings of Power Season 1 was not really surprising.
Half the reason why the fans complained about the showrunners teasing Sauron's reveal for far too long was the fact that the overwhelming majority of Internet theory-crafters and simply fans pointed at Halbrand from early on, many did so from the first episode, before the show really started dropping hints about Halband hiding his true identity. And the majority was right this time.
But for some the reveal was unsatisfying, and not because they hoped for a twist at the last moment. The problem was in consequences for the lore – and, for those who do not care about the book lore, in consequences for the plot.
In Tolkien's writing, Sauron approached the elves of Eregion as Annatar, "The Giver of Gifts", pretending to be an emissary from the Valar, and taught them how to forge the rings of power, after which the series is named, before deceiving them, and forging the One Ring ("to rule them all"), which was intended to control the wearers of all others. There are discussions among lore buffs about whether said rings of power were originally supposed to be divided between various peoples of the Middle-Earth or not, but the important part is, the three rings later known as the "elven rings", unlike all the rest, were made without direct help from Annatar-Sauron, so they alone were relatively safe to use, at least while Sauron was parted from his master ring.
The Rings of Power deviates from canon in two ways. First, the three elven rings in the series were made based on Sauron's advice. But here the showrunners can weasel their way out of the plot tangle by pointing out that at least Sauron was not present during their making, so that they remain untouched and uncorrupted by him.
Second, and more important, there are sixteen more rings – those which later went to dwarves and men – to make, and these rings need to be touched and corrupted by Sauron, if you want to at least retain continuity with Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. But Sauron in the series had already been exposed and presumably cannot go back to Eregion now! Oh, and it is not clear how the whole One Ring trick is supposed to work now, when Sauron's game is already up.
Expecting any adherence to Tolkien's book canon from the series that is trying to compress thousands of years worth of events into just a few years was rather pointless long before Episode 8. But now the writers have written themselves into a serious corner, and we shall see if they would be able to find a good way out of it.