When it comes to expansive worlds soaked in deep lore, none are perhaps greater than J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings novels and the secret that you may have missed that is the subject of today’s story, would have been a purrfect villain for the lands of Mordor.

The big bad evil of The Lord of the Rings is none other than Sauron whose burning desire is to rule Middle-earth at any cost with legions of disciples willing to do his bidding without question. Yet, for Sauron to rule us all, he must first harness the power of the One Ring that rules them all.

Honestly, if you’re not familiar with The Lord of the Rings and you thought that Darth Vader of Star Wars was bad, Sauron took his evil intentions to a whole new level. However, before there was Sauron, there was another big bad evil of Middle-earth and it was a cat (I kid you not).

I’ve read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit novels as well as having watched all the movies but I never knew about the “beta” villain that existed before Sauron and its name is Tevildo aka “The Prince of Cats” as explained by a Reddit user. This black cat is described as having blood-red eyes, and a mystical golden collar and is possessed by an evil spirit.

By the sounds of things, Tevildo was certainly no cute and cuddly feline like the lovable ginger cat from the video game developed by BlueTwelve Studio, Stray. Tevildo was created as a beta version of Sauron but was apparently deleted in the novel The Silmarillion, a collection of myths of stories created by J.R.R Tolkien.

In the second narrative of The Silmarillion, another Reddit user explains that Tevildo was later replaced by Thu the Wizard before later evolving into Sauron. This is why there is no mention of Tevildo in the Peter Jackon movies (as far as I am aware) but perhaps we’ll learn more of its lore in the upcoming second season of Amazon Studios’ The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.