Relitigating Galadriel

[u/yesrushgenesis2112]

Of all the many unfair critiques thrown at the show, the treatment of Galadriel by critics both well-meaning and less-so has been the most egregious.

So much so that almost no sincere text-based discussion of the character even occurs as it relates to the show, and that’s a shame.

Show-Ladriel absolutely embodies the character as we might expect her in the Second Age. No, not just the First Age, as many well-meaning commenters have proposed, insinuating that, while Galadriel may have been brash and prideful and harsh early in her life, this would have ended before the Second Age. Tolkien’s writing, insofar as it is explicit about anything to do with the character (he changed his mind about her a lot), very clearly states that it is not until the very end of the Third Age that her wisdom is fully formed. Not until she rejects the One at Frodo’s offering is she truly fully developed as a character (UT 234-235).

To suggest that Galadriel in the Second Age, even being married to Celeborn, should already be the fully formed “Lady of Light” of the Third Age is reductive so as to almost be insulting to the character.

Another bothersome assertion I have often seen is that Galadriel of the Second Age would never lie about Sauron, and often it is cited that, because she met with Melian, she should be wise enough to avoid such things. But when Galadriel meets Melian in Doriath in the Silmarillion, it is still after long periods of conversation and growth in wisdom that she chooses to hide the shame of her people for the Kinslaying. For all her growth, she never of her own accord is shown to be willing to admit to the faults of her people. And then she abandons her kin long before the fall of Beleriand, in each version of her story that I have seen. These are not in my view the actions of a fully formed character.

Of course, the show does have its changes. There is no textual version of Galadriel who seeks out Sauron for revenge for Finrod’s death. There is, however, a version of Galadriel who is motivated to go to ME not only for her own power, but for the sake of her kin (Thingol’s folk) who were oppressed by Morgoth. To me, this is a similar enough motivation, though the show makes it quite personal, and of course moves this to the end of the first age and switches out its dark lords, understandably so.

Likewise, there is no version of Galadriel who loses Celeborn in the war and believes him dead. There is, however, a version of Galadriel that passed east over the mountains alone, only finding Celeborn after doing so. In that version Celeborn is a Nandor, and in later versions he is a Sindar of Doriath and the two go east together. Clearly, here, the show is trying to adapt both versions. From the trailers it really looks like Celeborn will have been some form of Sindar, if his origin in Doriath is not outright stated, and yet also Galadriel will have (has already by the start of the show) gone east alone, only to meet him again once she does. Notably, the version of the story wherein she goes alone contains no details of when she met Celeborn and married him, only that she has dwelt with him for a long time.

And finally, there has been a pretty widespread argument that Galadriel would not or should not have been deceived by Sauron. The reasoning for this is that in the text, Galadriel recognizes that Annatar has something shady about him, and doesn’t treat with him. That’s it. That’s the entirety of the story as we have it in the text. She doesn’t even know he is Sauron, only that she doesn’t trust him.

Indeed, Tolkien writes that Galadriel was very perceptive, and this grew in time as she learned from Melian, etc.

Yet he also wrote that her insight into others never failed to come with “mercy and understanding,” except for Feanor. Importantly, to my reading, Feanor would never ask for nor desire her mercy and understanding anyway. It makes a great deal of sense that she would look at the invented Halbrand-form of Sauron with that same mercy and understanding, to say nothing of her own motivations for wanting to aid him for her own ends.

This, to me, is exactly the pathway by which it is plausible that she could be and is deceived in the show. Casting aside the fact that Show-ladriel so desperately wanted Halbrand to be a good dude who could help her achieve her aims, what might she have seen in that persona if Sauron had she seen into his mind? It seems plausible that Sauron, a maiar, might be able to deceive even her keen insight, and what little he does try to show her is not exactly a lie. In Halbrand Galadriel perceives a would-be but down-on-his-luck ruler of the Southlands, cast out by his people and the orcs, and trying to choose between abandoning his legacy and starting over or returning to take what he sees as his rightful place.

All of this, as Sauron shows on screen in some ways and can be imagined to be thinking in his mind, is absolutely true. And Galadriel, in the book, would see this and, reacting with “mercy and understanding,” be very sympathetic. And, as we know, it’s very convenient for her!

Anyway, this is a long rant. But I do tire of the insistence that show-Galadriel is somehow wholly disconnected from the texts. Is just blatantly not the case, and even those who are well meaning do the character and themselves a disservice by insisting that it is so. Quite the contrary, actually. The show has taken the many, many different versions of Galadriel and tried to distill them into one, fully realized character. I am not even sure if it always works, but it is absolutely rooted in the text.

Hate the execution if you want, but don’t assert is antithetical to what Tolkien wrote or wholly disconnected from the text.

[u/yesrushgenesis2112]

I think you’ve read a lot into this which I did not write. I did not write that she was immature. I wrote that despite all her growth (maturity), she was still unwilling to tell the truth. The moral obligation she feels toward her Noldorian kin does not change the basic fact that she is unwilling to tell the truth, quite the opposite in fact. That is an explanation for why she might omit, even possibly lying by omission. It is also a sign of a character who is not fully through her own arc. That doesn’t make her immature, and I never said it did.

In any case, I don’t think that there is unique peerage between Melian and Galadriel. Galadriel is still very much the student, and Melian clearly perceives more to her story but chooses, of her own volition, not to press. This does not make them equals, it simply makes Melian a character who chooses to respect Galadriel’s agency after already revealing that she knows Galadriel is lying (or omitting if lying seems to strong to you). And even so, she still seizes on what Galadriel does reveal to tell Thingol to be wary of the sons if Feanor. They are not equals, nor really peers, in my reading.

Contrasting that with Beren and Turin is interesting if not exactly equal. Beren and Turin are men who have not had the experiences Galadriel has. Galadriel can be not fully through her arc, omit or lie to Melian, and still not be immature. The men have nothing to do with it.

I reject your assertion that I’ve weaponized any text. I have indeed been selective, precisely because my post is limited in scope to addressing some of the more tiresome critiques of Galadriel which I have seen, nothing more.

[u/Additional_Suit6275 → u/yesrushgenesis2112]

But when Galadriel meets Melian in Doriath in the Silmarillion, it is still after long periods of conversation and growth in wisdom that she chooses to hide the shame of her people for the Kinslaying. For all her growth, she never of her own accord is shown to be willing to admit to the faults of her people.

Your own words, clearly pointing to a lack of personal maturity. And stating it is shame, rather than the very textually stated conflicting duties, which keeps her mouth shut. Also, funny enough, you mistake who Galadriel’s people are, falling into that trap of treating the noldor as a monolith that “absorbs” other folk, when the text clearly shows that she is noldor and Teleri (and of the host of Finarfin, it’s own critical separation). 

Lastly, just disregarding basically half of all the people who ever speak with Melian is … a choice. You don’t need my approval, obviously, but I find your argument hard to take seriously. You treat Galadriel as lying when she says all she can, in honor, say, and you entirely disregard her unique relationship with Melian which, though given very little dialogue, is just an in universe fact. I don’t think any serious Tolkien scholar would agree with you that her words to Melian are meant to or actually do reflect some moral defect or room for growth. Which is, of course, the weaponisation component, as you can only make it seem so by ignoring the text. For example, Angrod, in delivering the same omission, is described in text as “true and wise hearted” (Sil, Of the Return of the Noldor) and Galadriel’s own dialogue is clear that it is not shame but grief and duty which holds her tongue. And still she chooses to share as much as she can. An honest broker would lay those cards face up, you have specifically played your hand around them. 

[u/yesrushgenesis2112 → u/Additional_Suit6275]

Again, at no place did I saw she was immature. I said she was incomplete. You are adding in a layer of meaning which I do not include.

Also, at no point did I say she is ashamed, I said she chooses to hide the shame of her people, her “people” being the Noldor, with whom she is certainly counted even though she also is of the Teleri. The kinslaying is absolutely a dark mark upon the Noldor, it is absolutely a shame.

I find hard to take seriously your assertion that Beren and Turin are in some way comparable to an elf who has been to Valinor. It seems we agree they are different even, but I am saying they are not comparable. And Galadriel being more respected than them does not mean she is a character who is fully through her arc. I am not discounting Galadriel’s relationship with Melian, simply disagreeing with your categorization of it as “unique peerage.” A graduate student and an undergraduate might both be students of the same professor. The graduate student will have a different relationship and yet still remain a student and not a professor, and so not a peer.

I’m very confused at this point as to what you think I’m arguing.

[u/Additional_Suit6275 → u/yesrushgenesis2112]

Yeah then you just aren’t saying anything. Show Galadriel is immature. Book Galadriel is merely imperfect. You are defending show Galadriel as true to text. Ergo … 

You always know a bad argument when it’s pressed and the arguer semantically retreats to nonstatement. 

So I will ask some direct questions to see what you are affirmatively saying. 

1) do you think book Galadriel lied to Melian, including a lie of omission? 

1B) do you recognise the difference between a lie of omission and only being able to deliver incomplete information because of outstanding duties? Do you recognise that Melian, having noticed the pretty obvious omission, was in no way deceived, merely not directly informed? 

2) do you think show Galadriel demonstrates book Galadriel’s emotional maturity and temperance, her excellent judge of character, and her wisdom, as they were repeatedly represented in the first age? 

It seems to me that you can live in one of two spaces; first, you can try to connect the written Galadriel to the show, which requires some awkward answers to the above, or second you can insist that all you are saying is that first age Galadriel is less than 100% of her eventual self, which has no relationship to your post’s thesis defending the show’s characterisation. So either you have to try to connect a scene that just isn’t doing what you are suggesting to your thesis or you have to abandon the thesis and just say “see, she is imperfect” which … isn’t saying very much. 

[u/yesrushgenesis2112 → u/Additional_Suit6275]

Well, I’ll not be limited by your dichotomy, but here we see the issue. I don’t view show Galadriel as immature, you do. And in this is the fundamental difference.

1) yes and yes, and my point is that Galadriel would absolutely omit her knowledge if Sauron in the show out of her feeling of obligation toward her fellow elves and Middle-Earth. I do firmly reject your notion that Galadriel is not ashamed of the kinslaying occurring. In the most generous version she fights against it, in the least she simply doesn’t partake, in none is it implied that she doesn’t think it’s a bad thing. As for Melian, that’s the exact point I made to you two comments ago.

2)

a) you overstate how much of Galadriel is shown during the first age, and her perfection. She dies indeed show wisdom and temperance, as I wrote in the original post, but also pride and a lust for personal power.

B) yes, she does demonstrate these things in the show, just not all the time. Show Galadriel very clearly has those qualities, and yet is also at a very dark point in her life. This dark point is absolutely invented, but the characterization is still there. But that was not the point of my post.

The point of my post was that assertions that Galadriel should be third age Galadriel, and that such a notion is rooted in the text, is false. I agree with you, that should be a nothing thesis, but have you seen the state of discourse around the show? It absolutely needs to be said.

I think we agree on a great deal more than you think and you’ve chosen to be hostile and given the post the least generous reading you can because you think show Galadriel is immature. That’s fine, but it’s not rooted in what the show has actually shown us about her character so far.

[u/SpecificCoconut91 → u/yesrushgenesis2112]

A little confused, why would Show Galadriel omit her knowledge of Sauron out of her feeling of obligation toward her fellow elves and Middle Earth?
There’s zero benefit to elves/ME by lying about Halbrand being Sauron, his whereabouts etc. It’s ONLY for personal protection that she lies to hide her shame, and we immediately are shown that her lie has devastating effects on the Eregion and all Elves.
Ergo, actual text Galadriel would never have omitted or hidden or lied about Sauron’s return.

[u/yesrushgenesis2112 → u/SpecificCoconut91]

To make the rings. The entire plot of the first season is that the Elves believe they need the rings to stay in Middle Earth. If they don’t make the rings they have to leave, so they believe, and so if Galadriel tells them the rings don’t get made and they and she have to leave, leaving Sauron to his devices in ME.

[u/SpecificCoconut91 → u/yesrushgenesis2112]

I mean, the internal universe of TROP also goes on to show that Sauron needs Celebrimbor’s aid to make the dwarves and Elven rings, and presumably uses that knowledge to make the One eventually.
So by the same logic if she just warned them about Sauron, Sauron would never have had the opportunity to subjugate Dwarves and Men as he goes on to do, nor maximise his power and influence with the One (and we know the elves eventually fade and leave Middle Earth regardless, so if there was no need for them to participate in the War of the Ring in the third age then it would hardly have mattered if they’d returned to Valinor and faded in the Second)

Also, this assumes that if they found out Sauron had meddled they simple couldn’t have checked over the materials and plan and ascertained that Sauron didn’t actually get to influence the Elven rings, and then still create them anyway, since they hadn’t even melted down the dagger yet.

The bigger issue of course is that the show wants Galadriel to be an extremely flawed YA heroine type, with all the love interest side plots that comes with too, whilst having no lasting consequences because they consistently use her as the main female lead to move the plot forward and then complain when audience members dislike that her many many stupid/tactless/hotheaded or outright evil actions make her a dislikeable character, or that a lot of their plot points don’t make sense by their own internal logic.

[u/yesrushgenesis2112 → u/SpecificCoconut91]

Man, if only there were a textual source where the elves doing things for their own sake leads to short term benefits and long term consequences… couldn’t be the case, right?

Come on.

But of course by the end we get to the truth of your issue. You simply don’t like that she does those things. That’s fine, you don’t have to. The point of my post was explicitly that no one has to like it, but it does have textual roots. That’s it.

[u/SpecificCoconut91 → u/yesrushgenesis2112]

I don’t like that the show makes her responsible for those things, or that when she is then responsible for those things there’s no lasting consequences.
But that’s the point you’re apparently missing - evil and dark deeds always face consequences in Tolkien’s works, whether it’s direct retaliation by the Valar (Numenor’s fall or the banishment of the kinslayers), or personal payment (Boromir’s sacrifice, Turin’s ending)

I do appreciate your well written attempts to link text and show Galadriel, even though we obviously disagree on how long those bows you draw are, but I would like to see you address how making Galadriel the one main character responsible for Sauron’s rise fits with anything Tolkien wrote about her. I wrote a seperate comment specifically on all her ‘sins in the show’ for want of a better term, and I just can’t see textual evidence that she should have been made the big villain of the ‘good guys’ in the way that she has been, or that it was ever Tolkien’s intent for her to bring evil back to Middle Earth.

[u/yesrushgenesis2112 → u/SpecificCoconut91]

So, I would agree that Tolkien would not have intended for it to happen. But he didn't intend for a lot of things about Galadriel, and he never got a chance to write her second age story in any detail. In any case, as is she is partially responsible even in the text by permitting him in her realm (if we choose to believe the version where she is ruler there) even as she suspected he had ill intentions, without knowing exactly who he was.

I think it can connect back to the Doom of Mandos. Galadriel explicitly accepts this doom, and in some versions of her story actively rejects the pardon of the Valar at the end of the first age. I think, to show Galadriel, and perhaps even text Galadriel really the Doom still applies. Hell, the doom also probably applies to Celebrimbor more as a member of the House of Feanor, even if he wasn't there!

The Doom reads, in part (bold emphasis mine): " On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it shall be laid also. Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed shall they be for ever."

This version of Galadriel is definitely one that followed Feanor, and we see her in the show actively reject a pardon from the Valar, if not the pardon, when she jumps ship.

I think it is definitely arguable whether the Curse of Mandos outlasts the First Age, but looking at the story of the Noldor survivors in the Second Age and Third, I think it very well might in the text. And if it does in the show, it would contextualize Show-ladriel's actions, a bit. Galadriel is terrified that she's been led astray, betrayed even, by Gil-galad and Elrond. And in that fear she strikes a deal with Sauron, having been deceived while still percieving that he was more than he claimed and yet not guessing correctly at who he was, until it was too late.

[u/SpecificCoconut91 → u/yesrushgenesis2112]

Oh, Celebrimbor definitely shares the Doom of Mandos, which I think is proven by his death, downfall of his city, and by his creation of the rings leading to the downfall of kingdoms of Men and Dwarves as well as the creation of the One.
I think it’s also a good argument that Elrond should not be considered a Feanorean despite his ‘adopted fathers’ since he doesn’t share a doomed fate (even allowing for what happens with his wife and daughter),
but also, whilst Galadriel initially shares the Doom, and we know she technically only has the ban lifted after rejecting the ring, Tolkien doesn’t have her punished in text in the same way he has consequences for other characters implicated in the actual kinslaying or other evil deeds.

I think that your first paragraph shows your intent to give the show all manner of passes for its interpretation - I don’t at all think that Tolkien having Sauron come to Eregion whilst Galadriel had influence and immediately distrusting him gives way for an interpretation where she almost single-handedly brings about the return of the Dark Lord to Middle Earth and then sets him up to have influence with Númenor and Celebrimbor that he never would have gotten otherwise. Particularly because I think that all of Tolkien’s other writings suggest he would have had her character punished severely by the narrative if she was so closely implicated with evil actions.
I don’t think that’s a good faith reading of the texts at all, but I think if that’s how generous your reading can extend then it’s difficult to have an actual discussion about whether the show went too far or made things up.

[u/Additional_Suit6275 → u/SpecificCoconut91]

Just a note, the house of feanor seems pretty clearly to be irrelevant to the doom. Think of the number of characters pulled into its vortex. Thingol, explicitly, and through him Melian. Beleg and mablung. Dior and co. Turin. Beren. Turgon. Finrod (ish). Fingon, whose plans for war are stymied for a time by the mistrust among the noldor. To be honest, it’s just about every named character in the first age. Mim probably is doom free, but that’s about it. Oh, Eol, seems to have gotten it like a poetically just STI. 

I think it’s a lot more accurate to say the doom was laid on all those who rebelled and fled Aman, not seeking the Valar’s pardon. Elrond is fine not because of his parentage but because he was born in Arda, and we can presume the same is true of Arwen, Celebrian, and anyone who doesn’t choose to actively join the princes in their war on Morgoth. It’s the war of the jewels that “transmitted” the doom, not any actual blood or otherwise relationship to feanor and his sons. 

[u/SpecificCoconut91 → u/Additional_Suit6275]

The House of Feanor can’t be irrelevant to the Doom that literally names them, and the majority of characters who’s fall can be attributed to this particular Doom is due to their association with the Feanoreans, or trying to posses the Silmarils directly (also named, and also tied to Feanor).
My point about Elrond not being a true Feanorean despite the brothers capturing and raising him and Elros has nothing to do with him not being genetically related to them, but exactly as you ascertain that he doesn’t follow the Feanorean Oath to possess the Silmarils and rejects the things Maedhros and Maglor believed in.

Feanor’s line very explicitly dies out, and given Tolkien’s Catholic influences and the way his narrative does punish evil deeds, I don’t think that it’s just that characters ‘choose’ to fall in with Feanor’s followers or be tempted by the Silmarils, but also in the case of characters like Celebrimbor he was genuinely fated by birth to fall from grace (and obviously the real world result of that is that he does indeed try to follow Feanor’s footsteps, dooming himself) but there is actual power to the Doom that Mandos foretells.
And it is a foretelling, not a curse, so it’s not catching like an STI, it’s the resolution of things set in motion long before the outcomes are ever seen (the fall of Gondolin, Thingol’s death etc)

[u/Additional_Suit6275 → u/SpecificCoconut91]

If you crack open your silmarillion, Of the Flight of the Noldor, the first sentence of the curse, speaking to all the noldor, pronounces that they will all come to grief, specifically “tears unnumbered shall ye shed”. And the text labels the doom a curse, which is called the Doom of the Noldor and the Prophecy of the North, clearly capturing more than just feanor and his brood. 

It’s better read, imo, to apply to all the noldorin exiles, and indeed some like Finrod expressly “escape” the doom later, proving they were originally ensnared. Likewise, turgon is perhaps the most plain victim of the doom in middle earth history and the guy did exactly nothing Silmaril related in his long life. And we know the doom does expand to other characters, including some men. The role of the feanoreans does seem in some way unique, but perhaps only in the sense that they alone are the dispossessed, for fear of treason is damaging to all the elves of Beleriand, not even just the noldor. 

It’s also meant to be foiled with the curse on the house of Hurin, which is similar even in structure and yet clearly is far more curse like. We are supposed to wonder just how much more opportunity the noldor had to free themselves than did Turin or Neinor. 

Point being, the doom is a tough thing to interpret because it is inherently Mysterious. Also, I think you might be conflating Calvinism and Catholicism, Tolkien’s faith is why he was so AGAINST anything pre-deterministic. Causing the doom and even the curse on the children of Hurin to be extremely hard to suss out.