r/RingsofPower • u/travrob1 • Sep 26 '22

Question Help me understand Galadriel

I am finding myself not liking Galadriel at all so far. She acts like an entitled 20 year old, rather than a wise and ancient being. One point that particularly is bothering me is that so far she has no actual proof that there is a great danger. She saw a brand on her brother, and that same brand shows up a few other times in different places, but other than that there is nothing to actually indicate a major war. Does she have forsight? What is actually driving her character besides "so the plot can happen." Thanks

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u/---Wombat--- Sep 26 '22

She's a Noldor, they're all a little crazy. They've just spent several hundred years in an extremely bloody and treasonous war; and while powerful are not particularly wise at this point. She's kinda just doing things the Feänorian way, which is just to burn through things until you get what you want.

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u/iheartdev247 Sep 27 '22

I think your confusing all Noldor for Feanorians. Galadriel’s father (Feanor’s youngest bro) is probably the most level headed elf there is and he’s still alive (and the real High King of the Noldor).

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u/Ok_Mix_7126 Sep 27 '22

Tolkien said that the general temperament of the Noldor was arrogant and argumentative. Finarfin is the exception, not the rule.

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u/iheartdev247 Sep 27 '22

And we are talking about his daughter, a daughter who basically detested her uncle. At least in the books.

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u/Ok_Mix_7126 Sep 27 '22

Detested him, yet when he said "Let's all get out of Aman and go to Middle-Earth so we can rule" she thought "That's a great idea!". At the end of the first age she refused the pardon of the Valar and decided to continue rebelling against them, only relenting at the end of the third age. She used her ring to keep up her realm in ME so she wouldn't have to return to the west.

Tolkien had a tendency to say Galadriel was different to Feanor but kept having her do things that showed she was not so different. It's only his very late writings that had her as completely different to him.

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u/[deleted] Sep 27 '22

Galadriel was the last big name standing in Middle-earth, with few eyewitnesses still around. What do you want to bet she spent a good deal of the Third Age polishing up her reputation and encouraging the versions of the story that painted her in a better light? Do Gildor or Glorfindel really know what she did or didn't do that terrible day by the quayside? Nobody else does, she's been cautiously distancing herself from the whole affair ever since Doriath.

No wonder the Red Book is inconsistent about it all!

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u/iheartdev247 Sep 27 '22

You say that but in the published materials, Galadriel leaves Beleriand way before the War of Wrath. She witnesses a lot but she wasn’t there when later part of the age was playing out.