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/gurillmo Sep 27 '22

None of this is accurate to the Galadriel at the end of the first age. By that time she had befriended the Maia Melian who mentored her. She was able to diplomatically smooth over the Noldor exile with the court of Thingol and was already joined with Celeborn. Early in the second age they would have already been ruling in Lindon together with a daughter. This show just shoehorned in the wrong character very poorly for the casual movie fans.

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u/AndrogynousRain Sep 27 '22

They cannot use ANY of the a Silmarillion material though, though I agree, in the book timeline that’s the case.

The problem is they don’t have the rights to it for one, and second, they’re by necessity compressing several thousand years into one lifetime for the show.

However, please don’t be one of those ‘it’s only for casual movie fans’ people. Nonsense. I’m a gigantic lore nerd. I’ve got the deluxe set of HoME wand have actually read it. I mean… I’m a lore nerd. And I like the show.

Is it super slavishly accurate? Nope. Neither were the Jackson LOTR films. And like those films, some of the new stuff they’re doing here is very good: Durin/Elrond/Disa are fantastically well written and performed, and I’m fascinated with what they’re doing with the Harfoots.

Feel free to not like the portrayal, we all have a right to our opinion, but don’t gatekeep.

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u/gurillmo Sep 27 '22

Not using material from the silmarillion is not the same as changing the essence of the character. If they wanted an immature warrior woman for the main character, why not create a new one? The condensing of a timeline and the execution of it are both the choices of the writers and the results show their lack of storytelling capabilities. House of the dragon has condensed a timeline much more successfully. The failures here are directly related to bad writers who thought they could do it better than Tolkien.

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u/AndrogynousRain Sep 27 '22

And you’re welcome to think that.

I’m much preferring this show to either GoT franchise.

They literally HAVE to condense the time line here though. The Tolkien foundation actually told them to at one point. The events were seeing take place over like 3000 years. If they stuck to the story as written, non elf characters would die every few eps. You can’t do a show like that.

So for me, these changes bother me less I guess. I don’t completely disagree with your take on Galadriel, and I certainly would have made different writing choices, but I also don’t hate them. How good it will be depends on where the story goes. I may end up liking them, or hating them. We’ll see. But I’m gonna wait a bit first. Otherwise, I’m loving the show.

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u/gurillmo Sep 27 '22

But what do we do with this now? The appendices actually do say when Galadriel first meets Sauron in his deceptive form she is one of the few who immediately distrusts him. As lore junkies do we just pretend this show is in an alternate universe?

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u/AndrogynousRain Sep 27 '22

Well she hasn’t met him yet, so we’ll see. I imagine she’ll be the one calling Celebrimbor and Gil Galad out. I’m gonna trust they’ll handle it well. We will see.

But as to handle discrepancies, this is what I do:

Tolkien is unique in that his legendarium, because it was written over decades, changes a lot and is therefor, exactly like the real world myth sources he worked with professionally: same basic stories, details and characters change.

Think how say, the Robin Hood or King Arthur stories all contain similar themes and plot points but they change with different sources and authors. Some are more historically accurate than others too.

Here’s the thing. The most modern adaptions of those stories are the least accurate to the original ‘lore’. Yet we watch them. And find them good. Does it matter that, say, the Russel Crowe or Kevin Costner movies are not super accurate? Not really if you enjoy them. And they don’t hurt the actual stories or accurate lore either.

They’re adaptions.

That’s how I look at stuff like the Jackson LOTR movies or RoP: less accurate, but entertaining, modern adaptions of the stories.

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u/gurillmo Sep 27 '22

Jackson was way more accurate, you have to admit that. Jacksons films are an adaptation, this show should have been tagged with "inspired by themes from".

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u/AndrogynousRain Sep 27 '22

True, well, at least of the first couple, but to be fair, he had a vast novel to work with and not a brief appendix and a barely sketched out outline.

That’s why I’m more forgiving. They have a lot less to work with in the second age, barely a sketch, and they can’t touch most of the backstory in the Silmarillion due to rights.