Galadriel From The Lord Of The Rings
Brie Hoffler
She was a royal Elf of both the Noldor and the Teleri, being a grandchild of both King Finw and King Olw. She was also close kin of King Ingw of the Vanyar through her grandmother Indis.Galadriel was a leader during the rebellion of the Noldor, and present in their flight from Valinor during the First Age. Towards the end of her stay in Middle-earth, she was joint ruler of Lothlrien with her husband, Celeborn, when she was known as the Lady of Lrien, the Lady of the Galadhrim, the Lady of Light, or the Lady of the Golden Wood. Her daughter Celebran was the wife of Elrond and mother of Arwen, Elladan, and Elrohir.Tolkien describes Galadriel as "the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth" (after the death of Gil-galad)[T 1] and the "greatest of elven women".[T 2]
The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey has written that Galadriel represented Tolkien's attempt to re-create the kind of elf hinted at by surviving references in Old English. He has compared his elves also to those in a Christian Middle English source, The Early South English Legendary, where the elves were angels. Sarah Downey likens Galadriel to a celestial lady of medieval allegory, a guide-figure such as Dante's Beatrice and the pearl-maiden in the 14th-century English poem Pearl. Another scholar, Marjorie Burns, compares Galadriel in multiple details to Rider Haggard's heroine Ayesha, and to Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott, both being reworked figures of Arthurian legend. Galadriel, lady of light, assisting Frodo on his quest to destroy the One Ring, opposed to Shelob, the giant and evil female spider of darkness, have been compared to Homer's opposed female characters in the Odyssey: Circe and Calypso as Odysseus's powerful and wise benefactors on his quest, against the perils of the attractive Sirens, and the deadly Scylla and Charybdis.
Modern songwriters have created songs about Galadriel; Tolkien's Quenya poem "Namri" has been set to music by Donald Swann. Galadriel has appeared in both animated and live-action films and television. Cate Blanchett played her in Peter Jackson's film series, while Morfydd Clark played her in an earlier age in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Stories of Galadriel's life prior to the War of the Ring appear in both The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.[T 3][T 1] She was the only daughter and youngest child of Finarfin, prince of the Noldor, and of Erwen, daughter of Olw and cousin to Lthien. Her elder brothers were Finrod Felagund, Angrod, and Aegnor. She was born in Valinor. She had the ability to peer into the minds of others to judge them fairly. She was a member of the royal House of Finw. Galadriel was often called the fairest of all Elves, whether in Aman or Middle-earth.[T 3]
According to the older account of her story, sketched by Tolkien in The Road Goes Ever On and used in The Silmarillion, Galadriel was an eager participant and leader in the rebellion of the Noldor and their flight from Valinor; she was the "only female to stand tall in those days".[T 4][T 5] She had, however, long since parted ways with Fanor and his sons. In Beleriand she lived with her brother Finrod Felagund at Nargothrond and the court of Thingol and Melian in Doriath. In this account, she met Celeborn, a kinsman of Thingol, in Doriath.[T 6] She carried some dark secrets from those times; she told Melian part of the violent story of the Silmarils and Morgoth's killing of Finw, but did not mention the kinslaying of elves by elves.[T 7]
Galadriel and Celeborn travelled first to Lindon, where they ruled over a group of Elves, and were themselves ruled by Gil-galad. According to Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn, they then removed to the shores of Lake Nenuial (Evendim) and were accounted the Lord and Lady of all the Elves of Eriador. Later, they moved eastward and established the realm of Eregion (Hollin). They made contact with a Nandorin settlement in the valley of the River Anduin, which became Lothlrien. At some point, Celeborn and Galadriel left Eregion and settled in Lothlrien. According to some of Tolkien's accounts, they became rulers of Lothlrien for a time during the Second Age; but in all accounts they returned to Lrien to take up its rule after Amroth was lost in the middle of the Third Age.[T 3]
During the Second Age, when the Rings of Power were forged, Galadriel distrusted Annatar, the loremaster who taught the craft of the Rings to Celebrimbor. Again according to some of the accounts, Celebrimbor rebelled against her view and seized power in Eregion. As a result, Galadriel departed to Lrien via the gates of Moria, but Celeborn refused to enter the dwarves' stronghold and stayed behind. Her distrust was justified, for Annatar turned out to be the Dark Lord, Sauron. When Sauron attacked Eregion, Celebrimbor entrusted Galadriel with Nenya, one of the Three Rings of the Elves. Celeborn joined up with Elrond, whose force was unable to relieve Eregion but managed to escape back to Imladris. Celeborn reunited with Galadriel when the war ended; according to one text, after some years in Imladris (during which Elrond first saw and fell in love with Celebran) Galadriel's sea-longing became so strong that the couple removed to Belfalas and lived at the place later called Dol Amroth.[T 3]
'And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!' [Galadriel] lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark... Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad. 'I pass the test', she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel'.
When the Fellowship left Lothlrien, she gave each member a gift and an Elven cloak, and furnished the party with supplies, both as practical support and as a symbol of faith, hope and goodwill. Her husband Celeborn likewise provided the Fellowship with Elven-boats.[T 10]On the day that the Fellowship left Lrien, but unknown to them, Gandalf arrived, carried by the eagle Gwaihir. Galadriel healed his wounds and re-clothed him in white, signalling his new status as head of the Istari, the order of wizards.[T 11]
After Sauron perished, Celeborn led the host of Lrien across the Anduin and captured Dol Guldur. Galadriel came forth and "threw down its walls and laid bare its pits".[T 2] She travelled to Minas Tirith for the wedding of her granddaughter Arwen to King Aragorn Elessar after the end of the war. Galadriel passed over the Great Sea with Elrond, Gandalf, and the Ring-bearers Bilbo and Frodo, marking the end of the Third Age.[T 12] Celeborn remained behind, and Tolkien writes that "there is no record of the day when at last he sought the Grey Havens".[T 13]
Even among the Eldar she was accounted beautiful, and her hair is held a marvel unmatched. It is golden like the hair of her father and of her foremother Indis, but richer and more radiant, for its gold is touched by some memory of the starlike silver of her mother; and the Eldar say that the light of the Two Trees, Laurelin and Telperion, has been snared in her tresses.[T 15]
Many thought that this saying first gave to Fanor the thought of imprisoning and blending the light of the Trees that later took shape in his hands as the Silmarils. For Fanor beheld the hair of Galadriel with wonder and delight.[T 15]
Nevertheless, Galadriel never repaid Fanor's admiration. Fanor "had begged her thrice for a tress and thrice she refused to give him even one hair. It is said that these two kinsfolk, being considered the greatest of the Eldar of Valinor, remain unfriends forever."[T 15]
Her character was a blend of characteristics of the Eldar from whom she was descended. She had the pride and ambition of the Noldor, but in her they were tempered by the gentleness and insight of the Vanyar. She shared the latter virtues of character with her father Finarfin and her brother Finrod.[T 15]
She was proud, strong, and self-willed, as were all the descendants of Finw save Finarfin; and like her brother Finrod, of all her kin the nearest to her heart, she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would without tutelage. Yet deeper still there dwelt in her the noble and generous spirit of the Vanyar, and a reverence for the Valar that she could not forget. From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding, and she withheld her goodwill from none save only Fanor. In him she perceived a darkness that she hated and feared, though she did not perceive that the shadow of the same evil had fallen upon the minds of all the Noldor, and upon her own.[T 15]
The critic Tom Shippey notes that in creating Galadriel, Tolkien was attempting to reconstruct the kind of elf hinted at by elf references in Old English (Anglo-Saxon) words. The hints are, he observes, paradoxical: while lfscyne, "elf-beautiful", suggests a powerful allure, lfsogoa, "lunacy", implies that getting too close to elves is dangerous. In Shippey's view, Tolkien is telling the literal truth that "beauty is itself dangerous", as Chaucer did in The Wife of Bath's Tale where both elves and friars are sexually rapacious. So when Faramir says to Sam Gamgee in Ithilien that Galadriel must be "perilously fair", Shippey comments that this is a "highly accurate remark"; Sam replies that "folk takes their peril with them into Lorien... But perhaps you could call her perilous, because she's so strong in herself."[1]
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