Addressing the One-Note Whingers: Weighing in on Warrior Galadriel
So we have ourselves yet another promotional clip for The Rings of Power, this time one focusing on the show’s characterisation of Galadriel:
The usual suspects have been denigrating this characterisation of Galadriel for some time, castigating her as a Buffy knock-off who isn’t a patch on Cate Blanchett’s ethereal sorceress. Indeed, these aforementioned suspects have a really, really bad habit of citing Peter Jackson’s adaptations as true to the text, in a manner that would have an earlier generation of Tolkien Purists pulling their hair out. Speaking as someone who can remember online fandom twenty years ago, it is truly uncanny how the parallels between Jackson’s Arwen and Amazon’s Galadriel line up. I’ll see your Buffy-Galadriel analogy, and raise you XenArwen. People currently complaining about Celeborn’s absence ought to ask themselves about missing Glorfindel.
(And anyone citing that Jackson interview where the director claims he was “preserving Tolkien’s message” clearly lacks the critical thinking ability of a particularly gullible school child. Even allowing for the fact that Jackson simply doesn’t “get” certain Tolkien themes, he was most certainly imposing his own vision of Middle-earth. Boorman in 1970 also claimed he was being true to Tolkien. You don’t take such commentators at their word!).
The funny thing is that Jackson’s Arwen really was Jackson playing fast and loose with the actual text. The Lord of the Rings is a complete story, with characters and dialogue. Tolkien’s Arwen is something of a non-entity, so Jackson went and changed that in his own version. Which is fine. It’s what adaptations do. The result was a fun and highly popular movie, one that ironically seems to have shaped the interpretations of 2020s Purists more than Tolkien’s original text.
The present show is not dealing with a complete story. It is dealing with summaries, lists, and notes. And in the case of pre-Lord of the Rings Galadriel? We’re not dealing with a clear canon at all. Indeed, we’re dealing with a variety of outright contradictory versions, as Tolkien spent the last two decades of his life trying to retrospectively insert a character he had created in the process of writing The Lord of the Rings back into his existing mythos. Basically, unlike Arwen, there is no coherent character backstory to earlier Galadriel. She’s one of those multiple-choice-origin characters.
But among these multiple-choice pasts, several relevant ideas do appear:
- Letter 348: In her youth, Galadriel was of Amazonian (i.e. female warrior) disposition, and bound her hair up during athletic feats.
- Morgoth’s Ring, p.177.: Galadriel was the fairest and most valiant lady of the House of Finwë.
- Unfinished Tales, p.297: Galadriel was proud, strong, and self-willed… and she “fought fiercely against Fëanor in defence of her mother’s kin.”
To my mind, a reading of earlier Galadriel as a martial character strikes me as consistent with these ideas. Does it necessarily look like Cate Blanchett’s ethereal sorceress? No, but to think Galadriel never changed during her thousands of years in Middle-earth is to ignore Tolkien’s own idea that Galadriel’s rejection of the One Ring was pure character development (Unfinished Tales, p.298.). Third Age Galadriel is not First and Second Age Galadriel.
(And, as an aside, calling Galadriel the most valiant female Finwëan puts her in competition with Idril. While comparing different eras of Tolkien writings is a dangerous business, I would note that the only full version of The Fall of Gondolin (1916-1920) has Idril in armour, defending her son in battle.* That’s the sort of valiance Galadriel is being judged superior to. Imagining Galadriel herself in armour, and fighting with a sword, a la her fierce fight at Alqualondë, is thus hardly alien to the character. Hell, as her brother Finrod himself showed, it is entirely possible to be an adept magic-user while also fighting what one assumes are more conventional battles in other contexts).
*I have re-checked the text. Turns out little Earendil is the one explicitly in armour. But Idril does subsequently use a sword during the Fall.
So much for Warrior Galadriel – except to note that the notion of her seeking vengeance for Finrod is a pure show-invention. Which, again, is fine. It gives her an easily relatable motivation in this Second Age story, and a reason for this easily-recognisable character to be coming into direct contact with various residual nasties of Middle-earth. I would prefer, however, for there to be some allusions to Galadriel desiring to rule Middle-earth, as per the character development Tolkien envisaged. Show what she aspired to in her youth, so we can see what Third Age Galadriel was giving up.
And what of Elrond? Here we have the usual suspects complaining that the “Greatest Warrior of the Second Age” is having his martial prowess stripped from him. Again, there is the sense that such people derive their impressions of Middle-earth more from Jackson than from Tolkien. Tolkien’s Elrond does participate in war and the leading of armies, of course. He participates in both the War of the Elves and Sauron, and the Last Alliance. But he remains Gil-galad’s subordinate and Herald, and is a mere fifty-eight years old at the start of the Second Age – there is plenty of room for this initially naïve character to grow, while the noted interest of Amazon Elrond in architecture might be a reference to him building Imladris/Rivendell further down the track. And I dare say, what we’ve seen of Amazon Elrond thus far is arguably closer to Tolkien’s “he was as kind as summer” characterisation than the rather dour and frowning Hugo Weaving.
(If I have an issue with Amazon Elrond thus far – other than the hair-colour – it is that him quipping about Galadriel arriving with mud on her boots is rather at odds with Elrond’s own early life. The guy initially lived in a refugee camp, and lost his biological parents, before being captured and raised by two very scary war-criminals. One imagines that he knows better than to make light of other people living rough).
So yeah. A wee rant about how the self-described fandom is reacting here. None of this is to suggest that there won’t be valid criticisms to be made of the Amazon adaptation – after it actually comes out, at any rate – but I do think, from what we’ve seen, there is a valid foundation for characterising Galadriel in this way, in an adaptational context. I for one also find these newly-minted 2020s Purists more than a bit suspicious in their undying adoration of the Peter Jackson movies. For all that they claim to defend Tolkien against the Political Correctness of the Modern Era (a charge that was, of course, levelled at Jackson himself twenty years ago), it really looks like they are just trying to manufacture Culture War outrage in order to boost the advertising revenue of their various YouTube channels. Two can play at cynicism.
A Phuulish Fellow 
Warrior Galadriel is a “wait and see” for me. Galadriel in a commanding position seems fine. I’m less keen on the Legolas-style stunts we’ve seen glimpses of… mostly because I didn’t care for the Legolas stunts to begin with. Funnily enough, looking back at some archived LOTR threads from 2000, there’s quite a bit of Nerd Sexism going on. And a “Tolkien would never have a feminazi elf doing such things!” vibe. As though these people had never heard of Luthien. I wonder what these types would make of the scene of Luthien & Huan going head-to-head in a duel with Sauron whilst Beren is stuck in a prison. “Woke Tolkien HATES MEN shows MARY SUE WOMAN and USELESS EMASCULSTED MAN! ”
That Jackson quote always just makes me want to post the image of Denethor leaping from the heights of Minas Tirith on fire in response.
Jackson made some substantial changes to the tone, characterisations and themes of LOTR, and some of them were for the worse (Denethor, Gimli, Frodo sending Sam away, Dumbed Down Treebeard etc). And yes, claims of being “true to Tolkien” is a pretty standard bit of PR: The Shadow of War games – they of the Sexy Shelob and Isildur the Nazgul fame – also made noise about ‘respecting’ the lore.
Another thing is that whilst I have my concerns with some of the stuff surrounding McKay and Payne’s choices, none of them have quite-so-far struck me as off as some of Jackson’s reportedly early ideas (Jackson originally had Gimli “swearing like a sailor” in an early draft, had Aragorn fight Sauron at the Black Gate, and wrote a skinny dipping scene in the Glittering Cave with Arwen) let alone some of the stuff that made the film. I always wonder what Tolkien’s reaction might be to seeing Gandalf’s awful advice to Theoden, or Gandalf beating up Denethor while his household guards stand by and do nothing.
But the “TOLKIEN DESTROYED BY AMAZON” silliness is especially grating since the Professor’s work has already survived the Shadow games and the often abysmal Hobbit movies. I think he can survive Amazon as well, however good or bad the show turns out. Depressingly, so much of this outrage bait is about race and women that it reveals an unpleasant reactionary motivation. The show isn’t really what’s at stake here for them. Tolkien purity isn’t “really” the focus of these grifters, it’s just a tool for fanning the flames. Rings of Power is being used as another cassus beli for them against “woke” culture. There’s a really ugly tint to it all. Though I wonder how many of them realise Tolkien himself described Gondor in the Minas Tirith chapter having a mixed-race population and many of the men there as ‘swarthy’?
Relatedly, there’s now a “Amazon Elrond woke soft boy” thing going about. In comparison to the “Manlier” Jackson version. God help us all.
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Precisely Lúthien is the problem. Tolkien deliberately decided that the quintessential example of female empowerment in his universe, the champion of Eru and mother of the sacred bloodline of Númenor, never, ever touched a sword, bow, or wore armor (unlike Idril, Aredhel…). Lúthien is exclusively magical power, she is the sorceress and healer par excellence. Swords and weapons were reserved solely for Beren.
That’s why it feels strange that Amazon paints Second Age Galadriel, post-Melian, post-Lúthien, as a sword-wielding warrior. It doesn’t seem bad to me, mind you, but it still feels a little weird.
That since we are with Lúthien, I still think that I don´t think that Amazon will let Warrior Galadriel not participate, at least briefly, in the most glorious adventure of the entire First Age, and even more so with her brother in her midst. I perfectly see her following Lúthien to Tol-in-Garhouth, and playing some part in Sauron’s defeat. After all, in Tolkien’s canon, Artanis was in the perfect place at the perfect time. It is assumed that she was among those who saw Beren stating “Thingol, this isn´t the last time you see the son of Barahir”
About Teleporno, not to be unfair, but he is a much more important character than the LOTR Glorfindel, who disappears from the plot as quickly as he appeared, and who in a late retcon Tolkien decided was the resurrection of the legendary Lord of the House of the GOLDEN Flower of Gondolin. That’s why I hope that sooner or later Amazon will show us Teleporno, if only to tell us where Celebrian came from, remember, Elrond’s wife, Arwen’s mother -and a certain pair of twins whose absence no one regretted in Jackson’s movies –
Regarding skin color, I insist again that a Mediterranean swarthy, like the ancient Greeks, Israelites and Babylonians, is not the same as the actors with African skin that Amazon is using. This is like if they made a biblical movie where Noah (and well, according to Tolkien, Elendil is Noah), Moses or David were black people
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that now that I fall, if there are a couple of canonical characters from the entire Legendarium that can be black skin without contradicting Tolkien, they are precisely Melian and Lúthien.
Well, and maybe the Avari Elves -I ask Eru to say that Arondir would have an Avari father or mother-.
Tolkien specifically painted Middle-earth, especially Middle-earth as we know it (Beleriand, Eriador, and parts of Rhovanion), as an earlier version of Europe. He even said that the territories of the Shire today belonged to England and that Minas Tirith was in the latitude of Troy.
That “old Europe” obviously includes Hellenized Western Asia, from Anatolia to Judea and Syria, where the Christian faith was born and grew, without which Europe cannot be understood – or Tolkien, by the way. Therefore, both the Elves and the Edain (and their relatives like the Rohirrim) are supposed to look like Proto-Europeans, Israelites or even Norse in some cases.
Now, with Melian and Lúthien none of this applies. Melian is an Ainu, an Angel who can take any form she wishes, and in the Silmarillion it is said that Yavanna, the Valie of Earth, sometimes took a dark-skinned fana, if I remember correctly. Thus, Melian and her daughter may be black women, even if that contradicts Tolkien’s modeling of Lúthien after his wife Edith, I see less incongruous than Amazon’s Tar-Míriel (“fairer than silver or pearls”) which is even dark-skinned than Arondir .
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I think I understand what you mean. You could call Lúthien the quintessential example of female empowerment, I suppose… But Lúthien and Galadriel came out of different places in Tolkien’s mind. Lúthien was based on Tolkien’s wife, while Galadriel was based partly on the Virgin Mary and partly based simply on an intended link between The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. Though you could dispute the former inspiration as to whether the Marian inspiration works for Galadriel dealing with a sword (although either way, from a Catholic standpoint, it makes more sense for a Marian figure to wield a sword than to be arrogant and power-hungry, which was probably the reason for the 1973 “unstained” revision, in part).
But passing the question as to inspiration and who is the most quintessential woman, Tolkien was willing to have great women (and great men) who played very different roles. Lúthien, Beren’s wife, never took up arms, nor did she need to since she was basically a demigoddess (I would note here that that fact is important because I imagine that makes Lúthien significantly more powerful than the Eldar and therefore Galadriel might have more need of weapons, which is why most people believe she did take up arms in the First Kinslaying, while, if Tolkien had said a similar thing on Lúthien, I would probably guess she used magic). However, another important woman in Beren’s life, Emeldir, seems to have been something of a fighter. And then among Elves, there were Aredhel, a huntress (also strange among Elf-women), and Idril, who (I think) took up arms in the fall of Gondolin. Interestingly enough about Idril, she is the one other elf-woman in the Silmarillion to marry a mortal, so I would argue that Tolkien is expressing the variety of roles a woman may take.
That said, Galadriel was called “man-maiden” in her youth and once Tolkien compared her to an “Amazon”, so, physically speaking, she wasn’t intended to be a typical woman, and if I had to guess from the description of Galadriel, even ignoring magic, she could probably have beaten many male Elves in one-on-one combat, and I’m not sure that’s true with Lúthien.
Tolkien didn’t say a lot about what happened to Galadriel after Finrod died and whether she participated in any battles between them and the War of Wrath, but as I see it, there are around two or three ways to go, and they are derived from these three statements:
1. “He has dwelt in the West since the days of dawn, and I have dwelt with him years uncounted; for ere the fall of Nargothrond or Gondolin I passed over the mountains, and together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.” (Fellowship of the Ring, p. 372)
Now, of these, the first one, I think, is the most vague. According to Christopher Tolkien, it was supposed to be, at this point, referencing the early idea of Celeborn as a Nandorin Elf who dwelt in Lórien. However, since Tolkien abandoned the idea early on, I don’t really know how to apply it to the lore or how seriously we should take it. Galadriel implies that she went alone and probably met Celeborn after she did so, but “ere the fall of Nargothrond or Gondolin” suggests they had already been founded, placing Galadriel’s actions firmly in the First Age. All I can really think to justify it is that Galadriel passed over the Blue Mountains some time after Finrod’s death but Celeborn remained behind only to meet her later on, thus seeing the Sack of Doriath, leading to his lifelong irrational animosity toward all Dwarves which he shows to Gimli later on. If this is the case, maybe Galadriel founded Harlindon on her own in the First Age, which would be in character as she is supposed to have the desire to rule similar to Fingon but also show wisdom in leaving Beleriand where Morgoth dwells, which is also typical for her. In this case, Galadriel would clearly not fight in any of the battles after that point except maybe the War of Wrath. I doubt she would have fought in the Battle of Sudden Flame or the Battle of Unnumbered Tears either because she was living in Doriath and Thingol did not want to get involved. However, everything here was written prior to 1966, which is when I suspect warrior Galadriel was first conceived anyway, and that line was written before Tolkien conceived Celeborn as an Elf from Doriath so once again, I don’t know how seriously we should take it.
2. “It is a natural assumption that Celeborn and Galadriel were present at the ruin of Doriath (it is said in one place that Celeborn “escaped the sack of Doriath”), and perhaps aided the escape of Elwing to the Havens of Sirion with the Silmaril – but this is nowhere stated.” (The Unfinished Tales p. 233, Christopher Tolkien)
This one, I think, is a little better, and closer to what Tolkien intended throughout most of his life after he conceived the character and began writing the lore. Once again, she dwelt in Doriath and therefore probably would not have fought in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears and the Battle of Sudden Flame. However, she would have been present at the Sack of Doriath and perhaps the Second and Third Kinslayings, where she could have plausibly fought. I will say, however, that I personally prefer Galadriel leaving Beleriand earlier than this because I suspect she would have tried to found her own realm at some point. Then again, maybe marrying Celeborn and being maidservant to Melian would help her gain power in Doriath.
3. “In the years after they [i.e. Galadriel and Celeborn] did not join in the war against Angband, which they judged to be hopeless under the ban of the Valar and without their aid; and their counsel was to withdraw from Beleriand and to build up a power to the eastward (whence they feared that Morgoth would draw reinforcement), befriending and teaching the Dark Elves and Men of those regions. But such a policy having no hope of acceptance among the Elves of Beleriand, Galadriel and Celeborn departed over Ered Lindon before the end of the First Age.” (The Unfinished Tales, p. 232)
This is the unstained version where Galadriel is guiltless. It sounds like the first version which implies Galadriel left Beleriand before the end of the First Age, but here Celeborn went with her. I will say the phrase “they did not join in the war against Angband, which they judged to be hopeless under the ban of the Valar and without their aid” implies that they both otherwise would have fought however—in other words, they probably did fight in the War of Wrath when they did have the aid of the Valar.
The Amazon show left out references to Finrod’s noble death completely, which is disappointing because they actually should have the rights to mention it from Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings.
Your points are fair, although the Men of Westernesse had dealings with people as far south as Umbar, so I still hold it plausible that some people in Gondor could look African (of named characters, notably Forlong the Fat). I think I understand what you mean, although in all fairness, the Elves originated in the Far East in Cuivienen, so I suppose you could cast East Asian actors, provided they are fair of skin, and at least technically make it consistent, since I doubt Elves would have changed in appearance much from living in other lands for a few thousand years.
That said, color-blind casting is a thing, so provided they do nothing crazy (I am looking at Gríma Wormtongue and the Mouth of Sauron here…), my greatest concern is capturing the personalities of the characters rather than their exact appearance. That is my take.
Personally, I imagine Galadriel in the Second Age similar to Gandalf—capable and willing to fight, but only as a last resort.
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I have never understood what Peter Jackson has against Gimli and Dwarves in general…
Fair, and aside from Lúthien, there are some women who actually were fighters at various points such as Idril, Haleth, Emeldir, and Éowyn (and not Arwen, interestingly enough). I mean, Lord of the Rings isn’t The Chronicles of Narnia where “battles are ugly when women fight” (I wonder if Tolkien and Lewis ever talked about that).
I think people put too much weight on the Peter Jackson movies, which clearly projected their own vision onto Tolkien, sometimes contrary to Tolkien.
Also, now that the series has come out, in spite of its flaws, I must say: Amazon’s Elrond is better than Peter Jackson’s and closer to what Tolkien wrote. There, I said it.
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Lewis never thought it was wrong for women to fight. There’s a reason QUEENS Susan and Lucy receive a bow and dagger from Saint Nicholas, respectively. The “battles are ugly when women fight” in any case reflects how desperate the situation is for women to have to fight, which fits well with what Tolkien says about when Elven women did fight to defend their home, and yes, that is the scenario where Idril does fight -because she was not in the Nirnaeth, while Lucy Pevensie participated in the battle of Anvard in The Horse and His Boy-. Same with Haleth and Emeldir.
That’s why I think that looking at characters like Lucy or Jill Pole, it’s clear that Lewis had a more positive vision of women fighting in battles that weren’t totally hopeless -the last stands that Eowyn talks about in Two Towers-.
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Lucy’s was an archer in Battle of Anvard, just as Jill was in the Last Battle. I don’t think Lewis would approve of them putting themselves in harm’s way. Also, I don’t think Anvard was an especially bad battle, so that probably explains it. Correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I can tell, the girls in Lewis’ stories only ever partake in battles by firing bows from a safe distance.
Éowyn, however, does put herself in harm’s way and takes up a sword, which is why I was saying I find it different.
As for Haleth, however, her culture was clearly different, since we learn in the Unfinished Tales that women commonly are warriors (or “Amazons” as Tolkien would say) there.
That said, I agree that if Tolkien did intend “Amazon” Galadriel (by which I do not mean the company), she would have definitely been an exception to the usual Elven custom, but the same could be said of Elrond or Aredhel.
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I hereby withdraw my commendation of Aramayo as a good actor.
“Galadrriel! Commander of the Northern Armies! [G. smirks and looks away, probably the way Eisenhower did with FDR.] I half expected you to arrive caked in mud”
Why the emphasis on “I”? Whatever, the writing is over-trying and under-achieving
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I actually agree—Amazon’s Elrond overall is a better Elrond than Peter Jackson’s Elrond. This might be a controversial opinion, but I stand by it. I would note by the way, in all this complaint about Galadriel not being portrayed as a “magic user” (I doubt Tolkien would like that phrase), people seem to forget Elrond’s own great power. Yes, he’s probably not quite as powerful as Galadriel, but let’s remember he has a Maia as his ancestor. He did, in the book, call on the fords of Bruinen to devour the Black Riders. Also, there are exceptions to the “Elf-women don’t fight or hunt and Elf-men don’t heal” rule (e.g. Elrond, Aredhel), so… I don’t see why the greatest Elf in Middle-Earth can’t be one of those exceptions.
In all fairness to Arwen, she does receive some characterization, but it is almost entirely out of Appendix A rather than the actual narrative. But yes, I agree that most of Arwen’s characterization was out of thin air in that film—probably both to appeal to the romance-loving crowd and perhaps to attract female audience members. I might argue, however, that Celeborn is somewhat more important than Glorfindel if you are creating a story with Galadriel as the protagonist because he’s her husband while Glorfindel is a minor character. I also think giving our protagonist a husband and an adult daughter would give the character more nuance than she has here.
But overall, I often wonder how much some of these people actually know about Tolkien if they are making these complaints or how carefully they have read the text. I have my complaints about this Galadriel but I also have my complaints about Jackson’s Galadriel and his Elves in general (not as many, but some—they seemed too stern and not the kind of Elves who would, for example, immediately make fun of Dwarves’ beards as they sought their hospitality).
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I entirely agree, not that I liked this depiction of Galadriel. Still, I think it is extremely likely that Tolkien at least considered the idea of warrior or shield-maiden Galadriel, specifically after 1966.
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