Power and Independence in Galadriel’s character

Women and Romance in Lord of the Rings: Part 3

Tauriel and Arwen are characters that are almost completely centered around their romantic plots (though Arwen’s romance and love story is infinitely more complex and interesting), but the only one of the four women in Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit without a primary focus on love is Galadriel. Galadriel is the Lady of Lothlorien, a guardian of the woods of Lothlorien alongside her husband Lord Celeborn, and she plays a small but crucial role to the story in the Lord of the Rings. She acts as both as a source of wisdom for the fellowship, giving them warnings as well as providing them with hope and gifts, and she does so with no dramatic or emphasized romantic attachments. Tauriel, Arwen, and Eowyn are all characters whose development is heavily reliant on other male characters as love interests, but Galadriel’s character and her development is completely separate from romantic involvement with any male characters, and as such, her character and its role have a powerful presence that the other three lack partially because of their dependence on the romances and love stories.

After narrating the prologue and appearing briefly showing the rings of the elves, Galadriel’s first appearance in the Lord of the Rings demonstrates her power beyond most of the other characters in Lord of the Rings. Even just a few seconds in the beginning of the prologue is a powerful place for Galadriel, for she is one of the holders of the rings of power (the only woman to get one of the rings), and this in itself demonstrates her power and influence. Her first appearance after the prologue is the only time that there is any hint of romantic connection, and even then, it is barely present and not the focus of the scene. She walks down the stairs with her hand on Celeborn’s, but other than this moment, their relationship as husband and wife is never mentioned or even hinted at again. Though Celeborn speaks first, he quickly becomes the least important and least powerful of the two, and Galadriel becomes the character of importance in the forest of Lothlorien. Celeborn asks where Gandalf has gone, clearly ignorant of his fall in Moria, but Galadriel only needs to look at the group to know that Gandalf has fallen into shadow. Her unknown and awesome power is the focus of many of the camera angles of this scene, some of them focusing only on her eyes then on a member of the fellowship as she examines each of them. She demonstrates her power again soon after, for while she is talking to the entire group, Frodo also hears her voice in his own head talking only to him. Later, when Frodo meets with her looking into the Mirror of Galadriel, she further solidifies her power through the power of the Mirror, showing Frodo “Things that are, things that were, and some things that have not yet come to pass.” She demonstrates the gift of foresight, just as Elrond and Arwen both possess, but Galadriel’s visions are some of the most concrete and foreboding as she warns of the possible failure and accurately predicts Boromir’s attempt to take the Ring. Even in just a few minutes of screen time, her power and knowledge is evident, and it does not rely in any way on any romantic relationship or connection with a male character.
          Her mystical powers are impressive and foreboding, but it is not until Frodo offers her the ring that her true power and wisdom is revealed. When Frodo first offers the ring, she initially moves towards it, saying, “I do not deny that my heart has greatly desire this,” and suddenly, her form changes into a ghastly green and terrible yet beautiful glow as she continues in a deep and menacing voice saying, “In place of a dark lord, you will have a queen. Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn, treacherous as the sea. Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair.” She almost seems ready to take the ring and become a new and different Lord of power, just as terrible yet different from Sauron, but she breaks from this terrifyingly powerful and ominous state. This state shows that she has flaws, demonstrating that while powerful, she is weak to the same temptation for power that is created by the One Ring. She is not an unfailing Goddess or character above reproach, but also able to make poor decisions just as all other are. When she drops out of this state and turns away from the lure of power, she demonstrates growth and incredible power. She is not corrupted or twisted by the power, instead choosing to “remain Galadriel” and using her own spirit and power to keep herself from failing. This growth of character is similar to when both Gandalf and Aragorn turn away from the power of the ring when Frodo offers it to them. She proves herself more powerful than many before her, and she demonstrates that her power lies not just in her mystical and magical abilities, but also to know when not to act and when not to use her power. Galadriel’s magic and mystical wisdom is beyond most of what has been seen before, and though short lived on screen, her development needs no romantic love interest to create this growth and establish her character as both impressive and intimidating.

Galadriel is only on screen for a few short minutes, yet her presence is carried quite literally throughout the rest of the movie by the fellowship. When she first appears, she is a light in a time of great darkness and sadness for the fellowship after Gandalf has died, but she also acts as a warning of the uncertain nature of their journey. She simultaneously symbolizes the hope and the peril of their quest, saying, “The quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail to the ruin of all.” She warns that their journey is dangerous, and the hope of all of Middle Earth lies in their hands. The fellowship at this moment is crushed, and she acknowledges that in many ways, they are right to feel the incredible weight of this responsibility on their shoulders, and they should not take it lightly. However, she continues, “Yet hope remains while company is true. Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Though she warns the fellowship of the gravity and difficult nature of their quest, she also gives them hope, both through her words of hope and wisdom as well as the physical gifts that she gives to the fellowship. She gives special weapons and material to Legolas, Mary, Pippin, and Sam. She warns and encourages Aragorn, saying his choice is to “rise above the height of all your fathers… or to fall into darkness with all that is left of your kin.” Gimli’s gift is the strangest, yet also the sweetest. Gimli tells Legolas later that, “I asked her for one hair from her golden head. She gave me three.” Frodo’s gift, possible the most important of them all, is “the light of Elandir, our most beloved star. May it be a light for you in dark places when all other lights go out.” With these words, Galadriel fades from sight, not seen again in the movie, yet all of her gifts hold incredible importance for each of the members of the fellowship throughout the rest of the trilogy.

All of these gifts continue to demonstrate the power and the foresight of Galadriel long after the she been seen on screen. Though it is a shame that her character was only onscreen for a short time, her influence in carried throughout the movie, placing her as an indispensable and incredibly powerful character. Each of the gifts end up holding some sort of importance to help members of the fellowship, often times saving them from great peril or helping them maintain hope. Legolas uses his bow to save his friends in many battles. Mary and Pippin’s daggers, though lost when they flee from the orcs, end up helping Gimli, Legolas, and Aragorn to find their trail, and Sam uses his rope in various ways to help aid Frodo on his trip to Mount Doom. These are the simple gifts, but Gimli and Frodo’s gifts are the most interesting. Her gift to Gimli is purely as a keepsake, but it spurs his character development and begins his acceptance of elves and his friendship with Legolas. Before Galadriel, Gimli was stuck in his hatred of the dwarves, but after the gift of her golden hairs, both Gimli and Legolas begin to share more and more important moments of comradery and friendship. The other women characters in Lord of the Rings often rely on men for character development while the men usually stay the same from the relationship, but in this case, the roles are switched. Gimli begins to develop more as a character from his interaction with Galadriel, and Galadriel is the one who remains stable and unchanging from the relationship. Her character growth is completely separate from her gift from Gimli, instead coming from her experience with Frodo and the ring. Her gift to Frodo reestablishes her role as a bringer of hope, and it brings a whisper of her character back to the screen when Frodo uses the light of Elandir in his fight against Shelob. Galadriel is a light for the fellowship in dark times, and she helps many of the members of the fellowship grow and improve throughout their journeys, even if she herself is only physically around for a short time.

After her time in Lord of the Rings, her role appeared in the later trilogy of The Hobbit, and while it was forced and tacked on as with much of the other subplots in the Hobbit, it did reestablish her as an independent and incredibly powerful character. The largest failure of the Hobbit movies was too many additions and subplots as the movie tried to connect the plot of the hobbit to the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the War of the Ring. Many of these additions were awkward, confusing, or ill developed even if many of them were based off of Tolkien’s own writings, and so too was the addition of Galadriel in the movies, even if it did reiterate her power. Just as Tauriel was a needed female addition, it was good to have Galadriel as another woman in story dominated by men, but her presence was tacked on and awkward. Much of the time, she was only standing there as other male characters talked, or she demonstrated the mysticism and the power of the elves in a story that focused on Hobbits and Dwarves. However, though her character was forced into the subplots, she was a needed female component to the hobbit stories, and her character still did not rely on any romantic connections with the male characters, allowing her to establish her power on her own.  

Though her place in the movies was awkward and tacked on, when she did have moments of importance, these scenes built off of the incredible power and knowledge present in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Galadriel goes to Dol Goldur, a fortress where Gandalf is held prisoner, and she saves him with a short but terrifying burst of power. The orc assaulting her barely has a chance to move before she blows him apart with a mere wave of her hand. The power of her attack tears him to pieces, and the energy ripples around the entire fortress. Her power is evident in this scene, and she plays the role of the savior instead of the damsel in distress. At first, she seems to revert back to the cliché damsel mode just minutes after, for when she is surrounded by the shadows of the enemy, Elrond and Saruman rush in to join the fight and save her. While Saruman and Elron fight a dramatic and intense fight scene, Galadriel is sitting in the middle of the fight holding Gandalf and wakes him with encouraging words and a kiss to the forehead. This seems to hint at a romantic relationship with Gandalf, but in reality, it plays off of the elves’ reverence for Gandalf, whom they call Mithrandir.

Luckily, Elrond and Saruman’s fight are only the appetizer to the real conflict of this scene. After Gandalf awakes and leaves the area, the eye of Sauron bursts into existence in the fortress, and Galadriel quickly rises from where she lies on the ground, her form distorted and green as it appeared in the Lord of the Rings when she showed her incredible and dangerous power when she almost took the ring from Frodo. She speaks to Sauron, unafraid and unflinching, saying, “You have no power

here, servant of Morgoth. You are nameless, faceless, formless. Go back to the void from whence you came.” She banishes him, the fire of his eye and the shadow of his form hurled from the fortress like a bolt of fire into the distance. Both Saruman and Elrond are nearly toppled over by her power at this act, and while she nearly falls at the end of this scene from the exertion, her astounding power is clearly demonstrated in this scene. Though these scenes still feel forced into the existing plot of the hobbit, written in to connect it more to the Lord of the Rings and the War of the Ring, Galadriel’s role in this trilogy still demonstrates her power and establishes her as an incredibly powerful and independent character.

Galadriel only has a few short scenes, only in about 20 minutes total combined in the Hobbit Trilogy and The Lord of the Rings, and while they are important, her lack of screen time prevents her from developing as a more complex character in the story. Arwen and Tuariel likely would have similarly dropped out of the picture without a love interest in a main character, and since Galadriel lacks the love connection to other characters, her screen time was up once the fellowship moved on from her area. However, this lack of a love interest leaves her completely free to develop as a character independent and powerful on her own, even if her time on screen is short. In some ways, Galadriel is the most inspiring and powerful of the four women in the Lord of the Rings movies because she remains unattached romantically, not dragged along by any romantic subplots, but despite her independence and power, her lack of screen time and presence in the overall story made her second in my list of female characters, just before Eowyn. Even though Eowyn is involved in romantic relationships with male characters (which sometimes limits her character), Eowyn evolves over the films in a way that none of the other women are able to.
        This is the third part of a four part post. The other three are Tauriel, Arwen, and Eowyn. For the full post once finished, click here.

Love and Hope in Arwen’s Character

Women and Romance in Lord of the Rings: Part 2

 

Tauriel’s character in the Hobbit Trilogy was a much needed woman in an otherwise male dominated story, but even though her character was written from scratch to fit into the existing story of the Hobbit, her character was stunted by a shallow love triangle and an almost complete dependence on the love stories to exist as a character. At first glance, Arwen’s character in the Lord of the Rings trilogy seems similar to negative aspects of Tauriel’s character, specifically her character’s dependence on romance to evolve her character. Though she becomes an interesting and meaningful character, for the most part, her love interest in Aragorn and Aragorn’s love for her are her only connections to the rest of the story. Other than her first scene rescuing Frodo, she is never included in the story other than when it is about her connection with Aragorn. Though her character is mostly unable to grow outside of the romance, significantly limiting her ability as a character, her character and her relationship is symbolic of the larger struggle against the darkness and death in Middle Earth. Unlike Tauriel’s shallow and forced romance, Arwen’s story resonates with the entire meaning of the trilogy as the characters fight against death and darkness. Though her character is built only around the romance, her role and the romance’s role is still crucial to the story of the Lord of the Rings.  

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy movie series, Arwen’s role starts out almost completely separate from her romantic relationship with Aragorn. Arwen appears after Frodo is stabbed with the blade of the Nazgul, and she rides Frodo to safety in Rivendell. In the books, this role of Frodo’s savior is played by Elrond, Arwen’s father, but this small change in the movies is a critical step in her character. Her first appearance is not as Aragorn’s love interest, but instead as a woman with incredible bravery, power, and skill. There are minor hints of their deeper connection when Aragorn attempts to take Frodo to Rivendell himself, saying, “The road is too dangerous.” This indicates his desire to protect her, but after Arwen reasserts herself as the faster rider, he only takes a moment more to accept her decision in the role. The scene does not dwell on their romance or Aragorn’s fear for the one he loves; instead, the scene quickly shifts to Arwen as the Nazgul chase her. This flight from the Nazgul demonstrates her courage, persistence, and skill. She is fleeing from nine of the servants of Sauron, some of the more powerful servants in his command, but she presses on, even managing to take all nine of them out temporarily as she calls upon the river. She demonstrates her own power and the power of the elves as the raging river in the form of a herd of galloping horses rises up and crashes down on the Nazgul, taking all nine of them out. Though she did not physically fight them as Aragorn did, she nevertheless demonstrates her power in a way that is completely separate from connection to other male characters. These two short scenes are not much on the general scale of the movie, but they are an important way to introduce and develop Arwen’s character independently from her romantic relationship with Aragorn. If Arwen had more scenes like this, establishing her as more than her romance with Aragorn, her character would be able to move beyond the romance and develop more complexities and nuances.

 After she saves Frodo, we only see Arwen through her romantic connection with Aragorn. The biggest issue with Arwen’s character is not that she is involved in a romance; it is that that is her only role in the story. Aragorn’s character is multifaceted. During the trilogy, we see his character explore his inner struggle with his bloodline and his role as Isildur’s heir. He is a member of the fellowship of the ring, and on his journey, he helps win many battles, even recruiting a hoard of ghosts. He gets amazing fight scenes and action along with wonderful character development throughout the story, and a significant and heartfelt part of this is his love story with Arwen. Arwen, on the other hand, only gets her love story with Aragorn to develop her. Granted, as a main protagonist, it is understandable that Aragorn will have more character development than Arwen, a supporting character, but therein lies the problem; there are no truly main character women since they all seem to be relegated to supporting roles, almost always in some sort of romance which keeps their storyline dependent on their male romance interest. Arwen’s character is part of one of the most heartfelt, sweet romances in fantasy as she sacrifices her immortality for the one she loves, but she is unable to evolve or change outside of the romantic plotline.

Arwen’s dependence on a romantic plot minimizes the potential growth of her character, but despite this flaw, it is still important to address that the romantic storyline should not be undermined. It is meaningful, profound, and extremely touching, and it creates character growth for both Arwen and Aragorn. The scenes involving Arwen and Aragorn’s relationship are powerful and well done, and their love story is one of the most beautiful love stories I have seen. Though it bothers me that her only role in the movie is as a love interest, she couldn’t be part of a more meaningful and wonderful love story. 

Arwen is a crucial part of Aragorn’s character development. She is like a blissful dream that he feels forced to leave behind. He even tells her that their love, “was a dream Arwen, nothing more,” as he tries to convince her to accompany the rest of her people out of Middle Earth. He puts her safety above his own interests and love for her. However, though he tries to leave her behind for her own well-being, Arwen still acts as a symbol of happiness and peace for him. In Aragorn’s dream in the Two Towers, Arwen touches the Evenstar necklace and says, “If you trust nothing else trust this, trust us.” Her Evenstar necklace is a symbol of their love and Aragorn’s hope throughout the movie, just as their larger love story is a symbol of how love and hope can prevail even in difficult times. When Aragorn nearly dies after falling off the cliff with the Warg, the necklace is left behind in the hands of the Orc, seeming to indicate that all hope is lost, yet Aragorn survives, awoken by a vision of Arwen as he floats to the rivers shores, and he returns to reclaim the necklace, therein renewing the hope. Even though Arwen was never physically present, their love for one another seems to have brought Aragorn back from life, demonstrating the extreme power that the romance holds for Aragorn. It also demonstrates the power that hope can have over despair and darkness. Near the end of the trilogy, Aragorn is crowned king of Gondor, finally owning up to the inner struggle with his heritage, and it is a symbol of the goodness and purity to come back to the land after all of the darkness. Though the coronation itself is important, the real pinnacle and heart of this scene is when Arwen emerges. They are finally allowed to be together, and both of them show true happiness. This, more than the falling white flower petals and smiling faces of the various ally troops is a symbol that the world will be able to feel happiness after so much bad has happened. Arwen and Aragorn’s relationship are a symbol of hope not just for Aragorn, but for the entire world in this last scene.

Arwen and Aragorn’s love is important to the entire trilogy, but her relationship forces her character to develop as she makes impossible decisions between life and death, immortality without her love or a mortal life with that love. Arwen is pressured by Elrond, her father, and Aragorn to leave Middle Earth so that she can survive safe in the Grey Havens. Elrond tells her to go before it is too late, telling her not to linger “when there is no hope” and she would only be staying doomed to “linger on in darkness and in doubt.” Elrond focuses on the darkness, telling her that “there is nothing for you here. Only death.” He dwells the negative and paints a picture of how even if Arwen and Aragorn’s relationship is able to continue, it is still doomed in death and despair. This scene where Elrond is pleading for Arwen to go to the Grey Havens also introduces another layer of her character. Elrond asks her, “do I not also have your love?” and now Arwen has a consideration separate from her romance with Aragorn. This is not a simple matter for her to decide, instead developing her struggle of immortality and mortality, love for a father and love for a romantic partner. This relationship still develops Arwen through her link to a man, but it creates a new and important layer to her character as it is not a romantic love but instead a familial love. Her character is not all starry eyed for Aragorn with no other considerations, and her struggle is clear as she tries to make a decision.  

At first, she seems to choose Elrond and immortality in the Grey Havens. She seems to give in to the ideas about death and darkness, but this decision is interrupted with a vision of her life with Aragorn and their child. During this vision, the Evenstar necklace is visible on the child, again acting as a symbol of hope and life as it did for Aragorn. Arwen reverses her decision, and through her romance with Aragorn, she sees a larger picture that there is life and hope in the Middle Earth. Arwen’s future may have death in it, but as she says to Elrond, “there is also life.” By choosing a mortal life, Arwen chooses to have hope and life, even if it will be a shorter life. She says to Aragorn, "I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone." She chooses her love over eternal life, and she refuses to hide from despair, risking the darkness for the possibility of light and happiness with Aragorn and their child. Arwen’s story, though for her character is focused entirely around her romance, is also symbolic and incredibly meaningful for the rest of the story of Middle Earth. Their romance does not save the world in itself, but it demonstrates that light, life, and hope can remain even in dark times, and that life and hope can prevail over the darkness. When she chooses a mortal life, she actually chooses life and hope instead of fleeing from the evil.

 Arwen is a fascinating character that explores the complications of life and death, different types of love and relationships, and sacrifices made for love, but she is still almost completely reliant on her relationship with Aragorn to explore these ideas. If there were more scenes like her first appearance, her character may have been able to develop more complex layers and ideas beyond the romance. Though I still take issue with her romance being the only developed part of her character, I also want to reiterate how much I adore Arwen and Aragorn’s love for one another. It is symbolic, thoughtful, and heartfelt, and though I wish there was more to Arwen’s character, I am still very glad that we have Arwen and her romance with Aragorn.

This is the second part of a four part post. The other three are Tauriel, Galadriel, and Eowyn. For the full post once completed, click here.