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.