It has been exactly three years since my first article ever was posted. In celebration, I decided to write about something other than apologetics. It is a thing that amuses me, however, and is rather light-hearted. So this might not interest many apologetics enthusiasts but, then again, many devout Catholics are Lord of the Rings fans so… who knows?
If I have not made it clear, I am a Tolkien geek. I do not apologize for being a Tolkien geek. I obviously do not expect all my readers to be Tolkien geeks as well. However, if you are not a Tolkien geek (or at very least are not somewhat familiar with Middle-Earth), you might not care what I am saying. However, like many Tolkien geeks, I was rather disappointed with Amazon’s recent series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. If my readers enjoyed it, I have no right to stand in your way. However, in my mind, aside from several major lore changes (without spoiling anything, I will simply say one word—mithril; if you have seen the show, you will know what I mean), it rather missed the point of the story Amazon was trying to tell. The story of the Second Age, which they are adapting, surrounds roughly two stories—the tale of the Rings and the tale of the Island. Both are one of hubris, the hubris that led the Elves of Eregion to seek to turn Middle-Earth into a paradise it was not meant to be and the hubris that led the Men of Númenor to covet immortality that was not theirs. However, there are, in my opinion, many criticisms of the series that were extremely misdirected. For example, a remarkable number of people were claiming that beardless women among the Dwarves somehow ruined Tolkien’s lore. Yes, Tolkien did say it was easy to confuse male and female Dwarves in Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings and some of his materials published posthumously in The History of Middle-Earth series say that female Dwarves have beards but it does not seem to me that Tolkien ever settled on it or why a single poor aesthetic choice would be enough to ruin the entire story. Further, there is a much clearer lore-break I caught, namely that Elendil has a beard in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and Tolkien explicitly stated that:
I myself imagined Aragorn, Denethor, Imrahil, Boromir, Faramir as beardless. This, I said, I supposed not to be due to any custom of shaving, but a racial characteristic. None of the Eldar had any beards, and this was a general racial characteristic of all Elves in my “world”. Any element of an Elvish strain in human ancestry was very dominant and lasting.
The Nature of Middle-Earth p. 187
Elendil is also a descendant of Elves, so he should also be beardless. I personally suspect that the main reason no one cares is because Peter Jackson did not implement this with Aragorn or Boromir rather than for every lore reason. Looking at this quotation, I do now realize that in that case, if Elves actually do have pointed ears, so would Aragorn and Elendil, yet I imagine many fans would be irritated if Elendil and Isildur had pointed ears in the Amazon series, probably because Aragorn did not in the Peter Jackson films. Personally, I doubt that either do, seeing that the hobbits do not notice Aragorn’s ears in The Lord of the Rings when they first meet him, but I do not mind that they included them on Elves because it distinguishes them from Men and frankly I think it would be more or less impossible to render them with beauty “beyond all other beauty that Ilúvatar has caused to be” (The Silmarillion p. 46), even with CGI (because, you know, I doubt a computer can make greater beauty than anything God did).
Similarly, there was a huge knee-jerk reaction, presumably because of Peter Jackson’s movies, about short-haired Elves for some reason. I admit some of Amazon’s elven hair seemed rather modern (although I hear that is common among period pieces), but I have yet to find any remark about Elves having long hair as a universal rule. I have similar opinions about the cast looking ethnically diverse. Are most characters in Middle-Earth probably meant to be European-looking? Probably, at least in Tolkien’s head (although I would note that Númenor was around the equator and Cuivienen, where the Elves originated, was in the far East), but color-blind casting is almost a standard for every life-action film set based upon the life of Christ, so I do not see why we should blame Amazon for it.
If we were to follow these rules, someone should riot over Sam Gamgee being blond in the film, since I highly doubt he is. Blond hair is very rare among hobbits and Sam is most representative of the four among the hobbits, so I doubt he would be an exception. Also, Frodo should be unusually fair-skinned among hobbits, who are described as usually rather “brown”, and we do not clearly get that (the skin-tones of Frodo and Sam strike me as very close in the movies). The same could be said of Gandalf having a gray hat in the movies when in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings it is explicitly stated (see The Hobbit p. 4 and The Lord of the Rings p. 25) that Gandalf’s hat is blue. This one still gets on my nerves far more than short-haired elves or depicting women without beards.
But none of these violations bother me as much as what Peter Jackson did to the Mouth of Sauron and Gríma Wormtongue…
And this is where we come to “warrior” Galadriel. Do I have problems with the characterization of Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power? Absolutely. For one thing, she struck me as remarkably incompetent in everything that did not involve stabbing people. For another, they basically made her an antiheroine, which I did not like for Galadriel. In some ways, I almost think they likely based her on Fëanor, who, for those who do not know, was arguably Tolkien’s most evil elf. But as for discussing whether Galadriel took part in physical combat, I am not talking about it in order to defend the series exactly (about which I do not care), but rather simply because I think people underestimate the complication of Galadriel’s character and I want to enjoy a relatively little-known and little-developed aspect of it.
But before I do this, I must address a very unfortunately common claim I have heard—the claim that any presentation of Galadriel bearing arms is somehow automatically “woke” or feminist. I generally disagree with accusing people of inserting politics unless someone has clear reason to suppose that was the motivation. In other words, never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance (I need to write an article on that maxim some day). In turn, I would recommend to anyone who accuses such of Amazon to be sure he is not inserting his own politics into Tolkien rather than defending Tolkien’s own views. I like to keep my politics and my Tolkien very separate. Therefore, in this discussion, the only thing that is important to me is whether Tolkien was in favor of or against women in battle.
C. S. Lewis, Tolkien’s close friend and the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, was clearly against women in battles, considering his rather… unpopular line in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where Father Christmas tells a nine-year-old girl that she is not to fight in an upcoming battle because “battles are ugly when women fight” (p. 160). With that in mind, I could understand the accusation of “wokeness” in the 2008 adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, as it presents Susan Pevensie taking part in battle multiple times, contrary to the views of Lewis. Whether we agree with this is beside the point, but these are the facts.
However, Tolkien almost certainly cannot have shared his views. For one thing, unlike Lewis, he was a Catholic, and therefore would have venerated Joan of Arc as a saint and believed she was asked by God to lead the French armies to victory (St. Joan was actually canonized when Tolkien was a young man in the year 1920 by Pope Benedict XV). Besides, there are plenty of females presented in a positive light who fight in battles in Middle-Earth, notably Éowyn, Emeldir the Man-hearted, Lady Haleth, and possibly Idril Celebrindal among others. This is rare, as it was rare in real history in the societies from which Tolkien took inspiration, but it still can happen and Tolkien was well aware of this. Therefore, whether Tolkien specifically intended Galadriel to be a warrior or not, it is not “woke” but at most an incorrect lore violation, of which Amazon has made many that clearly are not woke but simply poor decision making (I still cannot get over what they did with mithril…). Amazon’s intentions, whether “inclusive” or not, are none of my business nor concern, and I would rather consider the finished product. The sooner we can get past these things, the better, and let us consider what Tolkien actually said about Galadriel herself.
Before we get into the meat of this article, I would like to give a very brief history of Galadriel for context. Now, it should be noted that Galadriel (and Celeborn) have many inconsistencies and problems with their lore, more than any other major characters in the lore. However, I will give my brief and heavily condensed summary such as is consistent with the published Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion, but if anyone would like more information on this issue, I recommend The Silmarillion and especially The Unfinished Tales.
Galadriel was born in the West, the Undying Lands, Valinor, which was ruled by the Valar, Powers of Arda who aided Eru Illúvatar, God, in shaping the world. She was young and proud, a great athlete and lore-master. She was self-willed and dreamed of ruling far off lands, though deep down she was generous and good heart. Nevertheless, her proud and power-hungry nature won over, and she joined her uncle and “unfriend” Fëanor’s rebellion against the Valar, but then she turned on him once Fëanor committed genocide against some of her relatives so as to take their ships and sail to Middle-Earth. This was the Kinslaying at Alqualondë. But unwilling to turn back admitting defeat, Galadriel took the longer way to Middle-Earth with her uncle, Fingolfin, and her brother, Finrod, the hard way to Middle-Earth. There, she came to Doriath and met Celeborn who became her husband. She also met Melian, a Maia (basically an angelic being) who taught her many arts, which is where she seems to have learned some of her power as well as skills such as making lembas. At the end of the First Age in the War of Wrath and the overthrow of Morgoth, the ban from Valinor was lifted from exiles who had followed on the rebellion, save for a few of the chief actors, among whom was Galadriel, but Galadriel had replied proudly that she had no wish to do so because she did not want to admit having done any wrong and basically wanted to reign in Middle-Earth rather than serve in Valinor. She got her wish and apparently at least ruled three places along with her husband, Celeborn: Harlindon, Eregion (with Celebrimbor), and Lothlórien. However, around this time, it seems that Galadriel’s pride was gradually chipped away and she hungered for the West. It was actually not until a test was placed before her when the ban was lifted. The test appeared in the form of a little hobbit who offered her a ring of power—a Ring which could have allowed her to conquer the world. But she rejected it and, in her own words “passed the test”. This is the meaning of her words in The Lord of the Rings, “I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel.” It was only then when she could finally leave Middle-Earth and reunite with her kin.
This is a very brief summary, but now we know enough to move on, at least if one is familiar with The Lord of the Rings, and finally, we can move on to the question: was Galadriel ever a warrior? By this, I am using the word “warrior” broadly. I doubt she was a professional commander of armies, not at least as The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power depicts her. What I mean is that she may have fought in more battles than the average elven-woman and by choice rather than simply by necessity. By this broad usage of the word “warrior”, I would call Gandalf a warrior as well.
If the reader has followed this debate at all, he has likely heard this quotation from The Morgoth’s Ring:
“And the Eldar deemed that the dealing of death, even when lawful or under necessity, diminished the power of healing, and that the virtue of the nissi [Elf-women] in this matter was due rather to their abstaining from hunting or war than to any special power that went with their womanhood. Indeed in dire straits or desperate defence, the nissi fought valiantly, and there was less difference in strength and speed between elven-men and elven-women that had not borne child than is seen among mortals. On the other hand many elven-men were great healers and skilled in the lore of living bodies, though such men abstained from hunting, and went not to war until the last need.”
Morgoth’s Ring p. 213-214
In other words, the elven-women did not typically fight but they did occasionally in desperate times. Likewise, elven-men did not typically heal—unless they did, in which case they did not usually hunt or go to war. I would note that this superstition that hunting and war decreased the efficacy of healing was likely nothing more than a superstition because Aragorn was both a healer and a warrior at the same time. Elrond may not have been both at the same time, but he fought in the War of the Last Alliance and then was known as a healer by the Third Age. It also is made clear that there are some exceptions where the roles are reversed, such as men who chose to be healers. It only names elf-women who fight in dire straights, but seeing that it is juxtaposed with how elf-men are occasionally healers, it might just be a generalization rather than an absolute rule. With that in mind, I might read what Tolkien is saying as: Elf-men don’t typically heal wounds, except occasionally when they do, and Elf-women don’t typically hunt or fight, except occasionally when they do.
I do not know of any obvious statement that says Galadriel was a healer or a doctor in the way Elrond was. If the reader knows of any, feel free to place it in the comments. However, there is at least one well-known exception, that being Aredhel, Galadriel’s cousin, who was not a warrior but a great huntress. To quote the Silmarillion, she “was younger in the years of the Eldar than her brothers; and when she was grown to full stature and beauty she was tall and strong, and loved much to ride and hunt in the forests.” (p. 61)
Galadriel and Aredhel were more or less on the same level of the hierarchy of Elvish and specifically Noldorin royalty, so if one is going to argue that Aredhel can be a huntress because she is a princess, Galadriel could also easily be a huntress or a warrior as well for that reason. Further, she is specifically described in The Unfinished Tales as, “the greatest of the Noldor, except Fëanor maybe, though she was wiser than he” (p. 229) and in The Lord of the Rings Appendices, “greatest of Elven women” (p. 1082), so if there were any exception to this rule that Elven women do not fight, who is more likely than Galadriel?
But these are all circumstantial pieces of evidences. Is there anything more direct? As a matter of fact there are several. In The Shibboleth of Fëanor, quoted both in The Unfinished Tales and The Peoples of Middle-Earth, Tolkien explicitly states that, “Her mother-name was Nerwen (“man-maiden”), and she grew to be tall beyond the measure even of the women of the Noldor; she was strong of body, mind, and will, a match for both the loremasters and the athletes of the Eldar in the days of their youth.” (p. 229) Tolkien also said in one of his letters, “She was then of Amazon disposition and bound up her hair like a crown when taking part in athletic feats.” (Letter 348)
Galadriel’s mother called her “man-maiden”, so Amazon basically got Galadriel right in regard to physical prowess (and for those who call her “Guyladriel” or whatever to express their contempt, 1) as long as she has a body made for gestating rather than impregnating, she is not a guy because one’s sex is not dependent on personality, but 2) Galadriel’s mother said basically the same thing first, so Amazon technically got that right as well). It should be noted that a mother-name was a public name given to Elves by their mothers and typically had some prophetic significance. For instance, Fingolfin’s mother name was Aracáno, meaning “High Chieftain”, which I suspect prophesied that he would one day be High King, even though at the time there was no logical reason to predict it. With that in mind, I imagine Galadriel’s quality of being man-maiden would last longer than just her having liked sports in her youth when she still lived in Valinor before she left. Whatever it was, it was very important to her character. Also, it definitely was not only height because Galadriel was actually two inches shorter than the average Elven male. (see Unfinished Tales p. 286 and The Nature of Middle-earth, p. 194) Interestingly enough, that makes Celeborn unusually short.
So, from these two quotes, we can gather that she was at least of great physical prowess and an athlete. Obviously, however, not all athletes are warriors. That said, these words do at very least suggest that she could be a warrior and she would likely have the physical abilities to do so.
The description as being of “Amazon disposition” is also noteworthy. Yes, in context, Tolkien was talking primarily about her athleticism. However, Tolkien was a student of mythology and knew that the Amazons were a tribe of warrior women in the stories of the ancient Greeks. Further, as far as I can tell, every other time Tolkien uses the word “Amazon”, he is referencing a warrior-woman. For instance, when discussing a character, Haleth, and her people, who can be found in the pages of The Silmarillion, he says, “their chieftainess Haleth was a renowned Amazon with a picked bodyguard of women.” (The Unfinished Tales p. 377) Similarly, he actually says of Éowyn, “Though not a ‘dry nurse’ in temper, she was also not really a soldier or ‘amazon’, but like many brave women was capable of great military gallantry at a crisis.” (Letter 244)
Seeing that multiple times, Éowyn is described as a shield-maiden, “amazon” can only mean warrior-woman. Also, Éowyn was the lady who slew the Witch-king of Angmar, so if she was not an “amazon” while Galadriel was at least of “Amazon” disposition, that might suggest that having her as a warrior was in Tolkien’s mind, at least toward the end of his life (the letter where he describes Galadriel as such was written in the final year of Tolkien’s life). I would also note that Tolkien capitalizes the word “Amazon”, just as he does when describing Lady Haleth, which more plainly calls to mind the mythic people and therefore could more easily be read to read “warrior woman” than simply “athletic woman”. Even if I grant that this was in Valinor and there would not have been much in the realm of battles (although the one battle there was in Valinor, the First Kinslaying, she fought in, as I will get to in a moment), the fact that Tolkien is basically saying, In those days, Galadriel had the body and fitness of a warrior-woman is itself conspicuous, in my opinion. Yes, Tolkien uses the word in context of primarily talking about her abilities as an athlete, but it should be remembered it was a very short letter where Tolkien said this was very hasty, only three sentences long, and written six months before his death, so I doubt it was especially thorough. Therefore, I think it is very possible that the word choice likely signifies that idea was in the back of his mind for some point during Galadriel’s youth, though not explicitly stated. Obviously, this is not solid proof, but I do think it can fairly be added to the pile of evidence. But let us move on, as more is to come.
In the text of The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, “when the Shadow passed, Celeborn came forth and led the host of Lorien over Anduin in many boats. They took Dol Guldur, and Galadriel threw down its walls and laid bare its pits, and the forest was cleansed.” (LOTR p. 1094) It is also heavily implied she was present decades before when Sauron was driven from Dol Guldur, as supported by earlier in The Tale of Years, “The White Council meets; Saruman agrees to an attack on Dol Guldur, since he now wishes to prevent Sauron from searching the River. Sauron having made his plans abandons Dol Guldur.” (LOTR p. 1089) Galadriel was a member of the White Council and lived nearby, she presumably took part in casting out Sauron from Dol Guldur. Now, was this done primarily by magic? In my opinion, probably, at least originally in Tolkien’s mind. The former calls to mind the quote from the Silmarillion, “Then Lúthien stood upon the bridge, and declare her power: and the spell was loosed that bound stone to stone, and the gates were thrown down, and the walls opened, and the pits laid bare”. (p. 207) However, it should be noted that unlike Elrond, for instance, Galadriel and Celeborn were first invented in The Lord of the Rings. These characters first appeared here and therefore they may not quite reflect Tolkien’s final intent on the subject. Anyone who has read The Quest for Erebor, as found in The Unfinished Tales, will know that Tolkien is a master of retcons, so if Tolkien did have in mind Galadriel as a warrior later in life, I would not be surprised if he would have interpreted these words differently later on. That said, I have no proof for this.
A much more relevant line is found in The Unfinished Tales, which explicitly states that she fought in the Kinslaying of Alquilondë, saying, “she fought fiercely against Fëanor in defence of her mother’s kin, she did not turn back.” (p. 231) This is repeated in a later version, written in the last month of Tolkien’s life (a weird one where Galadriel is no longer a member of the rebellion against the Valar and Celeborn is a Telerin Elf named Teleporno or Telepornë) which says, “indeeed she with Celeborn fought heroically in defence of Alqualondë against the assault of the Noldor, and Celeborn’s ship was saved from them” (p. 232). Now, this is likely not just saying that she was using magic the way she likely was in Dol Guldur. This is before she went to Doriath and learned much from Melian. Also, magic is subtle in Middle-Earth, so it is not as if she is likely to be throwing fireballs. Also, most Elven heroes, even if they have powerful magic (other than Lúthien who is basically a demigoddess and therefore would not need one), still wield weapons (notably Fëanor), so Galadriel probably took up a sword. Further, the phrases “fought fiercely against Fëanor” and “fought heroically in defence of Alqualondë” suggests she was in the thick of the action rather than acting as a commander.
There are also a few other battles Galadriel probably would have fought in, including the Battle of Lammoth, where Fingolfin’s group was attacked by some orcs when they first came to Middle-Earth. It is only briefly mentioned in The Peoples of Middle-Earth, but she would undoubtedly have been present there. Also, according to Christopher Tolkien (our usual authority when J. R. R. has said nothing), “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.” (Unfinished Tales p. 233) Anyone who is familiar with The Silmarillion would be aware that this could easily place Galadriel in several battles—but as Christopher said, this is only an assumption.
To this, I anticipate the response that every single instance here is a dire straight, which is the situation where Tolkien says elf-women are most likely to fight. Let us focus on the Kinslaying of Alquilondë because that is the only time Tolkien explicitly describes it. Although it is possible that all Elven women fought in that battle, at least toward the end when they were getting slaughtered, Tolkien does not say so and in neither version does he say, “Galadriel fought with the other Elven women,” as I would expect him to do if that was his intention because as far as I can tell, the reference to the custom for Elven women to only fight in dire straights is fairly isolated and any reader is likely to link this back to what was said earlier in the same essay that Galadriel is physically strong, called “man-maiden”, and a great athlete. At any rate, Tolkien never said explicitly that all Elven women fought in this battle, so I suspect Galadriel joined much more quickly than others. It is also not as if Galadriel appears to have been living there (at least not in the original version) but was already “the only woman of the Noldor to stand that day tall and valiant among the contending princes, was eager to be gone.” (The Silmarillion p. 90) Hence, she was already not acting fully with the social norms of an elven woman prior to this point, which makes her later becoming a warrior. This, coupled with the “Amazon” line and the “Nerwen” line, in my mind easily paints a certain picture in one’s mind. Although nothing is stated definitively, I still think a strangely large number of pieces of evidence that are lining up, which would only be expected if “warrior Galadriel” were somewhere in the back of Tolkien’s mind.
Now, for completion’s sake, I probably ought to reference the quotation, “She looked upon the Dwarves also with the eye of a commander, seeing in them the finest warriors to pit against the Orcs.” (The Unfinished Tales p. 235) I agree this is not particularly strong evidence as the eye of a commander is obviously a metaphor. Further, this comes from Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn which, though undated, seems to be an early text. For instance, Celebrimbor is still an Elf of Gondolin and not the last descendant of Fëanor, and so it was clearly written prior to The Shibboleth of Fëanor where Galadriel is first text described as the “man-maiden” and described as having fought in the First Kinslaying, so if Tolkien did intend for Galadriel to be a warrior-woman, that was probably an idea that did not emerge until later. That said, I do see how some could read it as suggesting that Galadriel had military experience in the past, perhaps having been given her own regiment to lead as a “commander” when they first came to Middle-Earth and were attacked by Orcs at Lammoth. She was a leader of the Noldorin rebellion, after all. I am still not convinced by this, but I understand how it could support the theory. Another similar statement is found in Morgoth’s Ring, where Tolkien describes her as “the fairest of the house of Finwë and the most valiant” (p. 177) which does at least suggest the courage of a soldier, although whether she is or is not one is not said. In general, I think these are the weakest arguments and do not prove much, but the reader may make of it what he will. We might as well place it on the growing pile of evidence, little though this one might be.
Of course, I admit that any of these could interpreted differently, especially the last two I quoted, and frankly, if any one of them were solitary, I doubt I would make much of it, other than perhaps the detail about her fighting at the First Kinslaying. However, as it is, although they might not make foolproof evidence on their own, if we take it as a cumulative case, considering all these facts together, it certainly seems to me much more compelling as the fact that there are so many texts that could be read this way becomes stranger and stranger if we do not suppose that Galadriel was something of a fighter. Also, Galadriel’s backstory is highly conflicting on many details, but this sort of description only seems to have grown rather than diminished, as the last two quotes which I thought were weak seem to have probably been relatively early while the detail about her being the man-maiden and fighting at the First Kinslaying appears later on and was repeated (once in 1966 and once in 1973), which conveys to me that Tolkien did settle on these details for Galadriel definitively and doubled down upon it rather than moving away from them.
However, none of these are even the greatest evidence that Galadriel was a warrior in my opinion. The greatest, I think, comes once again from that final version where Galadriel was never a rebel and Celeborn was not a Telerin Elf named Telepornë. Now, obviously, this is not the favorite version of most Tolkien fans but I think it still tells how Tolkien saw Galadriel late in his life, and it shows how Tolkien saw Galadriel toward the end of his life, and this version is what convinced me that Tolkien was saying that Galadriel was a warrior, at least in her youth.
This is what it says:
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
Now, obviously Tolkien is saying they did not join a war. However, he follows this up with a reason and it is not that Galadriel is a woman but rather that she and Celeborn judged it to be hopeless under the ban of the Valar and without their aid. Why would he say this if there were no way Galadriel would fight anyway because of her femininity? Further, I would contend that these words directly imply that she would fight, at least in this final version, in the War of Wrath because then the Elves did have the aid of the Valar. Obviously, Tolkien never got a chance to update The Silmarillion accordingly, and I am rather glad about this overall because I much prefer Galadriel’s backstory as a Noldorin rebel who had to repent, but I imagine if he had, he would have likely drawn out the “Galadriel as a fighter” aspect much more throughout the First and maybe even the Second or Third Ages, though I have no doubt by the Third Age, she did so little if at all.
In conclusion, I think Tolkien probably intended Galadriel to be a warrior in a sense, although never a professional soldier. I suspect this idea was not, however, present in the composition of The Lord of the Rings, but neither were many other things, such as the origin of the Dwarves, which are accepted now within the Tolkien community and I suspect it grew in his mind, probably appearing at least by 1966 when Tolkien wrote The Shibboleth of Fëanor and almost definitely by 1973 when he introduced Unstained Galadriel. I also suspect she took part in battles less and less frequently as the history of Middle-Earth went along because most obvious references appear in the Years of Trees or the First Age. I have some problems with depicting Galadriel as a great commander in the Second Age, as Amazon is doing, most notably because considering that by the Second Age Galadriel was still apparently ambitious and power-hungry (as evidenced by her not returning to Valinor), she probably would not even agree to act as a servant to Gil-Galad, who was her younger cousin.
But before I end, I think I ought to address the question as to why so many people seem so immediately averse to Galadriel fighting in battle, because I myself was almost shocked when so many people became so angry in the name of alleged “faithfulness” to the lore (although, then again, people became angry about other strange trivialities such as beardless women and short-haired elves rather than more major things such as Celebrimbor and Isildur being contemporaries and Harfoots not being a breed of Hobbits but rather their “ancestors”). I think some people are too entrenched in Galadriel only being the ethereal, Marian figure we meet in The Lord of the Rings or worse, the creepy, untouchable, out-of-this-world Galadriel in the Peter Jackson films (I mean, let us be real: if it were not for Peter Jackson, no one would be overreacting so greatly over elves having had haircuts some time in their thousands of years of life). With all respect to Peter Jackson and Cate Blanchette, personally, I do not particularly like Galadriel’s depiction, just because she seemed too out-of-this-world and impossible to approach (her main method of communication to talk in people’s minds and once evaporating into thin air in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey), which did not strike me as fitting for a character inspired by Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother—nor indeed did it strike me as quite fitting for a character with as relatable a story as her own.
I was particularly interested in your remarks about Galadriel. …. I think it is true that I owe much of this character to Christian and Catholic teaching and imagination about Mary, but actually Galadriel was a penitent: in her youth a leader in the rebellion against the Valar (the angelic guardians). At the end of the First Age she proudly refused forgiveness or permission to return. She was pardoned because of her resistance to the final and overwhelming temptation to take the Ring for herself.
J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 320
As seen from the quotation above, Galadriel was not always a Marian figure. This is what irritates me so much about this discussion—it seems to leave out all the struggles it took to get to this point, from a young, proud, and ambitious Elf-maid, little more than a teenager in our understanding, to a woman of great stature, the greatest and wisest of the Elves in the Third Age. This is the meaning of this line of dialogue:
‘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!’
She 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. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. 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.’
The Lord of the Rings p. 365-366
By I pass the test, it is her way of saying “Look at how far I have come”. It was a long and complicated history that led Galadriel to this point, and frankly, I think it is a great disservice to the character if one only looks at Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings outside of the larger context. Once again, do I have problems with Galadriel depicted in Rings of Power? Many, and frankly I have given up on this series, but I am not going to object to a more ambitious or arrogant Galadriel in her youth—nor indeed more of a fighter.
Thank you all for being with me for three years!
I am the Chivalric Apologist
Chivalric Apologetics 