The Rings of Power has a Galadriel problem

Galadriel has been a particularly difficult character for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series so far. While readers of Tolkien’s work (the main book trilogy, its appendices, and everything else) know her to be one of the most powerful and interesting beings in Middle-earth’s history, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of PowerShe must also be compelling, but not fallible as an actor in TV shows. And so far it hasn’t managed to find a balance between the two.

While her moment-to-moment actions have been questionable in every episode, “The Eye,” the second-to-last episode of the season, felt like a culmination of all the disappointing and frustrating choices the show has made with Galadriel so far.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power episode 7.]

The Rings of PowerGaladriel was introduced to the audience as though her badassness were a preordained fact. It was assumed this was just something everyone knew, like the showrunners saying, “She’s Cate Blanchett from Lord of the Rings, you know her — she’s cool.” But the show never actually did any of the work to establish her competence as one of the world’s greatest immortal warriors or her credentials as one of the most brilliant and ambitious elves.

Instead, we get one troll fight in the opening to prove Galadriel’s martial prowess before the series begins its meticulous dressing-down, which includes: banishment from her people, almost dying in a storm and having to be rescued by a human, being rude and repeatedly mocked at Númenórean court, and finally having that same human teach her (an immortal elf!) Diplomacy, the art and science of conversation.

Photo: Matt Grace/Prime Video

One thing that she has right is her fury towards Sauron. Viewers who know the plot will know Sauron’s location and that he should be pursued. But because the show wants to hide his identity from the audience, it further undermines Galadriel’s character, without a single other success or victory to build her up. With the mystery of his sigil so easily solved in episode 3, it feels like Sauron’s continued omission simply adds to her long list of mistakes.

Galadriel’s constant defeats in The Rings of Power have left her mostly an embarrassment and a disgrace so far in the show’s first season. This would be a fine enough hole for a human character to dig themselves out of in a fantasy series, but it’s a profound waste to drag one of Tolkien’s greatest elves down to that level for no reason. Galadriel is being made relatable in its attempt to be a character. The Rings of PowerShe felt utterly useless, empty, and most importantly, incapable.

This has been a problem for many. The Rings of Power since its earliest moments, but it hit a fever pitch in episode 7 when Galadriel’s emotional journey seemed ready to reach a climax that (whether it was well earned or not) could have turned her character into something far more interesting. Following Galadriel and friends’ seeming victory at Ostirith, Mount Doom erupts, covering the surrounding world in fire and ash and bringing episode 6 to a close. When we rejoin Galadriel in episode 7, she’s covered in soot and grime, deliriously trying to sort through the chaos and death around her. Throughout the episode she reels from the confusion that results from winning a fight and losing a battle all at the same time — at least she does if we’re giving the script a little more credit than it deserves.

It should be a profound moment of realization that despite great deeds and single actions, evil does sometimes still win, in part because it’s larger than any single act or moment. The moment should be a repudiation of selfish, individualistic heroism, which we have seen in other shows. But that moment of realization never has a chance to arrive because we’ve never actually seen Galadriel do anything great or heroic.

Image: Prime Video

She took on a horde of “freed” orcs (who she threatened with genocide), but did so with an army of her own behind her. She hasn’t won any great battles that we’ve seen; she didn’t slay the sea monster after she jumped out of the elven ship bound for Valinor (something that could have gone a long way toward showing us just how badass she can be). She didn’t really convince Númenor to help the Southlands, and as we see this episode, she hasn’t even fully earned the trust of Elendil, her longest-standing ally in Númenor.

When the episode’s plot in the Southlands tears itself free from post-eruption grief, it seems for a brief moment that Galadriel is poised for another (better set-up) realization, this time about her relationship to mortality and how death more seriously affects those she’s now allied with. Even for someone who has seen countless deaths, this disaster is clearly on a larger, more permanent scale than Galadriel has ever seen, particularly when so many human and Númenórean lives are lost rather than the temporary end an elf in Middle-earth experiences.

However, none of these things ever happens. Galadriel never recognizes death as a permanent part of the lives of the people around her, or the idea that bravery could have greater meanings to the humans and Númenóreans than it has to the elves. Instead we get a hollow declaration of revenge and the promise of more armies — though it’s not clear who they want to fight, or what they’ll even avenge, since all the main characters seem mostly unscathed.

Galadriel is still not ready to make her mark. The Rings of Power, seeing her face the true limits of her supposed greatness as a warrior, or come to terms with what true sacrifice means in Middle-earth when it’s done by those who won’t have another chance, could have been a profound moment that helped breathe new and vibrant life into the corners of one of Tolkien’s most interesting characters. Instead, in the shadow of Mount Doom (and the newly christened Mordor), Galadriel remains revelation-less and exactly as boring as she’s been up to this point.