#it keeps both TROP and LOTR canon

[dadattebayo]

Hmm you made valid points. But I also wonder if, as an actor, he feels more pressure to maintain a certain image to not look like he's outwardly encouraging anything (we all know haladriel isn't exactly a healthy, wholesome, sunshine and rainbows ship). Maybe since the director is actually in control of the writing for the series, she feels more comfortable outright saying whatever she wants to say about Haladriel (both from Gal and Sauron's pov)? Idk, I'm just as confused as you are.

Maybe. Maybe he just truly doesn’t like the idea of them having feelings for each other because it is not canonical in Tolkien’s world. He’s in his right but it’s a weird situation if in the series they have been implying one particular position, but the actor now conveys the opposite one.

I actually liked his previous position when he said this ship was possible, because the time gap between TROP and LOTR was huge and many things could have happened with the characters so we could imagine anything and it would still fit the original story unless you mess up with the genealogy.

Basically he keeps saying this even now but with elements of mockery, like “fiiine kids do what you wanna do, but know it’s ridiculous”

[fatcatlittlebox]

I mean no offense, but I can't really see a flashback showcasing what you suggest. It would feel like a retcon a la soap. TROP does not strike me as that kind of show. As a show with a pre five-year-plan, we would have already seen Halbrand and Galadriel be intimate in season 1. I'm not denying that there will most likely be something big happening at the end of the season with Haladriel. I just don't see it being this scenario.

I’m truly not approaching this as a haladriel shipper in a tinfoil hat. It wouldn’t be a retcon because this show has already shown they like to employ this kind of storytelling device like in S1, ala Keyser Soze in the Usual Suspects: Where there’s a big revelation and the audience has to rewatch and reevaluate what they saw or think they saw and find the clues leading up to it.

First, Galadriel is acting specifically heartbroken. The tears, the denial. That’s not just the betrayal of a close friend. She loved him, romantically. That’s a short bridge to intimacy. Also, I think another clue is that Galadriel was so bent on no one finding out that Halbrand was Sauron. It was pulling teeth. Like, the shame of calling him friend should not have outweighed warning her people. Second, she seems fixated on the idea of facing him and killing him alone. She does not want anyone finding out the depth of their relationship, especially not Elrond.

A few things that the show has pointedly not touched upon (or barely) for canon Galadriel is Celeborn and Celebrian. These are 2 characters that absolutely need to make an appearance for the ROP to become integrated into LOTR’s timeline. I don’t think TROP Gal forgot (elves’ memory doesn’t dim right?). I believe the writers are keeping them in their back pocket for dramatic effect.

Furthermore, the writers aren’t just asking the viewers to rethink what we know about these characters. The show is putting the characters through their paces of having them reevaluate what they know and think about themselves and the very concept of good and evil, vices and virtues. Elrond’s journey in S2 is essentially parallel to Gal’s from S1. Both have/had a very stark, black and white idea of what good and evil are. Gal is different now because of what she has experienced with Sauron. Their bond has fundamentally changed her. What or who would be Elrond’s inflection point? Rob interestingly said this in a Collider interview

He says “anything.” Not just the rings. I think this alludes to a person or people. Whether that’s just Gal herself being tainted by Sauron’s influence or someone “created” as a product of that bond. So we know that Adar has made good on his promise that he caused a “woman” whom Halbrand loves pain — Galadriel. The other part of his prediction not yet fulfilled is “the child.” And I still think that’s Celebrian.

[conundrumoftime]

Cat, what do you think Galadriel’s role will be from now on? I’ve heard so many disheartening opinions that she’ll just settle as the wise and distant and passive Galadriel from the movies. While I’m afraid of that and don’t really trust tv writers anymore, I can’t see them going down this route so soon. They showed already they’re not giving into the tolkien bros, I don’t see why she wouldn’t keep her role as commander.

I love this question! I have been thinking about this so much. My short answer is that I don't think they'll do that. My longer answer:

I've talked before about how I think people are mistaken about where Galadriel's canon story ends up, and a short version of why I don't think TROP Galadriel will end up as the 'lady of light [passive, retired]' figure people remember is that she never really existed; even for film Galadriel, people are remembering a version filtered by pop culture history of a story where she's a minor character. (As are all the other powerful elves of Middle-earth at this point - Glorfindel, Elrond, Círdan - it's not b/c they've settled down and got married now, it's b/c this is the hobbits' story we're seeing through the hobbits' eyes and the big mythological figures need to take a back seat.)

So here's my predictions for what they will do with her story:

She'll still be a main character. It's an ensemble show, but they have set up a main antagonist and main protagonist and built the whole idea off one of her lines in LOTR about him.

Her temptation will continue to be linked to Sauron. Partly as a convenience of visual TV storytelling (harder to have her do a speech to camera about how she desires power and realms to rule in the abstract); partly to tie into what the show has already established for two seasons; and partly because the show does so love visual callbacks to the films, in which we get this Galadriel:

recognise the dress?

(second one there is the official concept art by Julian Gauthier. We had a whole year of people saying "her hand is NOT on her stomach as if she was pregnant in that scene, you foolish Haladriels!" and then this came out and who's laughing now, eh? Who's laughing now. Anyway!)

She'll play a role in the Battle of the Last Alliance. They might put her on the battlefield - Tolkien doesn't say she was there, but on the other hand Tolkien doesn't specifically say she wasn't, soooo - but I think it's more likely they will bookend that conflict with some other kind of confrontation, like a mindbattle raft vision during the fight. My bet would be they will also do something with repeated images of water/the sea/Nenya/calling back to what Peter Jackson called the 'drowned Galadriel' look and that we'll see that s1 raft again - the showrunners do love mirroring and repeating and echoing.

They will make Celeborn and their marriage interesting. I am less confident about this one because they certainly don't have to and it's always possible that they'll just parachute him in at the last moment like "yay! husband back now :) well done :) off you go back to the forest" and God only knows I've been burned before on interesting 'female characters + marriage = boring, lesser, unimportant' on TV shows. However! I have a reasonable degree of confidence, like say maybe 65%, that they will make him and their marriage interesting.

Celeborn is probably another post so short version of why is: she is still the main protagonist and him being back gives the writers the opportunity to show more of her journey, not because husband = destination but because you can learn a lot about characters in how they relate to loved ones; and they've set him up in a way that introduces conflict (where's he been, how have they both changed from the younger idealised versions of themselves they remember) that makes for good storytelling.

They will link her back to Numenor somehow for that storyline: again I'm less confident on this one and I have no clear ideas on how they'd do it, but it feels like too good an opportunity to pass up when she's already been there once.

Her storyline will have something about learning compassion and pity - which I think people do not like the sound of if (like me!) they like her angry and violent, but it is such a Tolkien-y thing and it's already been set up in what we have seen. Note: I don't mean this in a "she'll be sweet and calm and exist to pat the male characters on the head" way; I mean it in the sense we already saw in s2 with Adar. And who else did she have a really angry, inflexible, "nothing you do will ever be enough to be forgiven" line with in season 1? hmmm...

Her getting and learning how to use her Mirror will be a big thing in some upcoming season. It's such an intriguing question mark in canon - we don't really know anything about where she got it from, how it works, even how she personally uses it - but we know it's important in the future. They will definitely do something with this.

[vitaaeris]

I don’t know in which kind of reality people like y’all live, but in the the year I’ve been in TROP fandom I’ve seen nothing but Galadriel/Sauron fans complaining about the treatment of her character within season two. She has been bashed around by every male around her, forced to blame herself for having valid feelings towards the only person who didn’t actively try to shun her down and exile her to Valinor against her will, all the while cutting her from her canonical arc in Eregion where she was supposed to confront Annatar herself. You know who I haven’t seen complain at all whatsoever? Lore bros. They all agree this season was better, the season that removed every single female character role and sidelined them all completely to the men around them. While Disa was always a side character, Miriel, Nori and Poppy’s arcs have been absolutely slaughtered. You know who also cheered at the resolution of season 2? Oh yes, the so called “Celeborn fans”. You complain on how they gave Galadriel’s FOTR speech to Sauron — and while I do agree it can be criticized as a choice (despite being just an obvious attempt to reference LOTR) not only you’re actively ignoring how they repeated MULTIPLE TIMES Sauron did nothing but pull those words out of her, that desire for power is entirely hers and she admits it VERBALLY. Oh but no, you also actively ignore that the choice of becoming the so called “lady of light” was FORCED upon her. They belittled and bashed her for having those selfish desires, she didn’t make any of these introspection on her own will. For the love of God, they swapped her into all creamy and Madonna like clothes while she was UNCONSCIOUS. THAT IS TOO TAKING HER AGENCY AWAY. But we don’t care when it feeds the dutiful blessed wife bullshit don’t we? The “Celeborn fans” LOVE that the Mormons spent a year treating Galadriel like devil incarnate for having darkness and conflicting feelings of her own. They LOVE that she was bashed into being the “Lady of Light”. They all are there on twitter hoping Galadriel spends season 3 running away from the conflict to instead finding her husband, because wanting her cut as main protagonist and from the main plot of the story is incredibly feminist and not rooted in misogynistic ideals at all. It is “Celeborn fans” who keep on posting on TikTok how Galadriel, and I quote: “needs to be lady of light already, and having Celeborn and becoming a mother will help her in that” because god forbid she faces the villain of the story like all the men around her—NO! Let’s have her pregnant and giving birth in the midst of a war. Let’s bring up her malewife of a husband to attempt to tame her even though Tolkien never once dreamed of giving such role to that poor dude. Oh but Galadriel shouldn’t have a sword, Galadriel shouldn’t fight, Galadriel shouldn’t confront Sauron, Galadriel is emotionally cheating on Celeborn, Galadriel is a wh0re, Galadriel/Sauron fans (all women mind you) are all twisted p0rn - freaks (spectacular feminism there) and go on, this is all shit I’ve seen lore bros and these so called “Celeborn fans” (they don’t exist, none of these people actually care about Celeborn’s character) say.

Having the main female protagonist’s darkness being explored though the main antagonist is a narrative tool old as time, it’s basic gothic literature and women have every right to enjoy such themes as we are constantly bashed for not performing to evangelical ideals and standards.

There is a very good chance the Mormons will use Galadriel status as mother and married woman against her, just as they used everything against her in season two already, and people have every goddamn right to worry as there is enough precedents for this to get incredibly fucking bad. And yes, both Celebrian and Celeborn should have been in the show from day one, so that the former could have been explored as a character on her own (and her dynamic with Elrond) while the latter could have had an arc and exist without depending on Galadriel—and she would have been allowed to do her own introspection just as she does in canon. But no, none of it happen, Celebrian won’t exist as a person in the show, and people only want Celeborn back to spit on saurondriel fans, not because anyone gives a flying fuck about his character.

And mind you, season two is like this because Amazon shat their pants at the response of season one and their answer was to appease to lore bros. Mirdania is all that was left of Galadriel’s canon arc in Eregion, and the result was abhorrent.

You on the other hand need to pipe down instead of jumping on a completely valid and well needed analysis in how misogynistic both fandom and show have been. Attacking people assuming shit about them and their opinions while knowing NOTHING about them is incredibly childish and ignorant. You having a personal vendetta against a fictional ship is not our problem—especially when the post had nothing to do with ships to begin with—, so perhaps keep your hands for yourself instead of pointing a gun to the first person that ends up in your feed.

Post Scriptum

Miss me with the “toxic ships bla bla” bullshit, this is fiction, nobody gives an actual fuck. Galadriel isn’t gonna come to your house and give you a cookie for protecting her from big bad boy Sauron by attacking random girls on the internet. Get a goddamn job.

Misogyny disguised as an appeal to canonicity

I've seen many excuses in my life for excluding women from narratives. The latest? "Canonicity". This is how some fans — in their eagerness to appear cultured, demanding, or simply "protectors of the work" — hide a latent and ancient misogyny, painted in the colours of textual purism. The Rings of Power series, which dared to make Galadriel a warrior, complex, fierce and, above all, a protagonist, has become the target of the revisionist movement that calls for fidelity to the books only when it comes to men.

It's symptomatic. When we talk about bringing Celeborn into the series, we're talking about "fixing" Galadriel, it's not about deepening a relationship or enriching the world. It's about control. This cursed verb appears in whispers and between the lines of posts and videos: "Galadriel needs to be controlled", "she needs balance", "Celeborn will bring sobriety". And when they talk about balance, what they mean is: she needs to be pruned. Because an angry woman, wounded by pain, brave enough to defy Sauron himself, seems to bother more than the Dark Lord himself.

These criticisms are not innocent. They are symptomatic of a culture that only tolerates women when they are silent, when they are supporting actors, when they love and die for men — never for themselves. And that, for me, is at the heart of this disguised misogyny.

You want "canonicity" so much, but you forget the women who are part of the canon and are solemnly ignored.

Let's talk about Inzilbêth. She is the mother of Pharazôn, the man who defines the last and most tragic days of Númenor. But she's not just any mother. She is a descendant of the Faithful — of those who resist corruption. In a world where Pharazôn represents the pride and arrogance of the Númenorians, Inzilbêth could be a character of dramatic depth: a mother torn between love for her son and horror at the path he is following. She could be the voice of the past, of the ancient faith, of the warning against worshipping the Valar and Sauron himself. But she isn't even mentioned in the debates.

Erendis, Tar-Aldarion's wife, is another powerful figure who lies forgotten in the corners of the Unfinished Tales. She is an abandoned woman, scorned by a man whose nautical ambition speaks louder than any affection. Her story is a cruel mirror of what happens to many women in the stories of men: they are loved while they serve their plot, discarded when they claim their own space. And even though Erendis' timeline predates the events of The Rings of Power, she could be mentioned — as a symbol of the price Númenor has already exacted from its women. A legend told in the courts. A warning whispered on the island's street corners.

And if they really want to keep their feet in the "canon", why don't they talk about Lúthien? The woman who faced Morgoth himself. Who, together with Huan, the dog of Valinor, defeated Sauron. It's not fanfic: it's in the Silmarillion. But female figures are only remembered in fanart or in niche discussions, never clamoured for with the same force as Gil-Galad, Elendil, Isildur, Glorfindel, Anárion, Celebrimbor or even Celeborn. The logic is simple: when the past is male, it's glory. When it's female, it's forgotten myth.

And I'm not saying that the series is immune to criticism. It's far from it. It has problems with pace, the construction of certain arcs, and dialogue that sometimes sounds forced. But it's curious — or rather, revealing — that the most virulent criticism is directed at Galadriel. Not at Sauron, with his still nebulous motivations. Not the aesthetic choice of Númenor or the lack of exploration of certain cultures. Galadriel has become the scapegoat for a wounded masculinity.

The misogyny that hangs over these reviews is not just about what they say, but about what they choose not to say. I never see posts calling for more women in the series. Tolkien's world has incredible and fascinating women. They exist, they have always existed. The problem is that many of you never look at them with the same fervour as you do the warriors.

So, enough. No more pretending that this is about being faithful to the books. If it were, many of you would be asking for Inzilbêth, Erendis, Lúthien, Aredhel, Nienor, Berúthiel, Nimloth, Idril Celebrindal, Andreth, Thuringwethil. But no. You're asking Celeborn to silence Galadriel. You're asking for silence disguised as tradition. And that, my dear, is not Tolkien. That's misogyny.

It's not wrong to want to be faithful to the original material. But it's cowardly to use this as an excuse to erase female voices that were already there — in tales, appendices, half-forgotten stories. The series has a chance to do what many books, series and films have failed to do: give space to women as agents of their own history, and not just as a silent chorus for the tragedies of men.

I want female characters. May they come, with armour or without. With wisdom, pain, fury, tenderness or glory. But let them come.

I want to see Lúthien. I want to see Inzilbêth. I want to see Berúthiel. I want to see the women that Tolkien wrote about and that fandom insists on forgetting and erasing. Because, honestly, there's nothing more "canonical" than the pain, strength and light of these women.

It's time to put aside this lazy and selective reading of Tolkien. Middle-earth is too vast a world to fit only the mould of heroes in armour and beards. It has also been shaped by women — wise, brave, charming and tragic. They have names. They have a voice. They have history. And they deserve to be told and seen.

If The Rings of Power really wants to honour Middle-earth, it shouldn't bend the knee to misogynistic clamour disguised as purism. It should dig deeper, listen to the echoes of those women who are repeatedly forgotten — and let them shine through at last. Because fidelity to Tolkien's work doesn't lie in preserving the fragile masculinity of the fans. It's in recognising the complexity of what Tolkien built — including, above all, the female characters that many insist on ignoring.

And if that bothers you, perhaps the problem was never with the series.

@spatortlove @ffaleruv

[justacynicalromantic]

“What are you doing?” he begged again. She looked over at him, between messy strands of golden hair. A hard smile played at her mouth, the kind he’d only ever seen her give to him a very long time ago. When she had trusted him. “Sometimes to find the light,” she said, her words filled with the echo of bitter laughter, “we must first touch the darkness.” He threw his head back. “You reckless, senseless elf. There is no light where I am going. The only thing you’ll find in the Void is pain, and emptiness like you’ve never known.”

==/==/==

"The Lord of the Rings, who had been so many things and had so many names he barely knew what he was anymore, gripped her hand tighter. Whatever he was, he was hers to command, if she would finally accept it.

==/==/==

“I told you. Ours was no chance meeting. Not fate, nor destiny. Ours was the work of something greater. I just did not know what, or why, at the time.” He huffed a laugh. “Leave it to you, Galadriel, to convince yourself that you were always right in the end.” “That’s only because it turned out to be true.” He chuckled and nodded. “I suppose we shall see.” He shut his eyes. The darkness had almost consumed them now. “Do you think it will hurt? To be ensnared in darkness.” She took a deep breath. “No. It is only loneliness. You and I have been lonely many times. And this will not be one of them. It will be like… sinking in the sea.” “I never meant to let you sink. You are light, Galadriel,” he said softly, honestly. “You don’t belong relegated to the Void, forgotten in the depths.” “Then make sure I am not,” was the last thing she said, before the darkness took her mouth, and she was rendered silent for the next eternity. “I will,” he whispered. And the Void took him, as well.

This fanfiction is everything❤️❤️❤️😭😭😭