Galadriel in Rings of Power

The upcoming (September) release of Amazon's Tolkien Second Age series called Rings of Power is going to give us a younger version of Galadriel who is some kind of super-elf. 

She's always been described by Tolkien as a great warrior of tremendous power, but the Lord of Rings portrayal by Cate Blanchett showed a wiser and much older (many millennium older) Galadriel whose primary powers appear to be mental/magical.

Yet in the Third Age, she "slayed the dragon in command of the defense of Dol Guldur, Galadriel destroys the fortress."  Peter Jackson didn't show us that. Too bad.

But Tolkien has always made it clear that she was a great warrior, who stood as tall as a man and could defeat the greatest warriors in that universe. And in the past, she didn't always fight on the right side of history. 

The new series seems to have decided to put a fair bit of focus on the warrior Galadriel -- celebrating her physical power. The picture below shows her in a suit of armor with a great sword, and we know she was involved in many battles. And slaying a dragon is no small thing, let alone tearing a stone fortress apart. That almost gets her into the Kryptonian legendarium.

Personally, I'm looking forward to a warrior-queen kind of almost super-Galadriel in the new series, given we already know that elves are far, Far more powerful and skillful as warriors than humans and Galadriel is the second most powerful Elf who ever lived. Here's a pict from one of the studio publicity releases showing the actress, Morfydd Clark sporting Galadriel's famously blonde hair (which apparently is a wonder all of its own) and glad in a really interesting armor. 

Don't know about you, but I'm excited about seeing this version of Galadriel performing heroic feats. 

 

Shadar

Galadriel is one of my all time favourite female fantasy characters

And while I do like to imagine her having great physical strength and prowess, Galadriel's power came from her ring - Nenya.

It was with that, that she managed to destroy Dol Guldur.  As far as I can recall, though there are accounts of her being present in wars, she never physically fought.  Though I guess it is fun to imagine for sure

Seeing that pic of her, that's not the young Galadriel I personally imagine.  Galadriel is the epitome of beauty and grace, elegance and power.  That pic makes her look like a tomboy.

In fact, that pic is actually a more accurate representation of Eowyn.

But I take your point Shadar, Galadriel will always be one of my fav powerful women in fantasy  

Peace.

/K

P.S.  And Cate Blanchette is the one and only Galadriel.  Even when the inevitable reboot happens, no one will match her ethereal beauty and performance in the role.  When they filmed her last scene as Galadriel for the final Hobbit film, Ian Mckellen was there, even though he wasn't shooting that day, to see it   No one will ever replace her imo

That is a publicity pict of Galadriel as she’s going to be depicted in the Second Age (at least 3000 years before LOTR), not Eowyn. 

Amazon has chosen to make her much younger and involved in adventures and fighting and very much a warrior. There is some argument as to what she would  be depicted as after winding her age back a few millennium. Do Elves even change with age? In any case, they are going to depict her as much younger and apparently without all the wisdom she gained later.

She got on the wrong side of things as far as the Valar are concerned, and was forbidden to return to the Undying Lands along with the other elves. One image in the teaser trailer shows her climbing onto a raft made of broken wood after some shipwreck or disaster. 

This will not be the Galadriel that you know.  But I’m excited because they are going to depict her when she was rash and brash and prone to adventure and combat, which Tolkien had indicated she was in earlier ages. 

shadar

 

That is a publicity pict of Galadriel as she’s going to be depicted in the Second Age (at least 3000 years before LOTR), not Eowyn.

Yes I know, that is not what I was referring too though.  The armor and sword is more akin to what Eowyn would wear and look like, not Galadriel is what I was reffering too.

Galadriel, by accounts, was said to have a penchant for wearing white for example.

 Amazon has chosen to make her much younger and involved in adventures and fighting and very much a warrior. There is some argument as to what she would  be depicted as after winding her age back a few millennium. Do Elves even change with age? In any case, they are going to depict her as much younger and apparently without all the wisdom she gained later.

Rings of Power takes place in the Second Age, about 3000 years or so before LotR.  Galadriel is over 8,000 years old.  So really, she shouldn’t look THAT young, as she does in the photo.

She got on the wrong side of things as far as the Valar are concerned, and was forbidden to return to the Undying Lands along with the other elves.

She may have been prideful in her youth, but she was never forbidden from returning to Valinor (the Undying Lands).  If I recall, she was offered a chance to return because she did not take part in certain events.  Galadriel chose to remain in Middle-Earth.

This will not be the Galadriel that you know.  But I’m excited because they are going to depict her when she was rash and brash and prone to adventure and combat, which Tolkien had indicated she was in earlier ages.

I know it won’t be the Galadriel.  This is Amazon’s warrior princess Galadriel.  And the Galadriel that Tolkien wrote of, was always a great strategist. Her wisdom and advice helped a great many throughout the course of Middle Earth history. 

For example, she was one of the only people not to trust Sauron during that time. She also would not use her ring of power while the One Ring was at large.

In fact, her powers weren’t punching people in face or stabbing them with a sword. Her powers were magical in nature.  So much so that she was described as a being of great power, and the greatest of the Noldor (second only to Faenor).

Her powers were also generally protective in nature (helping her shield Lothlorien from evil for example).

Now to be fair, there is only the publicity stills and teaser-ish trailer to go on with regards to her. 

But based on that, as a fan of Tolkien and especially the character of Galadriel, this isn’t how I (or many other Tolkien fans I know) would have imagined her.

Would it be fun to see Galadriel kicking ass? Sure. 

But it isn’t the Galadriel Tolkien wrote about and what made her such a great and powerful character.

Peace.

/K

I understand where you are coming from, K. This will definitely not be LOTR and any shared characters (which could only be immortal Elves and Maiar) will get re-invented.

Tolkien wrote various things about the Second Age in both the Silmarillion and in Unfinished Tales (the second of which is arguably non-canonical given that Tolkien didn't finish those tales and he tended to revise things a lot before publishing), but it was more historical in context and mostly not fleshed out. 

Amazon needs to hang a lot of flesh on a few bones to create the basis for what will likely be the equivalent to a number of movies. Eight episodes of 1  or 2 hours each in the first season, and they are shooting season 2 and some say might go five seasons.

When it comes to new characters or the many characters they are inventing that never were in any Tolkien tale, that's not so terribly difficult. They have a lot of license to flesh them out. 

But Galadriel is a huge challenge. She was about 4000 years old in the Second Age, which itself was over 3400 years long. We've only seen her at the end of the Third Age, which was another 3000 years. So we are talking about Galadriel when she was 2000 years old or less.

Also, they are clearly going to compress most of the Second Age into their shows, and that's a big risk on its own, accelerating time like that. But with Galadriel, they are clearly going in a direction that's different from anything we've seen before. 

I think the entire series is going to be hugely controversial for Tolkien fans, but it could also be a lot of fun if we don't get hung up on the LOTR books or movies. I struggle with Galadriel given she was always prideful, but she learned wisdom over time. So how do they show her before she gained that wisdom?  

It seems their answer involves portraying her as a kick-ass warrior just beyond her teenage years (in human terms). That's a big change. And Tolkien placed Galadriel in Middle Earth for most of the Second Age, not on Numenor. 

But still, the idea of warrior-Galadriel dealing with the conflicts in Numenor is kind of exciting, even if it might be hard to swallow. This was before she had Nenya, before the Rings of Power were even made. Although it would make sense for her to be given Nenya near the end of the Second Age, at least in the Amazon story. Clearly the creation of the Rings will be a key part of the Amazon shows. 

By the way, when she crossed the frozen north with the second host of Noldor to populate Middle Earth, she was forbidden by the Valar to return. She earned the right to return eventually, but then chose not to, at least until the end of the LOTR when her powers (previously greatly augmented by Nenya) were diminished. 

The interesting part of all that is that Nenya was said to be incapable of conferring the power of battle or war or any kind of conflict. It could only heal and grow things. Which makes me wonder how she destroyed that dragon and Dul Guldur in the time between the Hobbit and LOTR timeframe?  Nenya should not have been useful for that.

Anyway, warrior-Galadriel in a fresh envisioning of the conflicts of Tolkien's Second Age could be a lot of fun. I'm excited and opening my mind to enjoy it, even if it clashes with the events at the end of the Third Age that we know so well. Adding potentially dozens of hours of new Tokien'esq stories with high production values is going to be great.

Shadar

I have no problem with you enjoying the show Shadar  

And I also get where you are coming from.  According to their licencing agreement, Amazon only have access to certain elements (Silmarillion is off limits for example).  As such, there will be indeed be a lot of "inventing" to say the least.

If we really want to delve into it though, part of the issue for me at least is, why does a female character need to act like a man to be seen as "strong"?  But I guess that is a discussion for another time.

And we'll have a clearer picture once the series airs.

Peace.

/K

One of my quibbles will be portraying Galadriel's height.

 "The Dúnedain said that her height was two rangar, or "man-high" – some 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm). However, Galadriel's most striking feature was her beautiful long silver-golden hair."

The average male Dunedain was very tall, their women somewhat less, but Galadriel could look the men levelly in the eye.

However, the actress who plays her is more than a foot shorter at 5'3".  Unlikely they will tweak every scene with her for the "hobbit" effect, where Jackson had to exaggerate how tall everyone else was to make the hobbits small.

So we'll have a fairly short Galadriel who is athletic beyond human or even elvish standards. IIRC, her stunt double is the woman who doubled for Alicia Vikander in Tomb Raider -- very lean, tight and muscular. That's who we will see in the most dramatic action/fighting scenes.

Shadar 

Yes another defining feature of Galadriel was her size. 

I didn't realise the actress playing her in the series was so short lol    Guess another example of how much they care about actually adapting Tolkien

I think I will take your advice Shadar, and just take it as something not related to Lotr or Jackson's movies (which they can't refferece apparantly under the licencing agreement).

I shall call this series Bore of the Things - Gold Circles.    Should be a blast to watch like that

Agree with what you say about the action scenes. It will most likely be the stunt woman (Elissa Cadwell if anyone is interested) doing those.   Who stands around 5'10" so def closer in stature to Galadriel.



Peace.

/K

I prefer to look at this as Galadriel from an alternate universe, which is essentially true. 

She was born in Valinor in the Time of the Trees, before the sun and Moon and stars had been created. She was of the Noldor, the Elves First Born, at a time before Men had awakened and before Dwarves and Orcs and many other creatures existed. Back when the only light in the world came from the Two Trees, and the world was flat, and the map looked very different than it eventually will in the Third Age of the world. Back when the wizard who would someday be called Gandalf was studying at the knee of the Valor, and serving them, never wanting to leave Valinor. 

She lived through the reshaping of the world (Arda) into a globe late in the Second Age along with the destruction of Numenor and most of the works of Men. She'd earlier lived through the battles against the Big Baddy of Tolkien's legendarily, Morgoth, back when he gathered a group of Maiar to him and made them Balrogs. That and created dragons. 

In the Second Age, Morgoth's former discipline, Sauron, is imprisoned with the Dunedin on Numenor to be rehabilitated. But they do not fear him. He was beautiful and wise and a really cool guy to hang out with, which was why he was able to whisper traitorous thoughts (regarding the Valar) into both Dunedin and Elven ears. As a Maiar, he had skills that nobody else did, leading to the making of the Rings of Power, which everybody thought was a great idea at the time (they didn't know he'd made the One Ring for himself). 

Somewhere along the way, Galadriel learned the art of foresight and how to listen to what was in other's hearts and minds -- along with the power to communicate telepathically. 

My expectation of the Amazon series is that it will feature the parallel stories of Sauron and Galadriel in SA2, and I would not be surprised if she's the only one who knows what is truly in Sauron's mind as he seduces everyone else. But, of course, she's a woman, so the Men and Elves in power don't listen to her. 

Why she's wearing armor and carrying a huge sword in the early publicity photos is unknown. Nor how she wound up as a castaway on a raft with a Dunedain man (how'd you like to be lost at see with only Galadriel for company?), unless that was during the destruction of Numenor when the supreme being Eru decided to clean house after they disobeyed him. (Tolkien had a very Catholic view of the world.)

If Sauron changed appearance and behavior so dramatically, then it's not hard for me to believe that Galadriel did too.  We know that her one desire was to have a land of her own, a "kingdom" if you will, where she was the absolute ruler and beholden to no one. But not as a tyrant, but in order to create a perfect place of beauty and health and peace for its population of Elves. And in SA3, she had the ring Nenya to greatly aid her. Ultimately, after some disappointments, she and her husband Celembor created Lothlorien. This had long been her goal. 

Remember also that Galadriel and Celembor's daughter, Celebrant, married Elrond in Rivendell and they had a daughter named Arwen who comes into the later story as the love interest of Strider/Aragorn, a Dunedain man from the North, and she gives up her immortality to live a mortal life with him. But they couldn't marry until Aragorn had united all Men into a single kingdom that he ruled as King. After destroying Sauron. Getting permission to marry Galadriel's granddaughter was no small thing. But imagine what a wonder that was!

So... as I see it, the show runners can take a lot of liberties as they show the stories of Sauron and Galadriel and others so many years before the LOTR stories that we know. 

At least, that's how I think about it. (And excuse me if I got any of the legendarium wrong here. I'm a fan of everything Tolkien, but I'm only a minor scholar and prone to mistakes of memory.)

Shadar

Your summation seems pretty acurate (nice to have a fellow fan of the legendarium rather then just the books )

Viewing this as an "alternate universe" is probably what I am going to look at it as as well tbh.  

The production is pretty hampered with what they can refer too under their licence agreement, but they do have access to a fair bit.  They don't have access to The Silmarillion, so most of this stuff is drawn from appendices and other sources.

My expectation of the Amazon series is that it will feature the parallel stories of Sauron and Galadriel in SA2, and I would not be surprised if she's the only one who knows what is truly in Sauron's mind as he seduces everyone else. But, of course, she's a woman, so the Men and Elves in power don't listen to her.

I'm willing to bet this is 100% true and agree with you totally.  Which is not actually outside cannon, as she was one of the few who did not trust Sauron (Annatar I think was his name at the time, though I may be mistaken).

Her on the raft is highly likely to be the sinking of Numenor (her stunt double was injured during the filming of this scene, if i remember right).

I'll probably do what I did with Wheel of Time.  Watch the first episode, and if it sucks, I'll stop. Simple as that tbh.  So many other series to watch, not gonna waste time on this.

The books will be there forever so can always go back and read them.

Peace.

/K

wrote:

Your summation seems pretty acurate (nice to have a fellow fan of the legendarium rather then just the books )

Viewing this as an "alternate universe" is probably what I am going to look at it as as well tbh.  

The production is pretty hampered with what they can refer too under their licence agreement, but they do have access to a fair bit.  They don't have access to The Silmarillion, so most of this stuff is drawn from appendices and other sources.

My expectation of the Amazon series is that it will feature the parallel stories of Sauron and Galadriel in SA2, and I would not be surprised if she's the only one who knows what is truly in Sauron's mind as he seduces everyone else. But, of course, she's a woman, so the Men and Elves in power don't listen to her.

I'm willing to bet this is 100% true and agree with you totally.  Which is not actually outside cannon, as she was one of the few who did not trust Sauron (Annatar I think was his name at the time, though I may be mistaken).

Her on the raft is highly likely to be the sinking of Numenor (her stunt double was injured during the filming of this scene, if i remember right).

I'll probably do what I did with Wheel of Time.  Watch the first episode, and if it sucks, I'll stop. Simple as that tbh.  So many other series to watch, not gonna waste time on this.

The books will be there forever so can always go back and read them.

Peace.

/K

I had my doubts about Wheel of Time too, and gave up on it early a couple of times, but I eventually returned to watch and have become a bit of a fan. It just took me a while to get into their version. It's a good story either way, and I liked the scenery and feel of the show and some of the actors as well. 

What seems clear is that the easiest path to enjoying these bigger productions is to not have a lot of prior experience with the books. That's a shame, because I like books. But the movies can also be seductive. 

In Galadriel's case, I didn't like Cate's portrayal in the LOTR movies at first because my vision of Galadriel from decades of reading the books was different. But now, she IS Galadriel, and I can't even recall or recreate the vision I had of her before the movies. But I'm OK with that because Cate and PJ did a great job with her.

It's possible that might happen again with the Amazon series too. Our brains (mine, anyway) tends to override old content with new over time, especially if the new is done very well. Maybe that's because I'm old or maybe its normal. I also have to admit there are places in the LOTR movies where the scenes are done better than Tolkien wrote them. Arwen meeting Aragorn and hobbits in the wild instead of Glorfindel was a terrific scene, especially the horse race and the way she turned the Nine back at the Ford. THAT was what I'd expect of Galadriel's granddaughter. But obviously, some other scene are vice-versa on that. 

I am presuming that Rings of Power, given the unprecedented budget of around a billion dollars and Bezos love of Tolkien, is going to be lavish and impressive as hell... for everyone but the purists. Between that budget and the vast improvements in graphic arts and CGI since those movies, it should be awesome. And at least in this case, we won't be able to compare the show directly to the books, scene by scene, given Tolkien didn't write any novels set in SA2, and left behind only a sketchy and inconsistent history about that time. 

And let's face it, turning away from the Valor and then having your entire island and a good chunk of Middle Earth destroyed and sunk into the ocean in Atlantian style is a pretty dramatic story. Not to mention the seduction by Sauron and the forging of the Rings. Potentially a lot of power in those stories. 

Shadar

For me, Wheel of Time just did not stick.  I haven't read the books so went into it with no expectations.

I found it to be pretty "cheap" looking given how much they spent on it.  And outside of Pike, I didn't know any of the actors. Nor really thought they or their characters were any good.  I do have friends who have read the books. They say it is a great story, but the show is nothing like the books.  Might have to give it a read instead.

I know what you mean about Cate and her role as Galadriel.  Considering it was her real breakout role (she had only really done Elizabeth couple years before that), she absolutly nailed it imo. Just like Lynda Carter will always be Wonder Woman to me, Cate will always be Galadriel.

The Ford of Bruinen scene in the LOTR films was indeed outstanding, and far better then the books.  Its probably one of the few examples of that, but it is a great example.  Sure Jackson made changes, but they weren't sweeping changes, and stuck really close to the books.  There are fans of the books that hate the films to be fair, though I don't really see why.  But each to their own.

The Silmarillion, as you know, was never meant to be published.  It was Tolkien's scratchboard of sorts, where he would plan out what and why things in Lord of the Rings happened.  So its understandable that there aren't any "real" stories based in those ages.  You kind of get snipets of legends, history and such.  And it is a fascinating read (as is the series History of Middle Earth that chronicles the creation of the saga).

The problem that Amazon have, unavoidably as they go down this road, is they will NEVER be able to come up with stuff as good as Tolkien.  Some of the best fantasy writers today, who have sold millions of books, have said they can never match Tolkien.  And these are good writers.  They say he was simply better.

Kind of how Benioff and Weiss had with GoT.  When they ran out of Martin's books, the series really tanked and fell off a cliff at the end.  Though to be fair, Martin is partially to blame for that.  He STILL hasn't finished the series, and to be honest, I don't care if he does anymore.  Its been so long since I read A Dance with Dragons, I've forgotten what happens lol

Your idea of viewing this LOTR series as a seperate universe is certainly a way of looking at it.  My brain can't work like that.  I would rather they just made it as its own series.  Of course, that would mean sacrificing the built-in audience, and be more of a risk. But I think it would be a better approach, and would certainly be cheaper (you don't need to buy rights for example).

As an example, take the Ghostbusters 2016 female "reboot".  If it didn't have the Ghostbusters tag, but was instead about these female paranormal investigators, I would bet it would have been better received.  There are other examples you can cite, but that seems the most stand out.

Problem is, creatives today have zero talent to do that kind of thing.  They can't create.  They can only take and regurgitate. 

At least imo.

Peace.

/K

wrote:

Problem is, creatives today have zero talent to do that kind of thing.  They can't create.  They can only take and regurgitate. 

At least imo.

Peace.

/K

We are totally in sync on this. My belief is that the Internet, which was supposed to enable and free us, to make all information available to everyone, has turned out to suck creativity and motivation from people. Not everyone, but seemingly most. 

When there was no screen to stare into, people used their imaginations and their hands to make things -- and wrote things that they'd spent incalculable amounts of time thinking about -- because they had the time and a need to fill that time in useful ways. 

I've found this myself in years past. Disconnect completely from the Net for a couple of weeks, and it's amazing how your mind blossoms to invent, imagine and fill up that space. 

In contrast, enabling conversation on subjects of interest is one thing the Net did right. This thread is an example of something that was harder to do in the 60's when I first started reading Tolkien. If you lived in a big city, you could find groups that met to talk Tolkien, but I lived in a rural/small town environment and there was nobody to talk to about it. I was once told (and not in a friendly way) that only Hippies read Tolkien, by way of explaining why I shouldn't given I wasn't.  

Anyway, for this reason or others, a lot of creativity, and the best of it, seems to have mostly drained out of the world. Either that, or I don't recognize it anymore. 

Shadar

Here's another picture of young (by elf standards) Galadriel in Rings of Power. YMMV, but this works for me. Inexperienced, hot tempered, strong enough to effortlessly swing that massive sword on her back, and on some kind of perilous adventure (or so I guess from what I've read). Utterly confident in defeating any enemy. 

 

​​​​​​​Shadar

shadar wrote:

Here's another picture of young (by elf standards) Galadriel in Rings of Power. YMMV, but this works for me. Inexperienced, hot tempered, strong enough to effortlessly swing that massive sword on her back, and on some kind of perilous adventure (or so I guess from what I've read). Utterly confident in defeating any enemy. 

 

​​​​​​​Shadar
 

Great picture! She looks beautiful, powerful, determined.

AUphoric wrote:

shadar wrote:

Here's another picture of young (by elf standards) Galadriel in Rings of Power. YMMV, but this works for me. Inexperienced, hot tempered, strong enough to effortlessly swing that massive sword on her back, and on some kind of perilous adventure (or so I guess from what I've read). Utterly confident in defeating any enemy. 

 

Shadar

 

Great picture! She looks beautiful, powerful, determined.

If there is such a thing as a Super-Elf, then she's it. When he saw her portrayal in LOTR, she was very old (not that she looked it) and very wise, her power amplified by her ring of power. But here she has no ring. But she still has the magic of the original elves, and a great deal of physical power. 

It will be interesting how the Amazon show portrays this, given it appears likely that a significant portion of the show is going to deal with Galadriel and her actions... and of course, her prowess.

But we won't know for sure until the Fall.

Shadar

The entire conversation is quite interesing, and I thank both of you for all the details shared so far. I read the LOTR trilogy many years ago, and don't recall that much about Galadriel. But then, there's a lot of it that I don't recall right now. I made a brief attempt to read the Silmarillion, got bogged down and gave up. Never knew of Unfinished Tales before today.

I agree with the thoughts about the Internet. When it was new to most people, in the early 1990's as I was just out of college, it was full of little niche sites to enjoy specialty conversations like this. I think a lot has been lost as giant algorithm-driven surveillance advertising machines, like FB, Big G and Tweezer, have captured the public attention. I'm very pleased to have found this site, and to participate in ongoing shared storytelling for the joy of creative thinking in a fun way.

shadar wrote:

AUphoric wrote:

shadar wrote:

Here's another picture of young (by elf standards) Galadriel in Rings of Power. YMMV, but this works for me. Inexperienced, hot tempered, strong enough to effortlessly swing that massive sword on her back, and on some kind of perilous adventure (or so I guess from what I've read). Utterly confident in defeating any enemy. 

 

Shadar


 

Great picture! She looks beautiful, powerful, determined.

If there is such a thing as a Super-Elf, then she's it. When he saw her portrayal in LOTR, she was very old (not that she looked it) and very wise, her power amplified by her ring of power. But here she has no ring. But she still has the magic of the original elves, and a great deal of physical power. 

It will be interesting how the Amazon show portrays this, given it appears likely that a significant portion of the show is going to deal with Galadriel and her actions... and of course, her prowess.

But we won't know for sure until the Fall.

Shadar

I would say further that we are dealing with Amazon, who has brought us The Boys. So they are not at all shy from a network perspective about developing characters with great physical power. But ROP will, of course, be a show for all ages. On the other hand, they have hired an Intimacy Consultant (who knew there were such things?!) to help with intimate relationship portrayals. 

Tolkien's idea of Galadriel's power was not that it was physical power, but mental and magical and ring-enabled. But elves are stronger than Men. But he didn't rule anything out. After all, she did utterly destroy the stone fortress at Dul Gur, and while I'd like to think she smashed many of the walls down with her fists or kicks, there is nothing in Tolkien that provides any detail. Just that she used her "power" to destroy it. Most Tolkien scholars believe that was the power of her ring or other magic she possessed, but nothing rules out her having greater physical power than Men as well.

I think Amazon will portray her as having some level of superstrength, given all the armor and swords leading the charge kind of images we're seeing.  

Also, given that Amazon is going to necessarily take many liberties with Second Age characters and events given Tolkien wrote very little about such details for that Age, we don't know how much the current Hollywood fascination with superheroes will bleed over into Galadriel. As a Tolkien fan and also a fan of various flavors of female superhumans, I'm hoping they DO blend a little of that together.

But there are many in the forums who strongly disagree with "Galadriel the warrior woman" model. Many were introduced to Galadriel through Cate Blanchett's portrayal in LOTR.

If they could create ROP Galadriel as a blend of 1) LOTR Galadriel portrayed by Cate, 2) Joan of Arc in armor leading everyone into battle,  3) Red Sonja for her superhuman skill with blades along with 4) Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel from the Hobbit.  (And a little bit of Supergirl, but I digress. Sorry.)

In any case, they'll have uncounted hours over likely many seasons to develop her character. I personally would like to see her start off as brash and head-strong and fearless while projecting this extremely physical persona of power, but through the course of many episodes, she'll gain wisdom and will change slowly so that by the end of the series, she'll be closer to Cate Blanchett's Galadriel. 

Shadar

they have hired an Intimacy Consultant (who knew there were such things?!) to help with intimate relationship portrayals.

Maybe their work is from word of mouth referrals.

The first episode is live on Amazon.   Galadriel kills a snow troll

(Note: minor spoilers if you haven't watched yet)




I've always seen Galadriel as a superheroine, given she's a very powerful Elf, and elves are superhuman in many ways. But Rings of Power elevates her to superheroine in every way. Starting with her being anguished over her brother's death, driven to find and expose the evil of Sauron when everyone else thinks he's gone forever, she's on a quest that the rest of her people and her King have abandoned. So she's got the inner angst and unstoppable drive of a modern superheroine. And as the brief video clip below makes clear, she's far more powerful and assured as a warrior than the elf warriors she's traveling with (and they are greater than any Man and presumably great even as Elf warriors). If she can make easy work of a troll, without breaking a sweat, almost playing with him, then she can handle anything short of a Balrog and maybe Sauron himself. In the Jackson movies and the books, trolls were nearly impossible to kill even with the entire Company fighting it.

And being uber-blonde and gorgeous, her hair reflecting the rare light of the Two Trees, born in Valinor and almost godlike, or so Tolkien described, she tickles all my fantasies. Especially when she refuses as the last moment to return to the light of Valinor with the rest of her company to live in peace and harmony, and instead remains in Middle Earth to fight evil.  

I'm also very pleased with the Harfoots, who are Hobbit-precurors/ancestors. I hadn't expected this much focus on them, and I'm thrilled they will once again occupy a large space in the story. And what is a Tolkien story without 'hobbits' as unexpected heroes? 

It's too early after only one episode to judge many other things, but I'm truly pleased to see the actors and characterization broadened beyond Tolkien's and Jackson's Anglo-Saxons. Tolkien was a Professor of Anglo-Saxon language and culture, so he wrote what he knew. And remember, he wrote his books in the 1930's and 40's. I think ROP is a major upgrade in realism. So that's a plus. 

The trolls out there will, of course, savage anything that's different than the Jackson movies, and that's fine. I pay no attention. But for my money, EP1 is very encouraging. I'm forcing myself to rewatch EP1 tonight and then wait a few days before starting on EP2 to minimize the gap until another EP3 drops in a week. I have to remind myself that this is just 1 out of 50 episodes planned, and is spending a lot of time world-building out of necessity. 

This is likely to be a great and very long story. 

And... coming as it did a week or two after the Game of Thrones prequel series began, which is also very entertaining, I've finally got a few years of total enjoyment cued up from those two series, and perhaps some of the best television ever. So much better than the crap I've had to endure the last few years. As a High Fantasy fan, this is the best it's ever been for me.

How great to have lived long enough to see both of these storylines/worlds come back in such excellent form. 

(Now if we could just get a truly good Supergirl movie while I'm still breathing, my fantasy viewing will be complete. Never give up!) 

Shadar

I want this new Tolkien show to do well and be a good show. I plan to start watching it sooner or later. I read LOTR and Hobbit many times when I was young. Always loved them. Loved the movies, although that last Hobbit movie was kinda bla. I remember picking up the Silmarillion when I was in High School. I could not get through all the dates and names. Ironically, a free sample book that I received when I bought that book turned into my new love after LOTR. It was the first half of the first Wheel of Time book. If you do not know WOT and have not read it, this new Amazon show is probably not bad. I can see good in it if I watch it with a perspective without knowing the books. But I have read all the books in the 14 book series multiple times. I was in the US Navy before smart phones and I read a lot back then. This Amazon series has almost nothing to do with the books other then a general world building similarity. Some of this was predictable to me as some of the ideas in the book are almost impossible to but onto the screen, and they have to cut back some on the places they go for budget reasons. But they skip so much, change so much, and make up from no where way too many things for me to enjoy. I have to keep watching it to see what they do with it, but I am not enjoying it. This worries me with Rings of Power. But I am a fan of powerful women, why I am here of course. But I like it when it makes sense, in as much as a Supergirl can make sense. But given her character and powers, it has never been my understanding that elves, even the elders, were just really strong for humans without being big along with some other powers and abilities. I am not a big fan of mary sue type characters either. But, like She Hulk, I hope it is at least worth watching and entertaining. That is mainly all I want, good entertainment. And like Shadar said, I am still waiting for a truly good Supergirl movie. ONE DAY!

The first two episodes have done the essential work of setting up the many parallel story lines in the Second Age. That will continue in Episode 3, after which I expect we will see the deepening and eventual intersection of many of these story lines. A 50 episode story, equal to perhaps 25 feature-length movies, takes a bit of work to create enough different story lines to make it rich enough. 

I was most impressed by Kazad-dum, which is far more impressively presented than I ever imagined it could be, and I have a pretty good imagination. The contrast of a ruined, evil and deadly chasm under the mountains in LOTR is contrasted to its bright vitality in the Second Age and the amazing work of the Dwarves.

I choose to interpret this as "Tolkien-adjacent" writing, which borrows much of Tolkien's world as it presents stories that are very different than the ones the old Professor wrote, but possibly even more interesting and definitely more expansive given the size of the story-space we saw in LOTR.

And like Tolkien, they are giving a lot of space to the 'little people', except that while Tolkien told his story mostly from the perspective of the least knowledgeable narrator, this one is being told both from that perspective and also from the highest point of power and knowledge, in this case Galadriel and her King, not to mention a young Elrond. Not sure how that is going to work out, but should be interesting. 

I give it 8 / 10 stars at this point, and we are just starting to move beyond the initiation of the various story lines.  As we go deeper into each storyline, and see them starting to converge, that's when I expect Rings to come fully into its Power, and might perhaps earn more stars. 

Shadar