We are all mad here

#Tyler “ You Didn’t Have to Do All of THAT ” Galpin

"Don’t be afraid. Just remember what I taught you and trust your instincts. I know you can do this."

To make sense with the Tolkien canon they are building on. 

The “Rings of Power” show producers were inspired by the chapter “The Mirror of Galadriel” in the book “Fellowship of the Ring” (Part I of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy) to create the show itself, and the connection between Galadriel and Sauron: him grouping her mind nonstop, her being able to look inside his mind, etc. 

In the book, this scene goes pretty much like in Peter Jackson movie: Galadriel shows Frodo her Mirror, he sees visions on the Mirror, they talk about Sauron, Frodo offers her the One ring, and Galadriel declines, passing “the test” at last, and getting the Valar’s pardon to be able to return to Valinor (she was banished). Peter Jackson left out the part where Samwise Gamgee was also there, and that Sauron was always grouping Galadriel’s mind.

Dark!Galadriel

Tolkien gave us a description of Galadriel “dark form” in this chapter (in that context, this is what would happen if she took the One ring):

[she] stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. 

I already explained how Peter Jackson took this up a notch on his adaptation.

"I Wanted What He Offered"

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!

These are Halbrand/Repentant Mairon's words: this was his offer to Galadriel in 1x08.

I would make you a queen. Fair as the sea and the sun. Stronger than the foundations of the earth [...] No. Not dark. Not with you at my side. You told me once, that we were brought together for a purpose. This is it. You bind me to the light. And I bind you to power. Together, we can save this Middle-earth.

But this is not Dark!Galadriel, as many assume: this is Queen Galadriel with redeem Mairon, her king consort, by her side, and ruling over Middle-earth. There is no darkness in this vision.

Sauron himself confirms this was his (previous) intention, in 2x08:

I would have placed a crown upon your head. I would never have rested until all Middle-earth had been brought to its knees, to worship the light of its Queen.

Here’s the catch: if Galadriel is using Mairon’s words (1x08) and putting emphasis on “And I shall not be dark”... why is she taking on a “dark form” in the next minute?

Mind you, only Frodo is able to see this form, because he has the One ring; in the book, Sam is also there, but he cannot see it.  

Passing the Test

Here, the “test” Galadriel is talking about is her letting go of her power thirst, and resisting her desire to take the One ring for herself.

However, “Rings of Power” has built upon this canon, already, and had her desire for power and for Sauron to be one of the same. So: can her “passing the test” have another meaning, too? Can this imply she has failed “the test” before? 

We are already saw Galadriel rebelling against the Valar and refusing to return to Valinor (accepting their pardon) in Season 1 of “Rings of Power”, like Tolkien described. However, the show has yet to mention the little detail that she has been banished from ever returning to Valinor. In the lore, this is due to her pride, her rebellion against the Valar and her thirst for power (by refusing them, and staying on Middle-earth because she wanted her own kingdom and to rule).  

The Wound aka Blood Binding

I already talked about this several times: Here, here, and here.

Adar: Sooner or later he [Sauron] sees you… His eye bores a hole, and the rest of him slithers in. For a while he even lets you believe that his power is yours. Irresistible power… that makes every desire’s fulfillment seem inevitable. An ocean of color against which everything else feels forever thereafter… Adar and Galadriel discuss their ex, Sauron, 2x06

Sauron is there to bind himself to Galadriel, no matter what. In his mind, she belongs to him. He can feel her love for him (Halbrand): I see you. I know your mind. He knows that she wanted to accept his offer. And that's what he (the "sharer of gifts") gifts to her: Sauron’s gift to Galadriel is himself, by having them binding together. This was his twisted way of saying: “You are mine, and I’m yours. Now and forever.” 

She refuses until the bitter end, and says “the door is shut”. Then, Sauron kicks that door wide open by having them binding together (by blood) using Morgoth’s crown (who already has his own blood on it):

This is the scene that starts Sauron's “grouping” of Galadriel's mind for thousands of years to come (not her “closing the door” on him, like everyone thinks. Are you all for real? Are you aware of just of powerful Sauron truly is? You think her saying a few words can stop him?).

What Sauron did is irreversible, too. And that’s why she will have to find a way to “close the door” in the future (through magic, not mere words). Galadriel needs to become the powerful elf-witch we know her as, before she can close the door of her mind to Sauron.

We already saw a tease of this when he mind communicates with her, in the next scene:

The Fall of Galadriel

The OST of Sauron and Galadriel's scene in 2x08 is not “Last Temptation”, but “The Fall of Galadriel”. Which isn’t the soundtrack for her “falling down a cliff”! This is symbolic of Galadriel’s downfall into darkness. And this has to come into play in Season 3. 

Straight out of "Harry Potter"? The scar hurts whenever Sauron is nearby? “A part of him lives inside of you?” Probably, because J.K. Rowling took a lot of inspiration from “Lord of the Rings” to create her own story.  

And this will most likely kick out Galadriel “elf-witch” arc, too, because Sauron, probably, transferred some of his powers onto to her.

Season 3 and "Dark!Galadriel"

Galadriel using Mairon's words and a Dark form appearing in her future scene with Frodo, when she resists the One ring (at last), can mean that she will accept that Halbrand and Sauron are the same, and it was with Sauron himself that she fell in love with, in Season 1. Because this is the only way to make sense with both Tolkien lore and "Rings of Power" canon.

And if this was to happen in Season 3, it would be subtle and subtextual, of course: don’t except any love confessions or kissing. The "Fall of Galadriel" (her succumbing to Sauron) can be embodied in her reluctantly accepting the darkness within herself, because she feels she can longer escape it (wound side effects).

Galadriel needs to succumb to darkness/Sauron in order to emerge victorious as the “Lady of Light” (and for her character arc to feel earned) because: to find the light, we have, first, to touch the darkness.  

This quote has been present on Galadriel’s story since the Prologue of Season 1 (the opening scene of “Rings of Power”, and the one who sets the entire mood and kicks out the story that’s about to be told), and it hasn’t come into play, yet. Galadriel hasn’t touched the darkness: she has resisted the darkness in every turn, so far.  

Side note: Galadriel killing Orcs isn’t “touching the darkness”, folks. Otherwise, every single Elf in Tolkien lore would be on Morgoth's side.

Season 3 will be the "War of the Elves and Sauron", with him wanting to retrieve the Three Elven rings of power, and attacking Lindon. "Dark!Galadriel” can come into play in this scenario.

How Anakin has being watching over her and seeing her become stagnant and sick and emotionless and pushing people who care away. Pushing away her identity and responsibility to train the future because of this weight on her. She’s just going through the motions of being a Jedi.

And as soon as he has an opportunity he intercepts her. He knows how she’s been doing. But she sees him and immediately starts deflecting and putting on a mask. Reverting back to a teen and giving a cocky little comment about successfully hitting him. And he’s like oh you’re so powerful and put together? Let’s shake it up then.

And then she’s right where she’s always been, but now it’s literal. Trapped in time in the war. Years and years have passed but she’s still that little girl. No matter what she does she can’t move past this point. She’s never been able to leave. She sees the wounded and dead clones like she always sees them, and she feels so much guilt.

But Spirit Anakin isn’t there to feed into that. He’s here to get her to wake up. So he teases her. Ahsoka gets angry. HOW can he be so callous? How can he not care? Doesn’t he realize this terrible thing happened? And Anakin basically responds with brutal honesty. What the fuck is me being serious going to change? It wont take away the mistakes. But they were mistakes. You didn’t cause harm deliberately.

But Ahsoka isn’t getting it. She’s so tired. She asks him, what if I don’t want to fight my guilt anymore? And he’s honest again. Then you’ll be dead. Fight it or die by it.

And then they’re on Mandalore. And Anakin tries again to get her to see she’s more than this terrible thing that happened. But she’s still stuck and not ready to listen. She turns the blame on him. And Anakin is like oh this is what it’s about? You want to give up because of me? You say you’re like this because of me? Fight what you think I am then. Why don’t you just let Vader kill you then. Fight or die.

And as Vader beats at her it finally clicks. She won’t let Vader win. She won’t let the terrible thing win. She wants to live! There’s still a spark of fight left in her.

People who dance and play and smile just like you and I.

I always found it to be a little skeptical that Anakin could become a force ghost after it took Yoda, Qui Gon, and Obi-Wan learning and training how to do it, and I always thought “really? Anakin? Finding that level of peace and letting go?” But after this episode, seeing the care and lesson that he imparts upon Ahsoka that he learned so painfully, I understand it from him so much better. Vader was so stuck in his complete self-hatred that he allowed nobody who had known him before as Anakin to reach him (most notably Obi-Wan and Ahsoka) because of the overwhelming extent of his shame. It took his son, who had never known him and yet who still stood before him and believed in him, loved him, sacrificed himself for him, to call Anakin back from the depths of Vader. And this Anakin, let everything go to save his son and to allow his son to save him.

And it felt so impactful to get to see this mature post-Vader Anakin reaching out to Ahsoka to teach her this very hard-earned lesson that he took the very hard road to get. Because she has Vader in her. She is everything Anakin taught her, and we saw the behaviors that led Anakin to becoming Vader—the fear of losing his most cherished relationships—reaching out of Anakin very early in the clone wars (and before) and the two of them are both very aware that he imparted those lessons on her. And then we've seen across this season—and overtly in her clone wars flashbacks—that she believes she is inextricable from these traits.

I’ve always loved Anakin as a fictional character, getting to see his earnestness, his flawedness, and his intensity (to borrow Huyang’s very accurate adjective), but this episode brought a level of humanity to him that has moved me so deeply. Life is HARD, loss gets forced on all of us no matter what, and the lessons that we learn through mistakes that we made can be extremely painful because acknowledging and taking responsibility for hurting people is actually really painful for humans (not owning up to our actions is the emotionally easier choice and George Lucas has stated time and again that the Dark Side is about taking the short-term easier choices). But it ultimately means that learning from your mistakes is an actual choice you have to MAKE. And this is the core of Anakin’s lesson. He is teaching Ahsoka that she has to choose which lessons he has taught her that she will live by, but more than that, that she is empowered to be able to choose. Yes, she has everything that he taught her—the good and the bad—but she is not condemned to live out all of the lessons. 

And the beauty of it isn't just the lesson, but that Anakin gets to be the one to teach it to her. The betrayal that she experienced in discovering his fall, the taintedness that she has been portraying that she feels about herself, gets specifically addressed because if he figured it out, then she definitely can too. If he is more than just Vader, then she is too. And THAT is what the "Is that what this is about?" line is actually about. It's so so important that we get to see pre-Vader, Vader, and post-Vader across her vision because the point is that yes, Vader is a part of him, and that brilliant shot of the two of them glaring Sith eyes across the blade at each other did it's job in conveying that Ahsoka is capable of that darkness too, but you are not only the darkness. You get to choose. ("You're more than [death and destruction] because I'm more than that"). And more to the point, you have to choose. Because if you don't specifically choose to fight the dark, then you're ultimately choosing to fall into it. "Fight or die."

So for Anakin to be able to reach out to her one more time, to be able to love her the way he, as Vader, had refused to the last time when they met on Malachor, and to open with “you’re never too old to learn”, because god if he didn’t learn that the hard way too. And to be able to pass on to Ahsoka how to actually let go because he himself had only just finally been able to learn it as well, feels so powerful and poignant.

And that look of pride and wistful sadness that he gives her at the end? That both she and Luke were able to learn so quickly what took him so long? And that maybe, he may have helped save her from the worst traits that he imbued upon her? That’s him having let go of his own shame. He feels grief, he feels guilt—we can see it on his face—but what has happened has happened and he has accepted that, and finally learned that letting go doesn't mean it didn't happen, it means it doesn't have to define your actions going forward.

And finally, it’s also him letting go of ahsoka. By teaching her that she will choose her destiny, he has to accept that he cannot control it either. And he has. “There’s hope for you yet.” 

‘For me, it is the same character…emotionally it is just a continuation of Anakin.’

Hayden Christensen getting showered with love at the 2023 Star Wars Celebration