#haladriel meta

I love the idea that @rey-jake-therapist has proposed: that this shot here is a callback to this one in “Adrift.” I agree that this parallel is a strong one. And that next to Galadriel’s broken body, the shadowed outline of a person, presumably Sauron, can be seen. The poetry of such a thought: not just that someone had been there, that someone was meant to be there, but perhaps that someone is there still. There’s an imprint. In another world, the unseen one, or a dream, Halbrand is there still. “He never left.”

It’s clearly shown in TROP that this is their recurring theme. Sauron is the voice that beckons her. It is his presence that she feels in her dreams. He is the last thing she senses before she awakes. It is his face that haunts her in that waking world.

he simply wants her to stop fighting and she is the one who won't stop attacking. the only instances where he gets serious with her is when she dismisses his calls for emotional reconciliation. first when she deflects from "not all of it" conversation so he forces her to face the truth, and then he really loses it and becomes desperate when she tells him that the door is shut so he forcefully keeps it open.

that stabbing is the only time he is brutal with her *physically* instead of just "playing along" with her (her taking a fall badly with celebrimbor!sauron isn't his fault, and then she decides to jump to her death herself). and i honestly think he doesn't want to harm her. he doesn't do it bc she keeps mocking, humiliating and literally trying to kill him when he is asking her to stop, he does it bc he is afraid of his archenemy closing the door on him. (it is confirmed that he doesn't do it to kill her. so the only logical explanation is that he binds her to himself.)

galadriel is clearly in denial, putting up walls as a defense mechanism, and it causes her distress. and i believe that sauron wants to "heal" her once again in the same way he did when he helped her to open up after asking why she kept fighting. but it doesn't work this time bc you can't force someone to open up once the trust is lost (and you are revealed to be her sworn enemy).

I like the idea that if Sauron had truly wanted to manipulate Galadriel, he would have turned into Halbrand earlier and remained him till the end of the fight. He was clearly frustrated when she rejected their bond and dismissed his feelings as insincere. That’s why he chose to take her up on her own words and prove just how wrong she was.

She’s on the verge of tears because deep down she knows he’s right. She knows that she loves him, and she hates that he knows it too. But more than anything, she hates herself for feeling it.

I can't stop thinking about this moment where Nenya tumbles to Galadriel's feet (in a sequence of iconic LotR imagery). I wish we had an insight into her thoughts in this moment beyond her expressions.

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A ring presented as if in offering, temptation at her feet. A breath in which she bends slowly, almost kneels to retrieve it; a pace that denotes hesitancy, and yet, steadiness, certainty.

As she examines it at her finger tips, is she surprised to find a ring of power in her grasp? Or does she know this to be a moment of fate—a ring bestowed upon her despite her previous refusal? Does she imagine how it might have been presented to her differently? Imagine it offered to her from the hands of another?

"In my heart, I know the three rings are free of his influence."

"But are you?"

As she slips Nenya on her finger—the White Ring, the Ring of Adamant, the Ring of Water—does she first perceive its light, or its absence of darkness? Does she feel the weight of it on her finger in her chest, her throat, like a flood of water in her mouth? Like the weight of the choice she made when she refused the Dark Lord? Does she feel as if she has been here before?

"The tides of fate are flowing. Yours may be going in... or out."

"I cannot let him in again. I... cannot."

"I felt it too."

"He never left, Galadriel."

Recently I've been reading some classic fictional love stories, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte etc... and it's been percolating through my Haladriel obsessed brain filter. (seriously it's been about 3 years and I still haven't gotten over it, although I guess it's harder for me to stay as invested).

One thing I found interesting was in the two love stories that I really enjoyed recently, Lizzie and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice as well as Jane and Rochester in Jane Eyre, they both had a romance arc that involved the man doing something quite awful and then having a redemption of sorts. One of the aspects of Haladriel that has fascinated me was after the S1 E8 Reveal, how might Sauron ever get forgiven by Galadriel, even outside of his personal repentance? This was even one of the main themes I tried to explore in my fic A Lord and his Builder. He killed her brother*, took over her mind, impersonated her dead brother and then at least simulated drowning her if not outright tried to drown her in the Glanduin. Season 2 ends even worse with them fighting until he stabs her after causing the destruction of Eregion and killing her friend, Celebrimbor. Ouch!

Is there any onscreen redemption possible now, that we as viewers of Haladriel persuasion might accept?

The Original ETL Ship

Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Their love story is an amazing template of the slow burn, originally frosty relationship which over time develops into something that neither of them can ignore or resist despite their pride. The particulars of their relationship don't really resemble Haladriel, although there's some of that in the early season 1 banter.

While reading Pride and Prejudice in recent months I was actually shocked by how terrible Darcy was which I had completely forgotten from the TV adaptations. At first he was aloof and kind of a tool bag, but then their forced proximity in Netherfield and later Hunsford it seemed to me that he was polite and while they had their intellectual debates it always seemed that he respected her wit and there was no animosity just civil disagreements.

It was only after Elizabeth learned from Col. Fitzwilliam that Darcy intentionally separated Bingley from Jane, which was a horrible thing to do, did they really get heated especially with what he said at the failure of a proposal. It does remind a little of Sauron on the raft with how Galadriel totally rejects him when he feels like he's giving her this great opportunity 🤣

I honestly felt when reading that, and remembering the vague outlines of the rest of the story that there is No Way that Darcy could come back from that? Especially after he also personally insulted her and her family. Ok, no one was stabbed and he didn't become physically violent but I think Lizzie would have been totally justified in never giving him a second chance.

So how does he redeem himself?

He comes clean (the letter)

Saves her sister from a scandal, at great personal expense

Treats her family with kindness and respect

Encourages Bingley to take Jane back

Opens up some of his heart to her, Pemberly, Georgiana, etc

None of those really erase the actions he did, and without the tragedy of Lydia & Wickham would Darcy have been given an opportunity to "save the day" and prove his worth to Elizabeth?

What would Sauron's equivalents be? He already saved Gal's life. Perhaps other acts of mercy or kindness (which we know the show probably won't allow him).

Reader, I Married Him

Even more dramatic is the redemption arc (?) of Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre. Here is a man who made a questionable choice of marriage partner. Locked his insane wife up in the attic and hid her from the world while he slept around the continent and possibly doing much else. Hopeless, alone and aimless then by chance meets a pretty, young governess and falls in love and feels inspired once again but he is hiding a much darker secret that he can't reveal (hmm, sound familiar?).

It seemed Rochester was so moved by Jane's spirit, her goodness and stubborness (one might say he could see her light when no one else did 😉) that he basically wants to do anything to be with her even though their social standing would prevent it.

But he also lies to Jane's face about the mysterious, violent women he is keeping trapped in his mansion that might have easily harmed her. He even tries to go through with a invalid marriage without telling her ANYTHING and the reveal shatters Jane to her core so much that she runs off and nearly starves herself to death.

We know what happens of course but it's very much in question if he should have ever been forgiven or even if he truly loves Jane or it's all another kind of manipulation, although to me it's pretty clearly implied in the text that he is honest with her in the end and I can see his honest love for her seemed to be genuine and I can understand Jane being touched, especially in contrast to Saint John Rivers.

So how is Rochester redeemed?

Heroically saved staff from the Thornfield fire. At great risk to himself he tried to save his insane wife who started the fire

Despite sleeping around Europe, he did take in and care for Adele even if she may not be his own child

After the fire and his injuries he is humbled and has humility about his own failures and loss of Jane

Her return and his honest and open love of her without any more secrets

Has a cute dog named Pilot!

The whole theme of secrecy, betrayal, redemption fit so well with Sauron's character and how he played Galadriel in season 1 especially. We did not get the redemption arc like this in season 2 though, he basically doubled down.

I do wonder if this setup would be perfect for him being humbled and or possibly physically disfigured after the Fall of Numenor. Wouldn't that be the perfect moment for Galadriel to find a defeated, weakend Sauron who has given up on his plans, for now, would she pity him? If he maybe saves someone from the flood? What if Galadriel is on Numenor when it sinks and he's part of the reason she survives?

Sometimes I think about the scene of Elrond and Galadriel arguing about Sauron. Gal says she can't let him in again, and she flashes back to the wood scene (still can't believe they pulled that; doesn't strike me as the kind of show to do it in a present scene). They could have used any of their season 1 moments. The forge was a nice, vulnerable moment for both. Or, standing on the ship when leaving Numenor.

But they chose the log scene instead. Why? Because it is the moment where they essentially confessed their feelings for one another; that there was no going back.

Seeing the entirety of the Elrond to Galadriel snark quote as giffed by the esteemed and excellent @letthefairyinyoufly made something start poking and scratching around in my head. The phrases Elrond chooses in relation to what Sauron did to Galadriel are so interesting, or more accurately from his perspective, what she let Sauron do in her eagerness to be the very ending of him.

The talk of the harp makes me wonder if we're meant to assume that she's talked to Elrond about the vision Sauron plonked her down in before the raft sequence. Because Finrod was known to be the great harpist of the family, or at least he was the first of the Noldor to come upon Men and woke them up from a sound sleep by singing and playing to them on what Tolkien basically describes as a "rude harp" (aka a pretty shitty one). But beauty and wisdom and wonder were what Finrod got across with it. He's the best, basically. If anyone could pluck "the very song of your soul, note by note," it would be that guy, and I would love it if the line is in reference to her beloved brother.

Then again, it may be referencing that her soul--sung into being like everything else in the Ainulindalë or the song of creation, if I understand it right (which I might not)--is something that Sauron would know how to intimately manipulate because he was around and understands things from a musical perspective down to his core. Like he says himself, "I know your mind. The door is still open."

After all, we can't forget that our guy had a sing-off with Galadriel's very own extraordinary musician-sibling Finrod that ended in failure, darkness, and death for her brother to go up against as powerful a singer as a Maiar. To be fair, it ultimately ended with Sauron getting his ass handed to him by Lúthien and her puppy dog Huan, too, but details, details for our boy. We all know that he's such a bastard to rely on her brother, but wow was he really trying to shoot his shot in the only way he knew how. Plucking those harp strings, trying to make her soul sing.

Bonus content that any talk about Galadriel and the harp would give her short shrift not to mention the long section in Fellowship of the Ring where she sings and plays for the members of the Fellowship when they are about to leave Lothlórien to go down the Anduin ostensibly towards Mordor. Her final lyrics are about how her crown twined with golden elanor is fading, and it is the most sad... especially in terms of how she passed her test and will fade while Sauron's iron grip upon his own crown is what leads to his destruction. Why you gotta do me this way, Tolkien/trop?

I don't often do meta, but when I do, it damn well better be sad, I guess. That's all I got for today, although there's more that could be said about eyes and boring holes, and Sauron seeing into the darkness of a soul. But I really should do actual... y'know...work. lol.

If any of this is interesting, I'm happy to go into more musical details from a medieval music perspective that Tolkien would have been aware of (Quadrivium, baybeee) or ponder other uses of music in the show since that's my primary background as a historian and academic. Then again, throwing together cool gifs and rambling works, too. I'm not just a Sticks of Power girlie, apparently.

Sauron too, after all, knows what betrayal from your closest feels like, how much it hurts. Though Adar was just his loyal servant, Sauron looks more than just angry or vengeful when they meet. I believe in Numenor, he cries not just for himself but for her too because he realises how very much the same they are.

Galadriel and Sauron share the same pain in this regard. They both feel misunderstood by everyone. And they both have this all-devouring hunger for fighting, for following their goals. A tempest resides not only in Galadriel but also in him too.