THE CELEBORN PROBLEM (solved...?)
Some things in The Rings of Power (TROP) are harder to fit into canon Tolkien lore than others. Celeborn being presumed dead is one of them. Galadriel spending centuries on chasing Sauron to avenge her brother Finrod instead of searching for her lost husband is another. I think I may have found a way to bypass these issues with a canon divergence, though. Maybe. Possibly. I donāt know, just hear me out.
Itās hard to tell when, exactly, TROP takes place since there are several incompatible plotlines are taking place all at once, but we know that itās in the Second Age (SA). Okay. So, to narrow it down a little: SA 500 is when Sauron, whoās been lying low since the defeat of his former master Morgoth, comes out of hiding and begins to rekindle alliances in the East and the South. He doesnāt properly establish himself in Mordor until around SA 1000, though, and it takes him two more centuries before he disguises himself and befriends Cerebrimbor in Eregion. Creating the rings of power takes him an additional 300 years, so letās say thatās our scope. The show takes place somewhere between SA 500 and SA 1500. Okay? Okay.
(Side note: Weāre going to completely ignore the fuckery thatās going on with the NĆŗmenĆ³rian timeline because otherwise weāll go insane.)
In Tolkienās lore, Galadriel should most likely be in Eregion with Celeborn and their daughter CelebrĆan (born ca SA 300) during this period. In TROP, that clearly isnāt the case. Instead, we have a childless, spouseless, revenge-driven Galadriel who somehow ends up on a raft with Sauron himself (sure, letās call it a cosmic connection, Iām sure that sexual tension was totally unintentional.) Thereās seriously no way in hell to make this work while staying true to Tolkien lore, so here it comes, my little canon divergence theory:
In canon Tolkien lore, Galadriel and Celeborn fled before the War of Wrath. In TROP, however, I think Celeborn joined it but never returned.
The War of Wrath, the battle where Valar, Elves, and Men joined forces to defeat Morgoth once and for all, took place at the very end of the First Age (FA 545 ā 587). When characters in TROP talk about āthe war,ā this is the one theyāre referring to. After over 40 years of vicious fighting, Morgoth was defeated, but the wreckage of the war was so great that a big chunk of Middle-earth sank into the sea.
(Side note: The War of Wrath is not the reason why the Noldorin Elves left Valinor, though. The real reason can be summed up as āthree fancy stones cause a very disproportionate amount of murderā. TROP didnāt have access to The Silmarillion so they had to work around that.)
Alright. Anyway. This little canon divergence could explain why TROP!Galadriel never looked for her lost husband. How do you even search for a fallen soldier when the battlefield no longer exists? And if Celeborn really did die in this war (which I personally doubt because it would cause the show runners an avalanche of problems down the line), it would have been because of Morgoth. Itās hard to take revenge on a being thatās already been banished from existence. Sauron, however, is still in hiding in Middle-earth. Heās the evil that got away. Galadriel canāt avenge her husband, but she can still avenge her brother.
(Side note: I think itās also worth mentioning that Finrod actually died about a century before the War of Wrath. He plays a major role in Beren and LĆŗthiel, where he heroically sacrifices himself to protect a mortal man from one of Sauronās werewolves.Ā I repeat: Finrod did not fight in the War of Wrath, and he most certainly didnāt die in it. But letās not dwell on that. The show would fall apart. Squint with your brain and carry on.)
