“Galadriel is obviously an elf, but even if she was a human in this world, she hasn't been brought up with [the idea] to shrink or to be pleasing [to others]. As women, we're given shame quite early on, and she doesn't have that. That has been liberating for me.” (Morfydd Clark, about Season 1 Galadriel)
“Sauron is a cause of real shame for Galadriel. This is someone who is so certain all the time that what she's doing is right, and she unwittingly empowered the Dark Lord in her activities in season 1.” (J.D. Payne about Season 2 Galadriel)
“No, you've done far more than that for me. I'd all but given up. But you, you believed in me. You saw strength in me. You pushed me to heights that no one else could have. I will never forget that. And I'll see to it that no one else does either.” (1x08)
So, Galadriel did learn “shame” between Season 1 and Season 2. And this is probably how the show is dealing with Tolkien calling her a “penitent” in Letter 320? She’s the one who “empowered” Sauron (like J.D. Payne puts it)? But how did she "empowered" him?
“I think there has to be a reckoning. Even knowing that Sauron was partially involved in the science behind the making of the rings, we see her give the go-ahead to make the rings anyway. She [Galadriel] also has to bear some responsibility; “I empowered the Dark Lord. I saved his life on a raft. I was party to him coming from obscurity to head an army.” That’s a lot she has to wrestle with and be accountable for.” (J.D. Payne for “Esquire”, after Season 1)
In the same interview, Patrick McKay adds: “Season One has been a real journey for Galadriel emotionally. She was so sure that she was right, that this was her destiny, that this is the fight she had to have. When she's watching the ash cloud come toward her in Episode Seven, she really feels what a terrible mistake her pride has led her to make and pull so many people into. I love watching her and Theo in that episode. I really feel her reflecting on her own mistakes and counseling Theo not to make the same mistakes that she has made. But then in the eighth episode, we end with Elrond finding evidence that she lied to him. Her facing the consequences of that has not ended yet.”
This is what we saw in Season 2 with Elrond and Gil-galad.
This seems kind of extreme, because, while, yes, she did empower him as in worked to place a crown on his head (King of the Southlands), she didn’t know Halbrand was Sauron. Unless this is about her allowing the Three rings of power to be forged? Despite knowing, for a fact, Halbrand was Sauron, and decided to keep that a secret from both Elrond and Celebrimbor?
Before Season 2 aired, Morfydd Clark teased Galadriel was on a “redemption mission” throughout the season: “She really messed up so badly. There's a desperation to redeem herself, and through redeeming herself protect Middle-earth, which is in more danger than it ever has been. Now she's seen the whites of the eyes of the person who's bringing it all down [Sauron], she's all revved up.”
And her desire to redeem herself is connected to her wanting to slay Sauron, all the same:
After Season 2 finale, Morfydd Clark said Season 2 prologue “redeemed” Galadriel at the eyes of the audience: “I think it redeemed Galadriel a bit to see that he’d [Sauron] chosen [this]. She didn't open up all his darkness, but she doesn’t know that, unfortunately.” In the same interview, Morfydd says Galadriel redeemed herself in Season 2 finale because she refused Sauron, once again. I wonder why the Valar will take thousands of years to forgive her, then.
Morfydd is talking about Sauron choosing the King of the Southlands pouch instead of saving Diarmid. But, as she very well points out, Galadriel doesn’t know this, but she also believes Sauron deceived her all along, all the same. But if this "redemption" is about the Three Elven rings of power, she also wears Nenya proudly, and vouches for the rings to be free of Sauron's influence, all the same. So something doesn’t quite add up here.
And, I have to ask, how can Galadriel take full responsibility for “empowering” the Dark Lord when she thinks she was deceived?
From his part, Sauron told Galadriel, in 1x08, he had given up until she came along and saw strength in him, and push him to “heights that no one else could have”. He also promised he would never forget that, and would make sure “that no one else does either”. What does this mean, exactly?
Charlie Vickers had said several times Sauron sees Galadriel as a “useful tool” in his plan, and she would end up being his assistant or secretary or whatever, but what’s with this fascination Sauron has for Galadriel, in particular? Pretty sure he would find a more receptive “assistant” in Mírdania (she already took that role in Season 2), if that’s what he’s looking for.
Right, Galadriel and Sauron share a “non-romantic cosmic connection” and he sees her as his equal. I could buy this if the show had given me book Galadriel (I usually avoid criticizing the show because there’s so much unnecessary hatred already, but this is one of my personal grievances). But, from her part, Galadriel doesn’t even believe this “cosmic connection” exists anymore, in Season 2. She tells the audience this, herself, in 2x08. She believes Sauron deceived her, all along.
According to diretor Charlotte Brändström (now one of the executive producers of the show): “Galadriel obviously was in love with Halbrand. She was very attracted to him. So when Sauron changes shape… Sauron knows this because he gets into her head, so he knows what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling. So when he immediately takes Halbrand’s shape, he completely destabilizes her because that was her weakness. She had very strong feelings for the King, for Halbrand, obviously in the first season.”
This is an idea, the director mentions in another interview, when explaining Sauron taking Halbrand form: “It was really important that we felt the tension, the provocations, and how destabilized she felt because she was very much in love with Halbrand,” Brändström says. “I mean, there was almost like a love story. He really seduced her.”
“I see you. I know your mind.”
Nothing romantic to see here, folks. Move along.
About Galadriel grieving Halbrand, Morfydd Clark said: “Her time with Halbrand was a time where she was very much herself in some ways because she was an Elf alone. She wasn't following the rules of her people at that point. So, he knows a part of her that other people, other beings, don't, and there's a tragedy to losing that, and through losing him, she's also lost that part of herself.”
I don’t know what “rules” Galadriel wasn’t following with Sauronbrad in Season 1, but this separation from the Elves is something Bear McCreary talked about concerning his idea with “Galadriel’s Theme”: “Galadriel’s Theme starts out sounding Elven, but is soon overtaken by a rippling string pattern that represents her ever-present desire to hunt for Sauron – she does not belong with her people.”
The missing piece here is Sauron’s repentance era. Which, as Season 2 made the point of show, Galadriel doesn’t know about, nor does she believes it. She thinks Sauron orchestrated everything just to get to Eregion and Celebrimbor and make this “power over flesh” plan he has been seeking for thousands of years a reality. Season 2 prologue confirmed Sauron didn’t plan to meet Galadriel in the Sundering Seas, and their meeting was entirely by chance.
Only we know, and both showrunners confirmed, there’s no “chance meetings” in Tolkien legendarium, and their coming together was part of Eru Ilúvatar’s plan, as Patrick McKay elaborated after Season 1 finale: “chance meetings are preordained in Middle-earth and that idea of like, 'My God, what if Sauron is in a place where he's sort of repentant and lost and Galadriel is in a place where she's desperate and obsessed with a meeting? What might happen?”
But, again, Galadriel doesn’t know any of this. And what “feeling” does Sauron wants to hold on to? What did he feel fighting at her side? Was it only “light”? Because the Dork Lord over here is moving away from that, as his good intentions of healing Middle-earth are being left behind, and his pride and lust for dominion will start to eat him up in Season 3.
“All shall love me and despair”
Sauron greatest crime in Tolkien legendarium has nothing to do with the rings of power (a means to an end) nor destroying cities to the ground, or getting the Valar to sink Númenor. “In The Lord of the Rings the conflict is not basically about 'freedom', though that is naturally involved. It is about God, and His sole right to divine honour. The Eldar and the Númenóreans believed in The One, the true God, and held worship of any other person an abomination. Sauron desired to be a God-King, and was held to be this by his servants; if he had been victorious he would have demanded divine honour from all rational creatures and absolute temporal power over the whole world.” (Tolkien Letter 183)
Everyone knows Gollum’s iconic line: “It came to me, my own, my love, my precious.”
“No longer will we be hunted as the demons who broke Middle-earth, but rather worshipped as the saviors who finally healed it.”
Underrated Sauron moment: “My people have no king?” Ok, Satanic baby. His people are the Ainur, he’s one of the Maiar, and their King is Manwë (the King of the Valar). And he says this very bitterly.
Galadriel was unfortunate to fell in love with Halbrand back in Season 1, but, it seems to me, this was also one of the ways she ended up “empowering” the Dark Lord. And that's why Sauron brings it up in 2x08, alonsgide with “they could not longer distinguish me from the evil I was fighting” (they are alike) and her allowing the Three Elven rings of power to be made, like he asked her to in 1x08 (“Are they not the seeds you planted?”).
But why would Sauron take this so personally, and spent thousands of years “grouping” Galadriel’s mind in particular?
He will get a bunch of devoted servants of his own and the show introduced the Sauron cultists in Rhûn (a plot which will probably get resolved next season, since the Easterlings are one of Sauron’s greatest allies and one of the Nine is from there). Sauron will get some of that worship he so desires, and Mírdania seemed very receptive in giving him some love, too. But... she was not Galadriel?
And, again, if Sauron is one-dimentional evil who can't love anything other than himself, why would he care if Galadriel fell in love with him, or not? Why does he gets so triggered when she denies him, yet again? If she would be his assistant, why even bother?
Questions, questions, and unresolved/open plots.
