ardid replied to your post “I’m currently debating on two articles, only one of which I’ll publish...”
Well, one inspiration for Galadriel as a character seems to be Ayesha, the female protagonist in "She", by H. Rider Haggard. Ayesha is a white woman that lives in Africa. She is a "white queen" in a country that doesn't. She is inmortal too because her knowledge in "magic". Also, there is a chapter in the novel very similar to the scene with Frodo and the mirror of Galadriel. "She" is a white and inmortal queen. With some bad reputation due to her "magical arts" / deep knowledge of Nature... and because she is a woman with power.actions
@ardid
This is not the first time I’ve heard of this. I think when people want to defend claims of an imperialistic narrative regarding Galadriel (or Tolkien as a whole), they need to examine her inspiration.
Tolkien recognised the importance of She to his own fantasy works, especially in its foregrounding of a fictional history and narrative.[100] The figure of She is also considered by many scholars to be a formative influence on Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings – Ayesha's reflecting pool seems to be a direct precursor of Galadriel's mirror.
She is a racist novel, and Ayesha is the inspiration for Galadriel and other Tolkien characters. We need to understand that the parallels of Ayesha presiding over those that are deemed as racially lower are very similar to those of Galadriel and Celeborn ruling over silvan elves, and how problematic this can be when the Silvan are coded as indigenous groups (note i’ll need to add this bit to that meta) , and when in general the Silvan are viewed below the Noldo elves (yes, this applies to the group in Loth Lorien because suddenly they are acceptable when ruled by Galadriel who integrates her Noldor culture into their civilization , but they are not when ruled by Thranduil who integrates himself into their culture).
Not only that but Galadriel’s entire reason for going to Middle Earth with the intention of ruling lands of her own (not just her, but her brothers as well), is just bratty and textbook imperialism. And Galadriel gets land and a kingdom handed to her.
Knowing that her counterpart is Ayesha, who’s a character is ridiculously racist itself, while also noting Tolkien’s similarity to Haggard, isn’t surprising.
What’s dangerous is the replication of this character in other characters such as Daenerys from GoT, and feeds into this white savior trope and thought process that so many white people have.
