#galadriel.

[cupcakegnome]

Young Gandalf and Young Galadriel ♥

[pasdefleursarch]

i think galadriel's names are so interesting. artanis = noble woman and nerwen = man maiden. though it is canon that earwen gave her that name because she is strong and tall, i also think it's very reflective of galadriel's perspective shift through the ages.

artanis would symbolize her pride and ambition through the first and second age, how she sees herself + her kin and their place in arda, what she wants to accomplish for herself in middle earth. while nerwen would symbolize what she goes on to become. someone who helped mankind in their fight against sauron.

( provided, too, that mother-names are significant because they are said to provide some insight into the child's personality, character, abilities. so i'm really inclined to believe that nerwen has a dual meaning in this way. )

[pasdefleursarch]

thinking about this bit from the unfinished tales, re: galadriel

Even after the merciless assault upon the Teleri and the rape of their ships, though she fought fiercely against Fëanor in defence of her mother’s kin, she did not turn back. Her pride was unwilling to return, a defeated suppliant for pardon; but now she burned with desire to follow Fëanor with her anger to whatever lands he might come, and to thwart him in all ways that she could.

so she probably participated in the kinslaying, but for the teleri and against the noldor, but then followed feanor out of spite afterwards.

[pasdefleursarch]

in love w/ the thought of galadriel's hair being so dang pretty that it's said to contain the light of the trees within it, and it even being theorized as what inspired feanor to create the silmarils ( also obsessed w/ the fact that feanor asked galadriel for a strand of her hair three times and was also thrice denied, bc galadriel clocked his greed and hey isn't it crazy that these two have a lot of similarities but they don't get along bc galadriel can read him. )

[pasdefleursarch]

thinking about the immortality of the elves being at the crux of the entire tragedy of the silmarillion. these elves living lives thousands of years long also ensured that their grudges and their cursed oaths persisted with them, and that they cannot entirely escape the consequences of their actions because they just don't die ( unless they are killed ), and they therefore bear everything first-hand instead of passing it onto some new generation ( and dulling the implications of their sufferings in the process. ) i mean sure, they have children, but many of them are still around through years and years, passing the same trauma to those children while they carry it themselves. all of their crimes, but especially the kinslayings, are not simply historical chapters from some long-dead ancestor in the family tree. it's not just history. it remains personal, and fresh, and weighs them all down because of the active parts they played in it, or because they had to witness it with their own eyes. these tragic elves, beautiful and terrible, and... well, heart-breakingly sad??? because immortality is truly a curse, and not even the first children of ilúvatar are spared from it.