I am genuinely trying to understand the “Galadriel is racist” argument. Not the argument that her storyline has implicit undertones of the “White Man’s Burden” (which is, I think, a completely justified critique and definitely racist), but that she as a person is racist. Part why I’m so confused is that often, when Galadriel is accused of racism, Oropher and Thranduil are held in high-esteem. I don’t understand the jump, at least not with what information I can find in canon.
Now, the following isn’t me trying to explain why Galadriel is not racist. It’s just an attempt to show where I’m coming from with canon. I’m very open to people pointing out where my interpretation went wrong/any canonical evidence I’ve missed. I also want to emphasize, even if there isn’t canonical evidence of Galadriel being racist, I don’t want to argue against any “racist Galadriel” headcanons. I understand why people would get frustrated with Tolkien’s idealization of colonization and the Silvan’s apparent lack of agency in his works and subsequently use Galadriel’s storyline to explore what the consequences should’ve been if Tolkien portrayed colonization realistically. I won’t accuse anyone of sexism for doing that through her storyline instead of Thranduil’s or Fingon’s or what not. I’m just trying to understand why Galadriel is seen as canonically racist, while Thranduil and Oropher are not.
In case I haven’t been clear enough: I really, really don’t want to fight or negate an exploration of racism in Tolkien. It’s an important topic and beyond worthy of discussion.
“Galadriel… was eager to be gone. No oaths she swore, but the words of Fëanor concerning Middle-earth had kindled in her heart, for she yearned to see the wide unguarded lands and to rule there a realm at her own will. Of like mind with Galadriel was Fingon” – The Silmarillion
This is the most commonly accepted form of canon, so I’ll start here. Galadriel’s desire to go to ME stems from Fëanor’s speech. In his speech, Fëanor depicted Middle-earth as the Noldor’s rightful home and argued that men were the ones to keep power away from. He also acknowledges other elves “might” be there, but promises the Noldor they’ll be welcomed if there are. The Noldor had no knowledge of the Nandorin elves, Sindarin or Silvan.
As such, I struggle to see how Galadriel’s eagerness for Middle-earth is an expression of a colonist mindset. First, Fëanor’s speech may have convinced her that ME was her homeland, not some foreign territory to be conquered. Second, she was the youngest daughter of the king’s youngest (and least ambitious) son. In order to rule a land of her own, she needed land. Tolkien was writing about an idealized feudal system, where power = control of land. The above does not imply Galadriel wanted to rule an already populated land. The Noldor didn’t even know if ME was populated. Galadriel may well have assumed her potential realm would be populated by other Noldor. (After all, she was considered a leader on the Helcaraxë).
When Galadriel arrives in ME and sees that it is populated, there’s no indication that she acted on her desire to rule. In fact, she’s one of the few Noldorin royals who doesn’t set up a kingdom.
“Galadriel [Finrod’s] sister went not with him to Narthgothrond, for in Doriath dwelt Celeborn, kinsman of Thingol, and there was great love between them. Therefore she remained in the Hidden Kingdom” – The Silmarillion
After that, there’s a long silence on Galadriel’s activities. We know she spends a bit of time with Finrod, marries Celeborn at some point, and doesn’t die in the War of Wrath, but stays in ME. The next time we see her is in Eriador in the beginning of the Second Age.
“[Galadriel] crossed Ered Lindon with Celeborn and came into Eriador. When they entered that region there were many Noldor in their following, together with Grey-elves and Green-elves; and for a while they dwelt in the country about Lake Nenuial (Evendim, north of the Shire). Celeborn and Galadriel came to be regarded as Lord and Lady of the Eldar in Eriador, including the wandering companies of Nandorin origin who had never passed west over Ered Lindon and come down into Ossiriand” – Unfinished Tales
This is the first time Galadriel is described in a non-Helcaraxë leadership position. She was entering the new lands because Beleriand was kaput, not out of any personal desire. It seems she had a multiracial following from the beginning, made up of Noldor, Sindar, and “Green-elves”. These Green-elves were the Laiquendi who’d followed Denethor to Beleriand and were allies/vassals of Thingol. This was something they chose to do. They weren’t colonized by Thingol, they expressly sought him out (The Simlarillion, Of the Sindar).
Over time, it appears certain “wandering companies of Nandorin origin” became associated with Galadriel’s and Celeborn’s leadership. Given that their titles of Lord and Lady developed over time (canon doesn’t even tell us if Celeborn and Galadriel acknowledged these titles), as did their association with the Nandor, it seems plausible the wandering Nandorin companies were not there originally, meaning Galadriel and Celeborn weren’t settling in already occupied lands. But since this period in time is not extrapolated on, any speculation is really just equivalent to a headcanon.
In 700 SA, Galadriel and Celeborn moved east and:
“established the (primarily but by no means solely) Noldorin realm of Eregion. It may be that Galadriel chose it because she knew of the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm (Moria)… [Galadriel] looked upon the Dwarves also with the eye of a commander, seeing in them the finest warriors to pit against the Orcs. Moreover Galadriel was a Noldo, and she had a natural sympathy with their minds and their passionate love of crafts of hand, a sympathy much greater than that found among many of the Eldar” – Unfinished Tales
We don’t know if Eregion’s non-Noldorin elves are the same as those at Lake Nenuial, so I won’t speculate. Celebrimbor was a leader in Eregion, too. Both he and Galadriel were on very friendly terms with the dwarves. This is where Galadriel’s story gets a bit tricky, because in an early version, Tolkien had her as Amroth’s mother. I’m going to overlook this version in favor of Amroth being Amdír’s son, the most commonly accepted version of canon.
Very little is known about Amdír’s reign, other than that it ended in SA 3434 when he was killed in the Battle of Dagorlad. He was a Sindarin prince ruling over Silvan elves and was succeeded by his son, Amroth. Celeborn and/or Galadriel were somehow involved in his reign, but it’s hard to tell how.
“after Eregion’s fall Celeborn led this migration to Lórien, while Galadriel joined Gil-galad in Lindon; but elsewhere, in a writing contemporary with this, it is said explicitly that they both at that time ‘passed through Moria with a considerable following of Noldorin exiles and dwelt for many years in Lórien.’ It is neither asserted nor denied in these late writings that Galadriel (or Celeborn) had relations with Lórien before 1697, and there are no other references outside “Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn” to Celebrimbor’s revolt (at some time between 1350 and 1400) against their rule in Eregion, nor to Galadriel’s departure at the time to Lórien and her taking up rule there, while Celeborn remained behind in Eregion. It is not made clear in the late accounts where Galadriel and Celeborn passed the long years of the Second Age after the defeat of Sauron in Eriador; there are at any rate no further mentions of their agelong sojourn in Belfalas” – Unfinished Tales
I don’t know what to make of that other than have fun with headcanons. That information can fit into any conception of Galadriel’s character. All canon says is Galadriel lived in Lórien for a time under Amroth’s rule before going to live with Elrond and Celebrían in Imladris. Let’s turn to Amroth for a moment:
“Though Sindarin in descent [Amroth] lived after the manner of the Silvan Elves and housed in the tall trees of a great green mound, ever after called Cerin Amroth. This he did because of his love for Nimrodel… She would speak only the Silvan tongue, even after it had fallen into disuse among the folk of Lórien… when the terror came out of Moria and the Dwarves were driven out, and in their stead Orcs crept in, she fled distraught alone south into empty lands [in the year 1981 of the Third Age]. Amroth followed her” – Unfinished Tales
What I get from this is: Silvan elves lived in the trees, the Silvan language fell out of use during Amdír’s/Amroth’s reigns (i.e. not Galadriel’s and Celeborn’s) and that by 1981 TA, Lórien was facing the threat of orcs and their leader had taken off. A major question arises: how many of the Silvan elves went with him?
“many of the Elves of Nimrodel’s kindred left their dwellings and departed” – Legolas, Fellowship of the Ring
“It is long since the people of Nimrodel left the woodlands of Lórien” – Prince Imrahil, Return of the King
Some of the Galadhrim must’ve stayed in Lórien, but it seems a sizeable portion left. So around 1981 TA, the remaining Silvan elves are facing an encroaching orc army without leadership and with a sudden population drop. This is the context in which Galadriel and Celeborn assume leadership.
“After the disaster in Moria [in the year 1980] and the sorrows of Lórien, which was now left without a ruler (for Amroth was drowned in the sea in the Bay of Belfalas and left no heir), Celeborn and Galadriel returned to Lórien, and were welcomed by the people. There they dwelt while the Third Age lasted, but they took no title of King or Queen; for they said that they were only guardians of this small but fair realm, the last eastward outpost of the Elves” – Unfinished Tales
This brings us to their actual rule, which lasted from 1981(ish) TA to 3021 TA (for Galadriel, at least). Just a little over 1,000 years. Unfortunately, there isn’t that much information about Galadriel’s rule in Lórien. What we do know, however, suggests a certain level of assimilation. As mentioned above, Silvan elves lived in the trees, a tradition which Galadriel and Celeborn continue and adopt themselves, as seen in Fellowship of the Ring. Likewise, even though the Silvan language fell out of use before their assumption of leadership, certain elements of it were kept alive in Lórien’s Sindarin, influencing vocabulary and pronunciation.
The other apparent point of controversy is Galadriel’s use of Nenya to enhance Lórien.
“Galadriel counselled him that the Three Rings of the Elves should be hidden, never used, and dispersed, far from Eregion where Sauron believed them to be. It was at that time that she received Nenya, the White Ring, from Celebrimbor, and by its power the realm of Lórinand was strengthened and made beautiful; but its power upon her was great also and unforseen, for it increased her latent desire for the Sea and for return into the West, so that her joy in Middle-earth was diminished. [9]
[9] Galadriel cannot have made use of the powers of Nenya until a much later time, after the loss of the Ruling Ring; but it must be admitted that the text does not at all suggest this (although she is said just above to have advised Celebrimbor that the Elven Rings should never be used)” – Unfinished Tales
This comes from the version where Amroth is Galadriel’s son, so it’s hard to tell what to make of it. But since she’s seen wearing it in Lord of the Rings, we will assume she uses it at some point to enhance Lórien. (Probably starting during the Watchful Peace). I’m unsure why I should consider that an indication of her racism. If you have the power to help protect your land and people, why wouldn’t you? How does using Nenya make her racist?
Perhaps the controversy arises from her subsequent departure from ME. Without Nenya, Lórien will fade, but that would have happened whether Galadriel and Nenya were in Lórien or not. She tells Frodo that if he successfully destroys the One Ring:
“then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away. We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten” – Fellowship of the Ring
That’s true of Rivendell, as well. After Sauron’s destruction, there isn’t anything Galadriel or Elrond can do to preserve their realms. They didn’t make that stipulation. Moreover, Galadriel’s been in exile for thousands of years and has been weary for home for at least half of that. I don’t understand why her leaving had anything to do with racism. There’s also no reason to suppose that she didn’t bring many of the Silvan elves with her. It’s not as if the Silvan elves didn’t yearn for the sea, as well:
“[Silvan elves] were never wholly free of an unquiet and a yearning for the Sea which at times drove some of them to wander from their homes” – Unfinished Tales
So yeah, I don’t see the positive evidence for Galadriel-the-Character being racist. Again, maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m missing something. But then I get even more confused when people say Oropher and Thranduil aren’t racist.
“Oropher [the father of Thranduil, father of Legolas], had withdraw northward beyond the Gladden Fields. This he did to be free from the power and encroachments of the Dwarves of Moria, which had grown to be the greatest of the mansions of the Dwarves recorded in history; and also he resented the intrusions of Celeborn and Galadriel into Lórien” – Unfinished Tales
Oropher explicitly moves north to get away from the Dwarves. And/or Celeborn and Galadriel, who, depending on which canon you follow, were fleeing Eregion as refugees or not even in Lórien on a consistent basis until much later, after Oropher’s death. I don’t see why Oropher’s isolationism isn’t seen as racist, especially against the Dwarves.
Similarly, Oropher’s assimilation could (depending one’s interpretation) could be read as racistl:
“Oropher had come among them with only a handful of Sindar, and they were soon merged with the Silvan Elves, adopting their language and taking names of Silvan form and style. This they did deliberately; for they (and other similar adventurers forgotten in the legends or only briefly named) came from Doriath after its ruin and had no desire to leave Middle-earth, nor to be merged with the other Sindar of Beleriand, dominated by the Noldorin Exiles for whom the folk of Doriath had no great love. They wished indeed to become Silvan folk and to return, as they said, to the simple life natural to the Elves before the invitation of the Valar had disturbed it” – Unfinished Tales
Have you heard of the “noble savage”? Oropher’s reasons for assimilation could be read through such a lens, which has deeply racist undertones. I simply do not understand why he is put on a pedestal compared to Galadriel when his storyline contains various problematic elements, at least when viewed a certain way. For instance, his adoption of the Silvan language apparently petered out:
“By the end of the Third Age the Silvan tongues had probably ceased to be spoken in the two regions that had importance at the time of the War of the Ring: Lórien and the realm of Thranduil in northern Mirkwood” – Unfinished Tales
Secondly, the guy leads his people into war and gets a sizable portion of them killed. In the Last Alliance, Oropher realizes he can’t keep to his isolationist tendencies, but fails to provide his Silvan subjects with the adequate armor, weaponry, and training they need in order to succeed:
“He therefore assembled a great army of his now numerous people, and joining with the lesser army of Malgalad of Lórien he led the host of the Silvan Elves to battle. The Silvan Elves were hardy and valiant, but ill-equipped with armour or weapons in comparison with the Eldar of the West; also they were independent, and not disposed to place themselves under the supreme command of Gil-galad. Their losses were thus more grievous than they need have been, even in that terrible war” – Unfinished Tales
I’m not saying there’s one way to read this. I am saying that one could make an argument that Oropher’s failure here is a result of his inability to actually understand the people he’s ruling. Which may or may not be an indication of his own racism.
Thranduil isn’t exempt from a racist interpretation, either. The Hobbit literally says he has “no love for dwarves” and his guards drag Thorin with excessive roughness to his cells. Unless racism only counts against other elves, this seems worthy of acknowledgement.
But does Thranduil really treat his Silvan subjects as equals? He keeps wine “not meant for his servants or his soldiers, but for the king’s feasts only.” (Soldiers… who your family led into battle and failed to properly lead?) Do we really have evidence that the native Silvan elves are lords in Thranduil’s kingdom? After all, Sindarin is the primary language again and more Sindarin elves are known to have entered the Mirkwood after the initial group with Oropher. And, under a particular view, Thranduil is still imposing his authority on the Silvan. Would true assimilation not have been an acceptance of the Silvan elves’s form of governance?
Look, I’m not trying to argue that Thranduil and Oropher are racist. I’m just trying to highlight my confusion as to why Galadriel is apparently canonically racist while those two aren’t. I really, really don’t understand.
Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.
(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)
Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.
All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.
I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.
Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.
And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.
Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.
I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.
Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.
No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.
They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.
This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.
In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.
At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.
I think the least we can do is remember them for it.
okay so today in plant pathology lab we were hanging out and chilling yet again and my professor is like “hey the mycology team brought back another weird mushroom wanna see it” and i thought about the last time a mycology team member brought back a weird mushroom and we were like HELL YEAHHHHHHH so he took us back there and lo and behold
M E G A B O Y
features: -mega boy is a perrenial fungus, you can tell because of the weird rings; these are formed by the same fungus growing over the old fungal structure with new mycelium year after year, leaving layers!
-is estimated to be about ten years old by the mycology team
-grew around a chain, which we can assume to be also super old because its in the thicker part of the mushroom and is also super rusty
-chain is like straight up like 2-3 feet long????
-was in a tree/stump and they removed it
-is being dried and treated for use as a teaching specimen because MEGA CHAIN BOY
-is super heavy, probably because of the chain bbut also because HE MEGA??
I adore her. She poisoned their soup (she was working in the cantine and
was forced to serve the occupying nazis) and ATE the same soup to
proove her innocence. Then she rushed home to her grandma who gave her a
whole jar of milk to drink and throw up.
I would pay real cash-money to never, ever have to see again any variation of those ‘how dare they not keep the plot-point of Padme trying to kill Anakin in ROTS?!’ posts.
Years ago, one of my friends made a very cynical prediction, in saying that the very justified calls for strong female characters will result less in actually diverse, nuanced, wonderfully flawed, complex female characters with agency, and more in cookie-cutter, by-the-numbers Badass WomenTM who are only valued because they fight and they kill.
I didn’t believe it at the time, but watching what a completely OOC disaster Star Wars fans like to make of Padme Amidala, I can give credence to the above fear. 20+ years in fandoms has taught me that, as a rule, a lot of peopleare very badat working with characterization that isn’t simplified, near black-and-white. This is how you get the infamous process of Flanderization, both in canon and fanon works (one of a character’s traits overtaking the rest of their characterization, until they end up a caricature of themselves), this is how you end up with headache-inducing nonsense such as ‘female character that shows emotion and caves when under enormous pressure = Weak’ and ‘female character who is capable of murder = Strong.’
I’m glad that the whole ‘Padme trying to kill Anakin’ was abandoned early in production. Because, to put it bluntly, that isn’t who Padme is. Not even remotely. For two films, her greatest strength and her greatest weakness is, repeatedly, shown to be both her capacity for forgiveness and understanding, along with her unwillingness to resort to violence unless there is absolutely no other fucking option (and even then, murder remains a line not to be crossed). We’re talking about a woman who, at fourteen, with all the righteous anger of a monarch liberating her planet, did not shoot Nute Gunray – the person responsible for her people’s suffering, for tens of thousands of Naboo or more being sent to processing camps and a death-toll that could have likely been staggering, for such a peaceful planet. Even as a young teenager, she showed infinitely more restraint and moral fiber than the individuals who know only how to bay for blood and disguise their atavistic violence and desires for vengeance under a paper-thin maskofserving justice.
Too cruel of an assessment on my part? Watch, over the years, thousands of people write post after post after post where they go into horrific level of detail on how they want their most hated characters to die (slowly, painfully, disemboweled, beaten, butchered, brained, made to scream, tortured by the Heroes, the Good Guys) and then see identical posts getting written about real, living people and you get a crash-course, front-row seat on radicalization. And that’s the key-word here, I think. ‘Radicalization.’ That is precisely how you end up with ‘a Feminist Heroine is a woman who can kill or at least try to kill’ and an ‘an Unfeminist Heroine is one who is not capable of killing’. By making a direct correlation between strength, agency and the capacity for lethal violence. That is, fundamentally, one of the hallmarks of the radicalized mind, along with black-and-white, us-versus-them thinking and consistent dehumanization of the ‘them’ contingent, whatever it might be.
A very interesting aspect in Padme’s unwillingness to even contemplate killing Anakin is that she’s not alone among Skywalker women in thinking like that. Her daughter, the much-lauded ‘proper heroine’, also refuses to contemplate the murder of her son, echoing Padme and Luke’s words and hope, across the years (’there’s still good in him’). Equally interesting is also how often this aspect of Leia is ignored, in favor of lurid fantasies of her brutally destroying her son. Because, again, apparently one cannot be a Proper Feminist Icon without the atavistic violence and serving as a self-insertion vehicle for the audience’s darkest impulses.
I could speak further on how Padme attempting to murder Anakin completely contradicts the character we’ve been presented across the Prequel Trilogy, but others have written plenty on that (to little avail). Instead, I’ll say how distasteful I find this correlation of strength with violence and how repulsive it is to see nuanced, complex female characters reduced to their capability or incapability to kill. That isn’t feminist or even remotely good writing. That’s just projection and radicalization.
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