In your eyes, there is My reflection

Heather, Melinda May, M’gann M’orzz. These are only a few of the characters I relate to most in the world for rather dark and depressing reasons. On top of this list is none other than Galadriel from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. While a lot of people argue that she is poorly written, one-dimensional, or even a Mary Sue, she is a real person and a well-written one at that. She is a real person that I, and others, can relate to.

My relation to Galadriel goes deep. Without getting into specifics, I have lost people, I have gone through phases of my life I could easily describe as “Hell”, I have been depressed, I have lived with such pains for so long that the extent it reached scared even me.

The version of Galadriel most people are familiar with is from the third age. From just the Lord of the Rings, we don’t know much of her past. But from the books, we can learn that early in her life, in the space of but a few centuries, Galadriel has lived through a lot of insane horrors. She would obviously be scarred badly by everything that she lived through. THAT is the version of Galadriel that Rings of Power depicts.

That version of Galadriel lives with a seemingly unending pain of her past. A pain she can’t seem to heal from. A pain she doesn’t seem to want to heal from. The reasons for this are that her pain is the only link she has to all that she’s lost, and that it’s easier to sit in a known pain than step into an unknown peace. I have lived that myself. In the space of a few years, at a young age, my life fell apart. For years I was in pain. I felt like I was unable to heal and I didn’t really want to. It was hard to let go of the pain when it was the last thing connecting me to my past that I lost and I didn’t know what would wait for me if I healed.

Galadriel has also lost a lot of people. Her parents both remained behind in Valinor at the Flight of the Noldor, her uncles, and cousins, and all of her brothers all died during the first age. In the show, she also lost her husband. Clearly, I cannot comprehend that kind of loss, but I have lost people who have meant the world to me and I know the grief that comes with it. And I know how hard it is to move on. How hard it is to open up about such pain.

Galadriel in the show is on the brink of being suicidal. I’ve mentioned before how little she seems to have to live for. At the point we meet her, the only thing keeping her going is her Sauron crusade. She is grasping for anything to keep her going. “Grasping for a handhold in a tempest”, to live with Míriel’s words. In the years when everything in my life felt like it was falling apart, I felt like I had nothing to live for. For the most part, it was a single thought that kept me going. I would’ve killed for a proper reason to keep on living.

Galadriel feels completely alone. There’s no one that lived through all that she has. There’s no one that can understand. This isn’t true of course. And even if it where, she will always have Elrond regardless. But the mind is cruel sometimes. It makes you believe that you are alone, that there’s no one who could possibly understand. Just like mine had convinced me. The HARDEST part about all my struggles was believing that I was alone in them, that no one saw or could understand. It is hard to let people in or see the ways in which people are there for us. It took me and it took Galadriel a long time to find companionship and accept the support of those around me/her.

Galadriel is angry. That is the part most people see. It’s probably the most visible. How could she not be angry? Anger is the feeling trying to tell us that something is wrong, that we don’t like something, that some need isn’t being met. So of course we’re angry when we’re in pain. When she isn’t in pain, most of the time Galadriel is angry. That anger is pushing her, it can make her destructive and disliked. As it has made me. My already existing anger issues did not benefit from the anger I felt about being in so much pain. Neither did I, because like Galadriel did, I saw that directing my anger outwards was often hurting those around me. People can say what they will, but Galadriel is still a caring person and while channeling her anger into her crusade still managed to cause damage, she did not want to hurt those around her. In that kind of misery, the only thing one manages to do is usually to direct that anger inwards. Although this is not said or implied, I believe Galadriel too has directed some of her anger inwards. Like it did with me, this appears as self-loathing, like when she compared herself to Sauron himself. “...I believe they could no longer distinguish me from the evil I was fighting.”

Galadriel has an inability to fully express just how she feels. This isn’t uncommon. She has been hurt and she attempts to prevent more hurt by being guarded. She has put up walls to protect herself. The problem with those walls is that because of them, it is hard to open up to anyone. To open up about one’s pain is to be vulnerable, the exact opposite of what the walls are for. On the show, Galadriel speaks to Elrond about how in Valinor her pain surrounded by joy would only worsen it with great difficulty. And the only time she truly opens up about what it is she is feeling is when Halbrand provokes her to do so. It’s like he took a sledgehammer and blasted a hole in her walls. And you can tell how disturbed Galadriel is at first and how she clearly never spoke those words to anyone before. Much like her, I too attempted to protect myself with many layers of walls, making it hard to open up. When I do talk about my problems, it is still like one of those walls has blown open.

Part of Galadriel’s journey in Rings of Power is learning where her actions lead. Her actions, fueled by her suppressed pain, outward anger, and desperation, led to consequences she couldn’t foresee mostly because she was focused on getting what she wanted. When chasing a thing we think will bring us peace or give us a sense of porpuse, it is easy to forget about everything else. The realization that our actions have consequences, whatever those might be, can hit like a truck. We are blindsided by our pursuit for feeling something other than pain and we fail to see where our actions might lead. That’s what happened to Galadriel and that’s what happened to me as well. Of course, I didn’t trigger deaths, but I have inflicted damage on myself and my relationships. Learning that my actions, no matter how much pain I am in, can cause damage to others and even myself, was a journey and it was difficult, as it was for Galadriel.

Galadriel’s positive traits are often overlooked. Amid her rage and her questionable actions, people miss the times she isn’t just that. The moments of empathy with Halbrand, Elendil, Míriel, Isildur, her kindness toward Theo are overlooked, all because of her pain. It’s hard to have the side of us noticed that still is bright when so much of us is covered in darkness. Galadriel’s positive moments are mostly overlooked outwardly, by the viewers, but they’re overlooked nonetheless. I myself had people, and even myself, overlook everything that wasn’t my pain. I was steeped in my own despair and that’s all that seemed to be visible to most people.

Most creators shy away from showing someone as broken as Galadriel on screen. As seen with her lady, it can land criticisms beyond count as people fail to recognize the depth of the character as more than just an angry Mary Sue. But Galadriel’s pain at every turn is accurately depicted and pain and misery such as hers exist in real life. And I have felt that kind of pain and misery. I have lived what Galadriel is living on the show. She is my reflection, more so than any other character before. I have never felt more represented than this. And that is why I am infinitely grateful that this show exists, that THIS version of Galadriel exists.