We Are Presenting Here This Silly Little Meme Of Ours (@aredhel-erinti)... Enjoy

we are presenting here this silly little meme of ours (@aredhel-erinti)... enjoy

The girlboss-ification of Galadriel bothers me so much. In the books, in Tolkien’s works, Galadriel is a powerful political leader, even by the second age. She is a princess of the Noldor, the daughter of Finarfin. She is proud and respected.

In the Rings of Power, she is nothing more than a bitter commander in Gil-Galad’s army. She can’t even control her own subordinates. (They call her “Commandeer Galadriel” not “Lady Galadriel”!) She is ignored by Gil-Galad and condescended to by Elrond, she is dismissed and rebuked. She has no influence and no status of her own. So far in the show, her motivation is just vengeance and her own trauma, there is no greater consideration of the fate of Middle-Earth, no political aspirations, no nothing. Her identity becomes one of being Finrod’s little sister, not a leader of her own.

In the Unfinished Tales, there are many inconsistencies in Galadriel’s history, but none of them suggest this powerlessness and this humiliation.

I don’t care if they make her out to be a warrior or not, I don’t care if she leads people into battle or not, I do care about her political power.

They say they are centering female characters, which would be great, except they are disempowering her. I would much rather see a woman in a position of influence and respect, than one who is good with a sword. This is Galadriel, who refused Feanor, one of the greatest elves of all time, when he asked for a strand of her hair, and in Rings of Power she becomes a cast-away who is thrown around, ignored, and manhandled by those around her.

I understand the need to have room for character development and growth, but this is not that. It’s such a performative attempt at feminism, she is a classic 2010 female protagonist. One who is good at fighting, who is the underdog, who doesn’t allow herself to be kind or gentle or have emotional vulnerability, because the writers forgot what female empowerment actually looks like. A woman with dignity and political power is so much more important than a woman who can carry a sword.

“There Grímhild dwelt,

guileful in counsel,

grimhearted queen

grey with wisdom,

with lore of leechcraft,

lore of poison,

with chill enchantment

and with changing spells.”

– J.R.R. Tolkien: Völsungakviða en nýja 

Not gonna lie, Grímhild sounds cool.

light upon the sea

Do you ever think about how Tolkien’s vision of the greatest evil in the universe was something he referred to as “The Machine” which was his way of talking about accelerated industrialism and mass surveillance and he wrote multiple books where the main villains were a dragon who sits on a huge pile of treasure that he never intends to use but incinerates anyone who comes near it, a man in a giant tower who’s wrecking the environment with his factories, and an evil being who uses what’s essentially a listening device to control the citizens of middle earth. And now Amazon is making a Tolkien show. Do you ever think about that.

As a member of Falešné společenstvo I have to thank all the people from Tolkien musical fan group. You can’t even imagine how much this means to me (and I think it’s the same for other members of FS too). I almost cried when you gave us the flowers and the “letter”… Gosh, It’s so beautiful. 

This year was especially challenging. Many of us think we were cursed and our journey is painfully similar to Enchanted Isles. Even a few hours before the Tolkiencon premiere there were so many things that went wrong (e.g. broken car and keyboard stand) and I don’t even talk about cast changes because of illnesses… 

After all those years I’m a little bit burnt out (even though compared to some other members I don’t even do a quarter of their work) and I was even feeling like quitting. Of course, I didn’t mainly because well… without a very good reason, you can’t quit a few weeks before the premiere. But the other reason was that there are people outside the traditional visitors of Tolkiencon, who enjoy our work on its own, and who even want to travel from other countries just to see us. You guys are one of the few reasons, why I had a will to continue and a will to try to deliver the best possible performance. (Unfortunately, it wasn’t the best performance. Acting and singing in the gym are very hard because of the people who sit a few meters before you and you can look directly to their faces… I really wish you could see our unofficial performance last week. It is always in a little theatre and probably because of that this performance is very often better than the premiere one).

So, thank you so so much again. You are really amazing. And I truly hope our play was worth your journey and you have enjoyed your stay at Tolkiencon and Prague…