The first episode of the long-awaited Rings of Power series definitely ended on a cliffhanger, with Galadriel jumping ship as the boat full of her elf brothers crossed the threshold back to Valinor. It is clear at this point that this was a very difficult and painful decision for her to make. She hesitates between leaving Middle Earth and staying until the last second, which makes for a very intense scene.
Ultimately, like those who have seen or read the original Lord of the Rings would know, she chooses to stay and sacrifices her chance to return to her home in Valinor. This left fans shocked by this sudden ending, in which the protagonist is stranded in a dangerous sea, under a dark and foreboding sky. Until the release of the next episode, it was unknown how she would survive. This begs the question: Should Galadriel have gone back to the Undying Lands when she had the chance?
From the start, this has been a tumultuous question for Galadriel. Her chance to return home is presented as a “gift” from the leader of the elves, Gil-galad. It is a great honor for Galadriel and her team of soldiers, in recognition of their courage in pursuing the evil Sauron north to discover if his poison and malice still existed in the world. However, this gift comes at a time when Galadriel is very close to achieving her mission. As such, it seems to her that she is being sent away before she is completely ready to leave the world, almost as if there are ulterior motives or nefarious intentions involved. Galadriel already has this warning in her heart, prompting her to leave her home and instead continue to fight for Middle Earth.
It is a gift and a privilege to regain a place in the Undying Lands, which so many elves long for. However, it also comes with very high stakes, as Elrond Galadriel warns:
“No one in history has ever declined the call. Do that now, and it may never come back. You will linger here, an outcast, poisoned by dark whispers and dreams.”
Fortunately for Galadriel, this is not the case. She declines the first call, but she ends up going to Valinor at the end of the call Lord of the Rings. However, this is thousands of years later, and those years are indeed filled with dark whispers, just as Elrond warns. In that sense, it might have been better if Galadriel had accepted the valar’s gift and gone home when she had the chance. If she had, she could have avoided all of the horrific events in the War of the Ring that are happening across the street the hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. She would have existed beyond the knowledge of Sauron’s fate and his evil.
But in this case, ignorance would not have given her the peace she so longed for when she returned to the Gray Havens. She explains to Elrond:
‘And in the west, do you think my lot would be better? My song would mock the battle cries in my ears. You say I have conquered all the terrors of Middle-earth, but you would leave them alive in me to take with me. Immortal. Unchangeable, unbreakable.”
Obviously, Galadriel feels connected to the fate of the world her brother died to protect, and feels responsible for helping to protect against the evil she feels in her heart still out there. Her brother taught her to trust her instincts and follow what she believed in, which is exactly what she is reminded of when she looks at his dagger aboard the boat. Therefore, her heart would never have rested and found salvation in Valinor, fearing she’d left Middle-earth to the darkness. She would always be at odds with the tranquility and beauty around her.
This is a feeling and a knowing that exists in her and that none of the others can comprehend. It is a turmoil that would eat her away, even in the heaven of her people. Elrond urges her:
“Only in the blessed realm can that which is broken in you be healed. Go there! Go, and I promise you, if only a whisper of a rumor about the threat you perceive turns out to be true, I will not rest until it is remedied.”
But for Galadriel, there is no cure until she knows that the evil is truly over and that the world she has watched over for so long is finally safe. Therefore, she couldn’t leave and in the end it was better for her to stay and fight. This way she knows she will leave the world in safe hands with Aragorn, Eomer and the hobbits when she finally makes her journey to the Undying Lands in the Third Age. Thus, she can truly find peace by returning to the starlit world of her childhood, having finally completed the mission she set herself so long ago.
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