When I'm doing these posts I tend to focus on really specific moments or choices in an episode. But today I thought I'd instead trace the arc of a character in a given episode. It's a key skill, and RINGS OF POWER gives a good example in its pilot.
OPENING:
The series opens on the child Galadriel building a very cool paper boat, which is then attacked by doofy elf kids. And when Galadriel jumps them, she ends up getting pulled away by her older brother Finrod. And he gives her two pieces of advice. First, to keep your eyes looking up toward the light, rather than dragged down by the dark. And the second we don't hear at this point. But what we get instead is just Galadriel's question: What do you if you can't tell the difference between what is up and what is down?
Just like that, the show sets up Galadriel's conflict in the pilot: She needs to decide whether to do what looks right to everyone else, or to do something else that doesn't. She needs to figure out what's right for her. An open question, a very tidy way of setting an arc up.
It's also a moment that establishes the most important relationship in Galadriel's life, her relationship with Finrod, which is the engine that is going to drive her.
THE HUNT
After a history lesson that explains what happened to Valinor, home of the Elves, the war against Morgoth and the death of Finrod at Sauron's hands, and her promise to finish her brother's quest, we find Galadriel leading a team of elves in some crazy northern wasteland, looking for a sign of Sauron.
There's a number of beats in the section, but in a sense they all amount to the same thing: Galadriel wants to push on, and everyone else thinks that's crazy. So at the beginning of the section she's far outmatching her companions in climbing; and at the end, despite finding Sauron's signal, they all still elect to go home.
So, basically we have young Galadriel's hypothetical problem made real: she sees things completely differently than everyone else. And they say her way is wrong.
LINDON
Galadriel comes to the capital city of the High Elves intent on demanding the king send her back out. (Scene 1) Instead she is surprised to find he publicly announces wartime is over, Sauron is clearly no more, and missions her and her companions to Valinor as a reward. (Scene 2)
This ups the ante, right? She's the one who never backs down, but she's been warned by Elrond that she is already on thin ice with the king, that he finds her continued drive disobedient. And so she's put into this situation of having to decide, will she trust her instincts or not?
At first, she confides to Elrond that she is going to refuse the offer, she will go on alone if she must. And for a moment she actually seems to have the compelling argument--"Evil does not sleep," she tells him. "It waits." He presses back with the key Galadriel question: And what if you're wrong? Who will die as a result? And what will happen to you—you'll be trapped here forever.
We get a new argument in the midst of all this, the trauma that Galadriel has been through, the darkness she carries inside her, and also the way her identity is tied up with her long career as a warrior. And the scene ends with Elrond begging her to put her sword down and rest.
The next thing we know she's on the boat, leaving Lindon for Valinor with the others. Which is a little surprising—we've had no moment of real choice! But that's because her moment of choice is not at Lindon but out on the ocean, as the passage to Valinor opens.
THE BOAT
We get this extended ritual of preparation. First their armor is taken off, then their weapons from their hands. And she resists, until someone else stares at her. Then she releases. Again, at the heart of deciding what is right is also having to deal with others' point of view on the matter.
We get the light, the birds, the angelic song, which all the others join in on, but not Galadriel. And this time, there's no resolution, she just doesn't join in, looking confused.
The doorway opens. And as everyone looks forward, she looks back to her sword. And as others step forward, she steps back, while her second in command begs for her hand. At first she gives it, but then she looks back again to the sword. And we hear her question to her brother again about how to tell the darkness from the light, and her brother's whispered answer: "Sometimes we cannot know, until we have touched the darkness." In other words, Galadriel, trust your own experience.
Her friend again calls for her, and her hand is still extended, in fact reaching for him—that's how near a thing this is; even as she comes to believe in staying, still there is a major part of her that is intent on doing what everyone else believes. In fact our last shot of her on the boat has her staring seemingly into the light.
But then no, she dives off the boat, her decision finally made. And the decision is not simply to not to go to Valinor, but to trust her own sense of where the light is. She's answering the question she asked as a child.
It's a really well made arc, isn't it? I especially like that deferral of her decision at Lindon; that's the key to her arc, and so of course she should decide only at the end. And there's also the specific way the writers choose to deepen her conflict over it. She seems so sure of herself on the hunt. Even in Lindon, mostly. But then she leaves without deciding, and on the boat it gets harder and harder for her not just to leave but to stay. You might think, given her initial resistance the conflict should be she wants to go but she does not feel allowed, but no, they find an even deeper well of struggle, which is that she more and more wants both things. In the end her decision to refuse Valinor is less than inches.
A writing hypothesis worth considering: There's more conflict to be found in a person wants two opposing things than having them want one thing they can't have.
