Remaining Galadriel

What does Tolkien's Mirror of Lothlórien reveal about ourselves?

“ ‘I pass the test’, she said. ‘I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel.’ ”
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

The story of the Mirror of Galadriel in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring is one of many interludes within his epic that serves to illuminate the central metaphor of The Lord of the Rings. At the time that we encounter Galadriel, Frodo Baggins has carried the One Ring to Rule Them All from his humble home town through many dangers, aided throughout by his companions. Frodo is already disheartened by the magnitude of his quest, especially because the wizard Gandalf has just sacrificed himself to secure the Fellowship’s escape. They shelter in the enchanted elven realm of Lothlórien, where they meet Lady Galadriel.

Frodo and his stalwart friend, Sam, are invited by Galadriel to gaze into her Mirror - a silver basin filled with water from the river that flows through Lothlórien. She explains that “it shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be” cautioning that “even the wisest” might not be able to tell which is which. After the hobbits glimpse their future, Galadriel warns that “the Mirror is dangerous as a guide of deeds”… some of the possible futures it reveals might not come to pass unless the witness attempts to prevent them happening. This is a popular theme in folklore and fantastic literature, epitomised by W. Somerset Maugham’s 1933 tale “The Appointment in Samarra”, where a man flees Baghdad to escape the figure of Death only to discover that Death was expecting to meet him in Samarra, the very place to which he fled.

After glimpses of the future, the Mirror reveals the present to Frodo. The Eye of Sauron, the second of the two great dark forces in Tolkien’s legendarium, is searching for the ring and its bearer - and nearly finds him through the Mirror! Rattled, but moved by Galadriel’s wisdom and temperance, Frodo offers to give her the ring, complaining that “it is too great a matter for me.” This is Galadriel’s temptation, for she confesses she has long desired the One Ring, in part because whether Frodo succeeds or fails, Lothlórien is doomed. Either her realm will be destroyed by Sauron if he re-captures the ring, or it will fade away if the ring is destroyed. Galadriel reveals she bears an elf-ring, the Ring of Adamant, which sustains her realm with powers linked to that of the terrible artefact that Frodo bears.

Tolkien writes of Galadriel’s temptation:

‘And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!’

But she stops herself, and speaks the line above, stating that she ‘passed the test’, and will ‘diminish’ yet ‘remain Galadriel’.

This story, while merely an interlude in the oh-so-long narrative of The Lord of Rings, is a reworking of the great temptation stories that can be found in various religious traditions. Jesus tempted by Satan in the desert, or Buddha tempted by the demon Mara under the Bodhi tree, these are the roots of the tale Tolkien is re-telling with Galadriel. The message of all these stories remains the same: to be tempted with power is to risk depravity. Galadriel imagines herself empowered, but recognises that this corrupted elf queen is no longer her.

Thus it is significant to the tale not only that Galadriel ‘passes the test’ but that she remains Galadriel. It is presumably not coincidental that Tolkien opts to call her elf-ring ‘the Ring of Adamant’, meaning ‘steadfast’, ‘unyielding’. Yet to remain who we are in the face of enticement to wickedness requires a power most people today have lost: the wisdom to know who you are, and the courage to maintain that sense of self despite temptation or hardship. The loss of virtue as the foundation of moral life has left us all vulnerable to a grave risk: losing ourselves in visions of imaginary futures every bit as dangerous as those witnessed in the Mirror of Galadriel.