Down the list of goofy things that people are eager to complain about with regard to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is that the elf character Galadriel has her fair share of action scenes. Played by Morfydd Clark in the hit new Prime Video series, many fans still identify the character with Cate Blanchett’s version from the feature films that doesn’t lift a sword and spends the entire franchise pontificating on the likely failure of The Fellowship of the Ring. It’s worth remembering that elves in Tolkien’s mythology live for thousands of years and the one seen in The Lord of the Rings trilogy has been around for a long time, much longer than the one we see in The Rings of Power, and that’s why she’s out kicking ass the way she is.
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“I would say that her serenity is hard earned. I don’t think you get to that level of wisdom without going through things,” Clark told Variety in a new interview. “She actually speaks about [how] with wisdom, there is a loss of innocence, which was a really good thing for me to find in the lore. Because, like, how young are you when you’re still thousands of years old? So it was thinking of what innocence she lost during this time. The elves by the Third Age have evolved to a certain degree. The elves in the First Age are really messy and screw each other over a lot, and fight and mock each other also. They are the history of Middle Earth, and so they are forever changing. It was really interesting for all of us playing canon characters to be exploring how these characters become what we know them to be.”
For those perhaps still not satisfied with this turn for the character, Clark brought the receipts and offered what Tolkien himself said about the character. “There’s a bit where Tolkien describes Galadriel as tying her hair up into a crown with a plait as she goes into battle,” she added. “I was kind of like, wow this opens up so much, that this happened. And also, Tolkien changed his ideas about Galadriel, which makes her more interesting. I became obsessed with like, why did Tolkien need Galadriel to be that at that point? He kind of like fell more in love with her, I think, as he got older, and so there’s a fluidity to her character.”
With a five season plan already in place by the series’ showrunners, and Galadriel clearly making it to The Third Age of Middle-earth and beyond, we’ll almost certainly be seeing a lot of Clark and her character throughout The Rings of Power. The actress wouldn’t divulge any teases about what’s to come, only offering that Galadriel’s family is a big part of her as a character and that “lots will be explored.”
How to Watch The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
The new series can only be streamed on Amazon Prime Video, be it directly through an internet browser or on a Prime Video app on a Smart TV or other device. The series is only available to watch for Amazon Prime subscribers, available on a monthly or annual subscription, but you can sign up for it here.
