Galadriel and I both wrestle with Middle-earth. in the The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the heroine is torn between returning to the West with the rest of her company and living out her days in utter tranquility and continuing the hunt for Sauron, who she knows is alive. For me, well, I’m kept up at night thinking about the elf girls.
On the Boat to the Immortal Lands (aka Elven Heaven), as the elves who have been granted passage stand upright on the ship’s deck, swords in hand, there are a number of elven maidens who step out and begin to guide them prepare for the completion of their journey. They take their weapons and their cloaks, exuding ceremony with every move. And then they just throw them on the ground. And when the ship itself (without Galadriel) leaves for the undying lands, are the maidens only left on the ship?
I casually brought the question to Susana Polo, Polygon’s resident Tolkien expert, anticipating (as I often do) some deeper lore in the scene. She told me, “I don’t know; Tolkien wasn’t very specific about these things.” I squeezed a little harder, expecting it to be safe some Explanation behind the graceful images: Why were they all women? What happened to them when the ship sailed into elf heaven? Why did they take the guns only to throw them away yards from the people they took them from?
Susana had no answers for me. As she put it, Tolkien doesn’t really address how elves “decide what to do with their lives”. We have the broad strokes of the big families or government parties. But beyond that, Tolkien (who, Susana notes, was very Catholic) long walked on marriage, old age, kids, linguistics…but not jobs.
I don’t know what that means for the elf girls. They might just be a lower level of elven servants, and there might be more to what they do than we see Rings of Power. But before your brain digs too deep down that rabbit hole, let me assure you, mine already has. Being on the boat to Valinor is said to be the highest honor an elf can attain, the chance to return to Valinor, a reprieve from their previous expulsion. Were these servants Also invited? Is this similar to (inflated) idea of pharaohs being buried with their servants? Or were the servants simply heavenly flight attendants who plied the route between Lindon and the Undying Lands and only paid if the ship’s doors were locked?
These are thoughts that, if you let them, will fuck you all the way to the top and likely cause several people to leave the room while you keep yelling about the effects of the Rings of Power Elf Ascension Scene. They are not at all the point of this divine moment, and yet they feel to me representative of the cracks in it Rings of Power.
The scene itself is meant to ground us in Galadriel’s struggle, turning away from the afterlife that so many of her kind seek to expose themselves to (presumably) much more conflict and pain in order to ensure a better world and fulfill their promise to theirs Brothers. In the midst of all this are the ship’s heavenly sailors who (I think?) help the weary soldiers on their way. They’re the sort of thing that feels cool in the moment and fits the elegantly stoic elven aesthetic.
But scratch it for just a moment and it all falls apart; These girls seem to exist only to further dramatize Galadriel’s repugnance, something that has become fairly well established in the first hour. Rings of Power is alleged A billion dollar series, and a world as rich as Tolkien’s deserves more than images that feel so thinly drawn. Middle-earth is a realm of mystery, but the fate of the elven servants/choir/ship workers on their way to elven heaven should not be one of them.
