Fellowship of the Fans

Galadriel - Commander Galadriel (9/5/2022)

Next criticism which again involves Galadriel.

They made her the commander of Gil-Galad's armies despite the fact she'd never been there.

And I admit, they could have made it work—maybe. Because you've also got to ignore what she was actually doing, in that she was elsewhere with her husband who is absent from the show and may actually be dead, and they had a daughter and there's a chance she's abandoned that daughter or that daughter will never exist and if that daughter will never exist, Arwen can't exist. Yes. If Galadriel never has her daughter, her granddaughter Arwen can never exist.

But back to what I really want to get at.

Galadriel is a horrible leader who is willing to abandon her own men in a snow storm because she is so focused on revenge that she only cares about herself. And this is supposed to be our likable lead, our main character. She's disobeying orders from her king, demanding to see him whenever she wanted and doing things even men would never get away with if they were a warrior.

Well, unless you count that one commander who gets killed towards the end because he was such a horrible leader who didn't care about his men, and yet Galadriel needs to live into the third age.

"Wait. What about character development? Couldn't she receive character development where this behavior is no longer an issue?"

Well, yes, if those working on the show actually realized her behavior was a problem.

And the problem is, they don't. They think her leaving her men behind shows how strong of a woman she is compared to her weak men.

Who, are the way, Elves, which actually makes this even more bizarre.

In fact, she's always taking a piss out of men because men are bad in this narrative, such as her refusing to be pulled up onto a raft by a man only to be pulled up be a woman. Of course, if everyone is right and this man is Sauron in disguise, they'll try and say she just knew he was evil all along, only—she's not really realizing it like she should.

So, yeah. Galdriel's this character who can do no wrong despite the fact she is very much doing the wrong thing, her identity is completely wrapped up in being a "female warrior" at this point and her attitude towards other people, particularly men, stinks, for she treats them as if they're useless to her unless she can get something, such as demanding Elrond get her a meeting with Gil-galad after disrespecting her kings orders.

Which, by the way, her demanding Elrond do that is exactly why one reviwer from main stream media has called her out for being an Elven Karen.

Oh! And another thing. It's hard to believe that Galdriel, who accepted a Dwarf into her kingdom with absolutely no questions would treat her own men like specks of dirt under her feat. So there's also that.