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5. This Mysterious Færie Queen.
Jared, Oriana and Ned discuss Oriana’s choice of topic: Galadriel. Even if
she’s not actually Cate Blanchett in platform heels, she’s tall and blonde,
and she seems to have a total drip of a husband in Celeborn. If he’s wise,
she’s definitely wiser, and once introduced into the legendarium, Tolkien
himself didn’t seem to know exactly what to do with her backstory, quite
literally changing details just a month before he died. Among our discussions:
what did Galadriel and Celeborn do all that time when they were hanging out at
the Elf havens in Gondor? Is Galadriel in fact really talking to Sauron in the
famed sequence viewing her mirror? Why didn’t Galadriel return to Valinor
sooner when it seemed she had numerous opportunities to do so? And of course:
what is it about her hair? Bonus appearance by a thunderstorm!
Show Notes.
Jared’s
doodle for
the episode is another success, of course!
The full interview of Stephen Colbert by Anderson Cooper on
grief is worth a watch; Colbert
first mentions Tolkien offhand a little after the 6:30 mark. Colbert
interviewing Lee Pace is a much
lighter subject, with the initial Tolkien nerdery happening almost out of the
gate.
Here’s that Amazon video introducing their show’s creative
team. There are
some heavy hitters for sure! IMDB credits for Gen
Hutchison show the range—Fringe is
currently streaming (with ads) via Amazon. Kate
Hawley’s IMDB page
similarly has a lot to offer—in 2015 she was interviewed about her Crimson
Peak work in detail, and her Instagram is
cool—and Rick
Heinrichs has done more than a few
things himself.
John Howe is, well, John Howe. He’s just
that good. Last year’s A Middle Earth
Traveller was a great overview of his many designs for
both of Peter Jackson’s trilogies, so we’ll see what carries through into
Amazon’s production.
Tom Shippey is his own total
legend, and very much still active in work on and about Tolkien, as this
hour-long lecture from the Tolkien 2019
gathering in England earlier
this month shows. His Tolkien Gesellschaft
interview doesn’t and can’t say everything of
course but there’s a lot in there that shows what the general path of the
Amazon adaptation will be like.
Markella Kavenagh is (almost) Tyra, if
Variety’s news story is any indication.
TheOneRing.net’s piece on this
news has more background on the general
casting/audition process.
There’s plenty out there on the Robert Jordan Wheel of
Time adaptation at
Amazon—here’s recent casting news—but yes, suffice to say
his estate was NOT thrilled by this bizarre
production by another team
entirely from back in 2016.
I mean, yeah, Cate Blanchett,
Galadriel,
there ya go.
But more seriously, Tolkien Gateway’s overview of
Galadriel gives a real sense of the
character’s deep history in the world of the legendarium, as well as the
various points of that history that Tolkien never fully resolved, such as
whether or not Amroth was her son.
Jared’s reminder that Tolkien was far from ‘woke’ is a further reminder in
turn that there’s been quite a bit of scholarship on Galadriel and feminism in
various corners. (This piece, while heavily academic, looks at her and Eowyn in detail in
the context of Tolkien’s ‘inadvertant feminism.’)
Celeborn, the master of just being
there, supposedly being wise. (And yet, based on his few lines in The Lord of
the Rings, he’s not THAT wise.) And yes, this really
is an alternate version of his
name.
Suffice to say “The Mirror of
Galadriel” is and
remains one of the most memorable chapters and moments from the book and its
many adaptations. As for the mirror itself, there are theories...lots of
them.
Galadriel’s hair alone may
be the most memorable in any kind of fantastic literature since Rapunzel.
(Though Lúthien knew something about hair
too.) One of the cleverer bits of Jackson’s movies was keeping the
exact scene offscreen, simply recalled in wistful retrospect
instead. (As John Rhys Davies
noted in the documentaries with the films, it’s a great moment to read, but a
hard one to capture on film and act in.)
Galadriel as a manifestation of Tolkien’s
Catholicism is no small subject
matter. The question of her identification with the Virgin Mary has long been
a topic for discussion—here’s a
couple of pieces among many—while her
famed poem sung upon the Fellowship’s departure,
“Namárië,” itself feels
like a prayer to another Marian figure, the Vala
Varda aka Elbereth Gilthoniel.
The issue of mindreading and telepathy in Tolkien is a touch vague—but not
totally absent either: his late essay “Ósanwe-kenta,” published in the
39th issue of Vinyar Tengwar, talks about it in
some detail; while not available online, it’s drawn upon for this extensive
piece on the wider
subject.
My Bloody Valentine? I do like
them.
Support By-The-Bywater on Patreon.
View all episodes
By Jared Pechaček, Oriana Scwindt, and Ned Raggett
4.8
2929 ratings
Jared, Oriana and Ned discuss Oriana’s choice of topic: Galadriel. Even if
she’s not actually Cate Blanchett in platform heels, she’s tall and blonde,
and she seems to have a total drip of a husband in Celeborn. If he’s wise,
she’s definitely wiser, and once introduced into the legendarium, Tolkien
himself didn’t seem to know exactly what to do with her backstory, quite
literally changing details just a month before he died. Among our discussions:
what did Galadriel and Celeborn do all that time when they were hanging out at
the Elf havens in Gondor? Is Galadriel in fact really talking to Sauron in the
famed sequence viewing her mirror? Why didn’t Galadriel return to Valinor
sooner when it seemed she had numerous opportunities to do so? And of course:
what is it about her hair? Bonus appearance by a thunderstorm!
Show Notes.
Jared’s
doodle for
the episode is another success, of course!
The full interview of Stephen Colbert by Anderson Cooper on
grief is worth a watch; Colbert
first mentions Tolkien offhand a little after the 6:30 mark. Colbert
interviewing Lee Pace is a much
lighter subject, with the initial Tolkien nerdery happening almost out of the
gate.
Here’s that Amazon video introducing their show’s creative
team. There are
some heavy hitters for sure! IMDB credits for Gen
Hutchison show the range—Fringe is
currently streaming (with ads) via Amazon. Kate
Hawley’s IMDB page
similarly has a lot to offer—in 2015 she was interviewed about her Crimson
Peak work in detail, and her Instagram is
cool—and Rick
Heinrichs has done more than a few
things himself.
John Howe is, well, John Howe. He’s just
that good. Last year’s A Middle Earth
Traveller was a great overview of his many designs for
both of Peter Jackson’s trilogies, so we’ll see what carries through into
Amazon’s production.
Tom Shippey is his own total
legend, and very much still active in work on and about Tolkien, as this
hour-long lecture from the Tolkien 2019
gathering in England earlier
this month shows. His Tolkien Gesellschaft
interview doesn’t and can’t say everything of
course but there’s a lot in there that shows what the general path of the
Amazon adaptation will be like.
Markella Kavenagh is (almost) Tyra, if
Variety’s news story is any indication.
TheOneRing.net’s piece on this
news has more background on the general
casting/audition process.
There’s plenty out there on the Robert Jordan Wheel of
Time adaptation at
Amazon—here’s recent casting news—but yes, suffice to say
his estate was NOT thrilled by this bizarre
production by another team
entirely from back in 2016.
I mean, yeah, Cate Blanchett,
Galadriel,
there ya go.
But more seriously, Tolkien Gateway’s overview of
Galadriel gives a real sense of the
character’s deep history in the world of the legendarium, as well as the
various points of that history that Tolkien never fully resolved, such as
whether or not Amroth was her son.
Jared’s reminder that Tolkien was far from ‘woke’ is a further reminder in
turn that there’s been quite a bit of scholarship on Galadriel and feminism in
various corners. (This piece, while heavily academic, looks at her and Eowyn in detail in
the context of Tolkien’s ‘inadvertant feminism.’)
Celeborn, the master of just being
there, supposedly being wise. (And yet, based on his few lines in The Lord of
the Rings, he’s not THAT wise.) And yes, this really
is an alternate version of his
name.
Suffice to say “The Mirror of
Galadriel” is and
remains one of the most memorable chapters and moments from the book and its
many adaptations. As for the mirror itself, there are theories...lots of
them.
Galadriel’s hair alone may
be the most memorable in any kind of fantastic literature since Rapunzel.
(Though Lúthien knew something about hair
too.) One of the cleverer bits of Jackson’s movies was keeping the
exact scene offscreen, simply recalled in wistful retrospect
instead. (As John Rhys Davies
noted in the documentaries with the films, it’s a great moment to read, but a
hard one to capture on film and act in.)
Galadriel as a manifestation of Tolkien’s
Catholicism is no small subject
matter. The question of her identification with the Virgin Mary has long been
a topic for discussion—here’s a
couple of pieces among many—while her
famed poem sung upon the Fellowship’s departure,
“Namárië,” itself feels
like a prayer to another Marian figure, the Vala
Varda aka Elbereth Gilthoniel.
The issue of mindreading and telepathy in Tolkien is a touch vague—but not
totally absent either: his late essay “Ósanwe-kenta,” published in the
39th issue of Vinyar Tengwar, talks about it in
some detail; while not available online, it’s drawn upon for this extensive
piece on the wider
subject.
My Bloody Valentine? I do like
them.
Support By-The-Bywater on Patreon.
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