Oxonmoot 2024

Galadriel is one of only a few strong female characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium. In The Lord of the Rings, she is the only female ruler, governing her realm of Lothlórien together with her husband. Their roles as rulers are nuanced and finely balanced, as revealed by a close reading of the Fellowship’s arrival to Caras Galadhon: Galadriel and Celeborn both profess a number of “me”-topics and “we”-topics, with one more concerned with Foreign, the other with Domestic Politics. Their respective roles in this do not conform to but transcend gender stereotypes. This paper argues that the distinction is no mistake but the result of Tolkien’s careful revision of the original draft, and is almost entirely lost in Peter Jackson’s adaptation to the detriment of Galadriel’s distinct agency.