Excellent essay. Very much enjoying a re-watch of ROP !
In Tolkien’s world, good is the fundamental, primary reality, while evil is merely a corruption, a cancer. “Nothing is evil in the beginning” because the cosmos was created good by a good Creator. Evil is not a positive presence, but an absence of good, as darkness is an absence of light. In the words of Tolkien’s fellow Inkling, C.S. Lewis, “Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness.”In the end, the conflict between good and evil is not a war between equal and independent powers so much as a rebellion of the branch against the tree. There was a time before evil existed, and there may be a time after evil has passed away, but there never was, never will be, and never can be a time without good.
There is comfort to be found in the fact that evil has no independent existence of its own, but as Galadriel rightly points out, the derivation of evil from good can lead to a dangerous confusion. Thus, the statement “Nothing is evil in the beginning” can be both a consolation and a caution. In The Rings of Power, spoken by Galadriel over images of Valinor’s golden light, it is an evocation of Edenic bliss. In The Fellowship of the Ring, spoken by Elrond at the council of Rivendell, it is a sobering warning to any who would try to reach noble goals by dubious roads.
Taking The Rings of Power and The Lord of the Rings together, then, Galadriel’s development across the ages of Middle-earth is quite striking: she begins as a type of Eve and becomes a type of Mary. The Mirror of Galadriel is in a garden, and it is in this garden – in keeping with the Edenic imagery – that Galadriel recapitulates and redeems the narrative of her temptation. Adar’s taunt – “Perhaps your search for Morgoth’s successor should have ended in your own mirror” – ironically becomes a beautiful reality when Galadriel passes her final test by the Mirror of Galadriel. In her refusal to take the Ring for herself, she definitively renounces the temptation to take up Morgoth’s mantle as a tyrant over Middle-earth and chooses instead to accept the path that she refused centuries before – the path that leads across the seas into the West.
The Mirrors of Galadriel
Good, Evil, and Self-Reflection in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 1Timothy Lawrence (FilmFisher)
