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searchingforserendipity25 · 5 months

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celrond, 26? 😭🥺

Thanks so much for the ask @i-am-a-lonely-visitor! Here are some kisses on some scars <3

Celebrían found them very appealing, particularly when Elrond took the pestle in hand.

'Do not laugh,' she demanded, laughing herself, tapping him with her fan in that light, suggestive fashion that had been all the rage in the Eriador of her youth. 'It’s all in the grip, and how clear with intent your eyes go. Such beautiful hands you have, beloved.'

Legs round and bare, she tilted on the edge of their rumpled bed, the better to watch him play apothecary for himself; and laughed, lower in her throat, when his ears warmed at the warmth of her admiration, and he proved very easy to distract from his tasks and trap back into bed.

Celebrían was generous of heart, and strange-minded at times. Elrond's hands were accounted good, life-saving, gracious and kind, and most days he did not disdain them at all; but they were not beautiful.

There were scars in them from old battles and skirmishes, accidental prickles when picking sea urchins from the sea pools of Sirion - nicks from weapons training and sparring, from long campaigns and hunting trips.

Tough calluses littered his palm, the likes of which no elven warrior or scribe, no lord or harpist showed; and in the cold the skin broke, red and angry, chafing at the winter, even as flowers bloomed through the frost when he walked his red and angry feet on it.

The last time he had pressed his palm to his brother's, there had been fine lines already on Elros' hands.

Since then, none remained to share his insights with, no one who cared particularly for his advice on the brewing of Peredhel remedies. He brewed his own oils, in his stillroom in Lindon; in Imladris, he taught his children to work the copper cauldron and the ladle, the grinding stone and the glass vial.

Arwen liked dying best; Elladan enjoyed sparring with his mother, Elrohir played with poisons; and all of them carried little pots of balm in the pocket of their childish aprons, in case their fingers ached in the evenings after they played outside.

In high summer he sang to the bees in their homes, led them singing when it was time to swarm, and picked the honey himself, to offer with slick fingers for Celebrían - tithe and right, to be given over to the lady of the valley.

Elrond remembered his mother rubbing honey on his father's hands. Earendil's hands had seemed immense to him, broad and strong and rope-burned, made harsh by salt. He was so careful when he held Elros and Elrond -

He remembered; he was nearly certain he remembered it. The past was never as unclouded in his heart as the future.

Celebrían followed his movements from the sick bed for many unspeaking days.

The light of her eyes, so dimmed, was wary with terror when she lay watching him grind athelas and lavender and honeycomb - the strength of his arms turned into a threat for her to be wary of. Any strength, of any kind - any instrument might be turned into a source of violence.

She did not scream, awake or asleep; the fear was a long and horrible spell, an enduring half-dream from which his gentlest touch could not rouse her, only return her to a different form of torment. There was no safety for her, even in Imladris; no potion or cantrip to heal body or soul, and no comfort to be had.

In Valinor, Celebrían made her own ointments.

For the tending of scars; to massage her gnarled aches, perfume her wrists and neck, the dip of her spine. Her eyes were clear, keen and keener than they had been, steadier in their vigilance. Elrond embraced this version of his lady no less tightly; he curled into her height, and laughed as he wept when she swept him off her feet.

As a patient in Lórien, and a student amidst the gardens where every dreamer walked at least once in their life, Celebrían had learned much from the Lords and Ladies of the West, and more still from elves ancient and young alive.

In his absence, she had wrought against her war-fans anew, bound them with lace and poison, ridden with Oromë's Hunters, danced among Vána's revels, wept with Nienna and spoken with her own voice the glory and grief of those that loved Midde-Earth and had lost it.

The lady of the valley, a lover of sweetness, kept her door ever-open to her kin and her husband's without differentiation - kept it open for him, when at last Elrond was gladly swept into the shelter of her love and rested there for a time, nursing new wounds and sharing his grief, weary through and through as he was. They tended to each other in the evenings, bandages and oils laid out on the same desk; Elrond wept a little more, the first time Celebrían touched him, and there was not a shadow of fear in her eyes, only the cold memory of it in his heart.

They grasped hands and wound their arms, walking in the twilight through the high trellises like a courting pair. Celebrían's little finger was a small stump, her braces cold against his arm; Elrond's bones, grown frail and strangely hollow after so long carrying Vilya, were nestled in hers with care as they walked up the hill to the painted walls of her house.

In the spring after Arwen was wed and lost, Celebrían taught Elrond how to work the herbs of her garden and gather them to her precise requirements, and how to work the tight aches working in the garden or standing too long left her with, even in the Blessed Land.

The stars were the same all throughout Arda, but brighter in these skies; and some creeping ivies with potent smells and sweetly cooling leaves blossomed only at night, their petals gleaming with the very same silver of Celebrían's tresses.

Her scar-ridged palms chafed against Elrond's lips. They tasted of lavender and starlight when he pressed a glancing touch of his mouth to them, of nectars whose names he knew not yet and was only starting to learn now.

'Lovely beyond all other sights,' he said, coy and sly, when his lady pressed them against his cheeks to tilt him for a greater kiss; and Celebrían laughed merrily at his plight, because his skin ran warm with blood under her grasp, and his knees no less liable to bend like reeds when she pulled him back into her arms.

#kiss ask #celebrian #elrond #my fics #thank you for the ask!! <33 #lotr #lotr fics #celebrían x elrond #celrond

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that-angry-noldo · 4 months

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Can I just get Elrond best boy? (Maybe also with Celebrían) for the doodle requests? 🥺

they deserve to smooch. methinks

#elrond #celebrían #celrond #silmarillion #silm art #noldo draws #ty!!

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windrelyn · 2 years

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“I could not...”

Sad time :(((

#elrond #gil-galad #celebrían #elves #LOTR #lord of the rings #tolkien #fan art #Illustration #middle earth #my art #king and herald #lindon #rivendell #Imladris

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i-did-not-mean-to · 5 months

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Thanksgiving

Thank you, anon, for this prompt. I would never have thought of that one myself.

To all my friends who celebrate: Happy Thanksgiving. I certainly am very grateful for y'all!

Characters: Fingolfin and a slew of others...(and Finrod)

Words: 1 850

Warnings: resentment, regrets, reproaches, a lukewarm bird, and a lot of love (it's not that serious, don't get mad!)

Fingolfin stared at the ominously glistening carving knife in open dismay.

“You can’t tear the bird apart with your bare hands,” Anairë cautioned under her breath. “Please, do not make a scene about blades. Not today. Not with all of them here.”

He nodded ponderously and turned to the assembly, entirely made up of his blessedly numerous descendants.

“Good evening, I welcome you warmly at this unprecedented feast of profound gratitude for the invaluable blessings we have received. Let's rejoice rather than elegize morosely. Anyway, my name is…”

“Eru bless, he’s forgotten his own name,” Aredhel stage-whispered, which earned her a punitive glare from Turgon and a hard jab in the ribs from Fingon.

“Ñolofinwë,” Fingolfin finished his sentence slowly. “Fingolfin? Golfin?”

He sighed deeply. “Call me whatever you want—some of you I have had the honour of meeting, and others I am looking forward to getting to know.”

“The food is getting cold!” Argon complained—he had died young and had not sired any children, so his stomach’s yearnings were of more importance to him than the painfully awkward introductions at their first annual family reunion.

He was not even sure that one could call this a “reunion” when they had never been gathered in this constellation before.

“I agree,” Aredhel piped up, much to the chagrin of her surly, overly quiet son who just gave her a pleading look. Maeglin suffered still under the repercussions of his betrayal, and he felt supremely uncomfortable, sitting motionlessly at the same table as his uncle and cousin.

“’Rissë,” Anairë intervened sharply. “I, for one, am delighted and grateful to see so many generations congregated here.”

“Turno is the best,” Fingon jeered, but his voice was warm and infused with benevolent humour. “He has single-handedly secured a legacy for our family. You’ve won that one, I think--isn't that another thing to be thankful for?”

“You forget my wife,” Elrond reminded him suavely but fell silent instantly as the memory of his brother and daughter welled up like acid in his weary heart. “She begs you to forgive her absence, but her mother…”

“Is absolutely right to wish for her only daughter to be by her side,” Anairë mediated once more with impeccable grace. “As the mother of a wayward daughter myself, I understand that only too well.” “As far as I can see, I sit here with my son as well. Why don’t you hound Fingon, your golden child, or Argon, your precious baby, about their abject failure to produce valiant heirs to join our merry round of traitors and murderers?”

“’Rissë!” Fingolfin thundered with much less parental indulgence than his wife had shown. “Can we please just share a meal and exchange some pleasant stories? I would very much like to hear about the lives of my descendants.”

“You could have been there,” Fingon muttered, “but you had to go and get yourself killed.”

“Says the one who went to the exact same place to save his ginger menace of a…friend?” Turgon commented dryly.

“He could well have been there; he would not have found you anywhere though, would he?” Fingon shot back, fire flaring in his eyes.

“And that’s why I didn’t want any weapons,” Fingolfin sighed, clutching the carving knife to his chest and casting dark looks at his progeny.

“Children,” Anairë cried. “Children! What shall the young ones think of us if we squabble and argue like fishmongers?”

“I’m used to it,” Elenwë declared calmly.

“So am I,” Idril laughed. “Sorry, I have known my very own father for too long not to be used to his sharp tongue,” she added when the others stared at her in shock.

“Grandfather has ever been kind,” Eärendil—who had been dispensed of his duties for the evening—remarked generously, patting his son’s hand. “Worry not, dear, it’s normal.”

Elrond merely shrugged. “I have spent large parts of my life with Lady Galadriel, Gil-Galad, and Celebrimbor, besides the Dwarves, the Hobbits, the meddling wizards, and the many Men who have come and gone. Thus far, I’ve heard nothing that could even scratch the surface of my equanimity!”

Fingolfin rubbed a weary hand over his eyes—when Anairë had announced, an unimaginably long time ago, that she was carrying Fingon, he could never have imagined what profound joy and heartbreaking misery was to follow.

Looking over now at the beautiful, sensible creature he had desperately loved and despicably deserted, he felt his throat tighten with overwhelming emotion.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Anairë laughed. “I can safely claim that this wilful, wicked streak is entirely passed down from your side.”

“Mother has disavowed us, and there is no food,” Argon exclaimed dramatically.

“How do you know?” Maeglin asked in a cautious tone; he was ever eager to see others shift blame because it made him feel less wretched about his own shortcomings.

“I’ve spent a long time in close conference with both Nerdanel and Eärwen,” Anairë explained as she plucked the lethal knife from her husband’s hand and started cutting the festive offering of meat and fruit into thick slices. “We have come to the conclusion that the alarmingly wild and reckless streak in all of our beloved children must surely come from the same source.”

“Again, my mother-in-law and wife are nothing if not measured and wise in their words, actions, and decisions,” Elrond opined calmly.

“So you say,” Aredhel mocked. “I could tell you stories about your cherished mother-in-law that would make your blood curdle.”

“Ha!” Fingolfin cried. “Surely, ‘Rissë’s savagery cannot be laid at my poor father’s feet!” He sought his wife’s sparkling gaze once more.

With a chortle, Anairë strode over and pressed a tender kiss onto his high, chiselled cheek. “They are very much yours,” she hummed. “Taking off in a huff on a petulant, vexed whim, riding into lethal danger with a song and a prayer and doing exactly what they were told not to do seem to be constants in your family. Did not two of three of your father’s sons die in ludicrously brazen and irrational feats of unparalleled heroism?”

Fingolfin grimaced. Anairë, smiling still, meanwhile made the platters of steaming food go around the table—much to the delight of Argon and Aredhel—so their spell-bound guests could at least feast while witnessing the epic showdown between long-estranged spouses.

“Resentful words from you, wife,” Fingolfin muttered dejectedly.

“Oh, but love,” Anairë chuckled soothingly. “They are also faithful, hopeful, and laughably stubborn thanks to your blood. I shall grant you this: I have doubted your sanity but never your love. So, I always knew that this alone would be enough to make sure that you’d be returned to me in time. Nothing can detain your line where it no longer wants to abide, and nobody will ever be able to keep you from pursuing what you earnestly desire.”

“They have your patience,” Fingolfin replied, mollified and touched by her understated confession of enduring love and imperishable admiration. “No doubt, the ability to remain—hidden and watchful—despite their yearnings and duties comes from you. Though I am less rash than my half-brother, I admit that I have never managed to emulate your graceful talent of lying in wait, ready to pounce at the first good opportunity.”

As one, they turned back to gaze lovingly upon the faces of those who had sprung from the source of their long-forgotten, innocent hopefulness.

Discreet munching was halted as the heavy, noble regard of their patriarch fell upon each one, and more than one positively squirmed under the benevolent scrutiny of one so old and allegedly wise.

“I’ve died too early,” Argon then said flippantly. “Maybe Turno wants to tell us about his hidden city?”

“I do not,” Turgon barked around a scalding hot potato—a staple in every household since the arrival of the Hobbits—and glared at his youngest brother. “I built a city, people came, people left, people died. Then Gondolin and my humble self fell. Let’s skip that part.”

Catching Aredhel’s grateful look, he nodded imperceptibly and even tried to smile at Maeglin; what was meant as a gesture of goodwill and forgiveness was marred by the potato grotesquely distending his cheek still, though, and—as was his wont—Turgon simply shrugged it off.

“How about you, my darling?” Elenwë said, addressing Idril. “How have you fared?”

With a small sigh of fatigue—for she had told the story many times before—Idril launched into a tastefully abbreviated recounting of her life after the fall of Gondolin.

When her narration came to an end, Eärendil, eager to speak to others again, took the tale up where his mother had left off.

Soon, all eyes turned on Elrond who had lived a long time and had been a key player in a conflict all of them had missed on account of being detained in Mandos or mending in the gardens of Lórien at that time.

“Well…” Elrond mumbled, unsure where to start and how to explain the circumstances of his youth without reopening old wounds and reawakening grievances and family feuds. “After—”

He fell silent. His father sat right beside him, and he did not seek to make him or his mother feel strange or guilty about the unfortunate incident with the Silmaril at the Havens of Sirion.

Was it even recommendable to bring up the unfortunate stone? How about the ring of Sauron? Did they call him Sauron, or would they know him under another of his many aliases?

He groaned quietly.

“Káno and Russo took you, yes?” Fingon said encouragingly, his eyes feverishly bright, and his lips pale with tension as if he was forcefully holding back a flood of questions.

Elrond exhaled audibly and steepled his fingers against his chin in a bid for more time to find an appropriate answer that would not kick off another slew of recriminations and fighting words.

“AH! We have arrived just in time to listen to our dear cousins being disparaged!” A bright, chiming voice resounded from the doorway, and Finrod strolled in, accompanied by his sister and his niece. “I have taken the liberty of escorting darling Artanis,” he explained.

“You’ve come for the gossip,” Turgon commented dryly, but his eyes lit up at the sight of his old, much-beloved friend. “Have a seat; you are indeed right, and we are about to hear about the parental talents of our Fëanorian kin.”

“Does that make me the worst of all?” Elrond asked dolefully. “Am I the compounded result of all the noxious strains of which Lady Anairë has just spoken?”

“Of course not, my dear,” Galadriel declared decisively. “Whatever good was in any of us, I am certain that you young ones must have harnessed it.”

Her warm, proud gaze shifted to her daughter who merely rolled her eyes at her and went to kiss her husband tenderly.

“Go ahead,” she whispered under her breath. “Tell them about the many people you’ve known and loved. Who knows? You might plant the seeds of forgiveness and renewal on this very night.”

Thank you so much for reading <3

-> Masterlist for November (by @cilil)

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eleajay · 1 year

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Elrond’s Stars Halo

A bit more on his halo. It stays for a while after being “summoned”, but doesn’t glow much as glowing actually consumes his strength, and if not in a dire situation it can just sit there on his head like an ornament. (Like how the light of Eärendil given to Frodo by Galadriel can just sit in his pocket and not glow when not needed) Usually it takes several hours, or sometimes just a nap to get rid of it. This is him letting someone (Gil-Galad, I’ll assume) examine it after a battle. Now, the stars on the halo actually represents the ones he had lost. Like Eärendil in the middle, Elwing and Elros right next to him, and the two octagram stars are obviously the two Fëanorions. So as he loses more in his life, the number of stars on the halo increases. They become a part of him and will stay on his halo, grant him strength when it is most needed.

(So Gil-Galad also became a part of it later lol.)(And Celebrían.)(And Arwen.)(And Aragorn.)

By the time of him sailing to Valinor it looks like this:

(The Aragorn one is the same as the Elros one, only smaller.)

(Just to clarify “lost” isn’t necessarily “dead”. The moment Arwen and Elros made the choice to be mortal they were “lost” to him. The moment Celecrían decided to sail west she was “lost” to him.)

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unavidas · 21 days

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whenever I’m in a creative lull I go back to the classics 🌸🍂

#elrond and celebrían #fan art #my art #digital art #tolkien #lotr #the silmarillion #the lord of the rings #rivendell #elrond #celebrían #imladris #celrond #forever my number ones

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forestials · 9 months

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The best family in Middle-earth, all together

#celebrían #celebrian #elladan #elrohir #arwen #elrond #the silmarillion #lotr #the lord of the rings #the silmarillion art #lotr art #my art #forestials art

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runawaymun · 1 year

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some Celrond smoochies warmup sketches

#decided to do these for practice bc i'm bad at making faces mash #this was good practice #<3 who better to practice with???#computer is finally back up and running THANK GOD it was a simple fix #i was in tears #celrond #elrond #celebrían #elrond x celebrian #lotr #unfinished tales #the silmarillion #silmart #my art

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thenerdyalchemist · 2 years

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She helps him write poetry. That’s all. Also man I hope they find a way to put Celebrían in the show 🙏

#mine #my art #rings of power #lord of the rings rings of power #elrond #celebrían #elrond half elven #lotr #tolkien #lord of the rings #alsoooo Iv been a little nervous to put my rop Art over here cause I know #a lot of people on this website high key hate the show #bummer cause y’all missin out #but!#I’ll try to start uploading all my stuff over here #hope you guys enjoy #cause man Iv drawn a lottt of rop recently

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camille-lachenille · 10 months

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@tolkiengenweek DAY ONE: Family • Mentorships • Community:

Elrond had never had a family, not in the traditional sense of the word anyways. His mother was a flash of white and a half-forgotten lullaby, a name quickly mentioned in the histories of the First Age or the tragical protagonist of epic ballads. His father was less and more: large calloused hands braiding his hair, and a star high in the heavens, a hero of Middle Earth more than a real person who had children. But these were old, old memories, before the sack of Sirion.

For a time, Elrond and Elros had called the Fëanorions family, in the capacity that they never hurt or neglected them despite having burned their home. Maglor even loved them, Elrond knew, and they loved him back, but it was a love tainted by guilt and blood, by too many ghosts. But that too, was only temporary, and Elrond had had to carve himself a place at Gil-Galad’s court, his twin far from him.

Elros had always had a wonder for the world proper to the Secondborns, and he had left with the promise of a new adventure, a fleeting life for his happiness. It was an easy price to pay, and Elrond had never begrudged his twin’s choice. But he had lost the last person he called family when Elros died.

Time went on, and Elrond lost his friend and king, one of the few people who made him forget, even for the briefest moment, that he didn’t have, never had, a family.

And now, Elrond thought as a shriek of laughter pulled him out of his melancholy, he was in Imladris, the home he had built himself. His home. And this home was lived in, echoing with the laughter of his children, the singing of his wife and the voices of his friends. He smiled as, rounding the corner of a path, he saw the origin of the laughter. Elladan and Elrohir were in the fountain, with Arwen perched on Elrohir’s shoulder, and tried to throw the other down. Celebrían was sitting at her easel, her tongue sticking between her teeth as she painted each individual flower on a bush, while Lindir trilled at a bird perched on his shoulder, his harp forgotten at his feet.

Glorfindel was sprawled in the grass, looking at the children with a relaxed smile, and Elrond went to sit next to his friend. “You were brooding, weren’t you?” the blonde asked with a fond shake of his head, propping himself on an elbow to have a better look at Elrond’s face. Elrond smiled despite himself.

“I was. Thinking about the past,” he admitted ruefully. “But then I remembered I have a family,” he said with a wave of his hand to encompass the scene in the garden. “I have all of you.”

Glorfindel patted him on the shoulder and flopped back on the grass. “You are stuck with us until the end of Arda, I fear,” he laughed.

Elrond laughed too. “And I am glad for that.”

#tolkiengenweek #tolkien #the lord of the rings #elrond #celebrían #elladan and elrohir #arwen #glorfindel #family #found family

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gi-nathlam-hi · 1 year

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@ellrond mentioned she’d love to see someone like Savannah Steyn (middle casting for Laena Velaryon in HOTD) for Celebrían and I have not known peace since.

#constantly obsessed with them but this made it worse tbh #if we got casting like this I think I'd cry #elrond #Celebrían #celrond #elrond x celebrian #my art

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raointean · 2 years

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Celebrían: Elrond! Your children are being creepy again!

Elrond: Oh, I see how it is. When they're being cute, they're YOUR children, but when they're being creepy, suddenly they're MY children.

Celebrían: They're walking on the ceiling, Elrond. They didn't get that from me!

#lord of the rings #rings of power #elrond peredhel #celebrían #half elves #eldritch peredhil #co parenting #elladan #elrohir #arwen undomiel #this could be about any of them honestly

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themoonlily · 1 year

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Galadriel's storyline in ROP rubs me wrongly in so many ways. Honestly, if an Elf really needs to be gallivanting around Middle-earth with a bunch of Númenoreans at their heels, it's Elrond. He's the young one here, whose angst would be a little more understandable in the scale and nature written in the show than Galadriel’s (not that she doesn’t have stuff to be angry about, I just expect better of her), with canonical connections to Númenor and thematic potential with his being Elros' brother and thus the living embodiment of what Númenoreans crave. Meanwhile, if anyone should be dealing with the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm, it's Celebrimbor and Galadriel - and especially the latter should be the political agent Elrond is made out to be. For the record, I do not actually condone this idea, but if we are talking in the terms of the story as it is being told in the show, it would make a lot more sense if Celebrían had the role of the warrior princess that's been given to Galadriel. Canonically little is known about what she was actually like, and as a character she does not have the baggage of established lore and how fandom widely regards her role in the legendarium. Galadriel, meanwhile, has these in loads and we know she was being politically active and a wife and mother at this point of the Second Age. Weren't the show's creators harping on filling in the blanks or writing the book Tolkien never did write? Instead they've gone and erased an actual canonical character whose story was never very detailed, and completely derailed a character that does have plenty written about her. As the show's version stands, it pretty much declares the story of Galadriel as a woman with a husband and daughter is not worth telling. Galadriel is not trying to reach her goals through her personal power, charisma or influence but through violence and bitterness.

And what did the first season accomplish? It made Galadriel's goal vengeance, pure and simple. Even before the death of Finrod, it was something along the line of avenging the death of Two Trees. Not a word about her personal ambition of becoming a queen in her own right, establishing a realm or being a leader. Her story is of aimless wandering for an age, looking for some guy so that she can kill him to avenge a brother who is living happily in Valinor. Now, especially after that scene with her and Halbrand/Sauron, Galadriel's story is twisted even further. Now it looks like it was Sauron who planted the idea of ruling as a queen in her head. And not even as a queen in her own capacity, but as subservient to him (Sauron does not share power, essentially he's offering her nothing better than he offers to any common orc). This casts a completely different light on her rejection of the Ring in FOTR and undermines the importance of what this moment means for her as a character: the temptation is no longer her ruling as the supreme queen, but acting as Sauron's bootlicker, which also makes the temptation look pathetic and thus her refusal no big deal. Essentially, Galadriel's story is not about Galadriel anymore. It's a story about men who leave her (Finrod and Celeborn), or who condescend on her (Elrond), or who use and manipulate her (Gil-galad and Sauron). I don't even know what purpose this serves. Not only is this ship-baiting just tired, but also what it implies about her is pretty awful and humiliating. It's contradictory to everything said about her in canon, or Elves and marriage. Galadriel even in her youth keenly reads and understands people and their motives and she is consistently the one person who recognises evil when it has not yet revealed itself and rejects it before anyone else. And yet here she is, dicking around with the enemy she has been hunting for millenia. It makes her look clueless, naive and stupid, her "quest" essentially a fool's errand, and it paints her later struggles against Sauron not as the actions of a leader trying to do the right thing even though it costs her everything, but as a scorned ex trying to get payback for personal slight. It's as if Amazon was not capable of understanding the concept of people choosing to do good for its own sake, and deciding to fight an almost hopeless battle because to do nothing would be worse. For them, every good deed has to have a personal stake or agenda. This undermines Galadriel's "goodness" (and her greatness) even more, as if this show's version of her hadn't done enough to make her look as bad as possible. And it shows Amazon’s profound misunderstanding of Tolkien. Sidenote, now that I think more of this, I can't help this feeling: Galadriel had to be the one to go to Númenor instead of Elrond, because show creators were too much of cowards to genderbend Sauron or ship-bait a male/male relationship (for the record, I think ship-baiting or queerbaiting are both stupid things to do). Appearing as a woman is completely within the reach of Sauron's abilities, and he actually has the history of using shapeshifting either to fight or to entice. Hell, why is ship-baiting even necessary, unless to recycle once again some truly overused tropes? (Employing overused tropes in fanfiction is one thing, but I expect better from a big adaptation that makes a huge number of being faithful to the source material.) Tolkien in particular is known for his iconic friendships and love between comrades; in fact, it's the friendships of his characters, not their romances, that save Middle-earth and a betrayal of faith and fellowship is no less devastating. Instead of a potentially interesting and new take, what we got is an entire season of Galadriel and Halbrand getting off on being mutually terrible people, her apparently being the reason he returns to his evil ways, and her agency stripped away from her so that she can pursue an essentially pointless vengeance. Even the person she supposedly loves is mentioned only once in a throwaway scene that does not in any way convince me that she actually cares about Celeborn. Also the erasure of Celebrían (who is canonically around the same age as Elrond) now leads to the logical conclusion that she will be born some time during this show, which makes her extremely young in Elven terms at the time of her marriage to Elrond. Yikes. Furthermore, this is a further violence done to Galadriel and her narrative, because canonically she and Celebrían were together at least for most of the Second Age, but now her daughter will be married off almost as soon as she has reached some sort of physical maturity. (Honestly, does anyone believe that Morfydd Clark looks and appears as if she could be the mother of an adult daughter? I have no trouble believing this of Cate Blanchett's Galadriel. Both of these actresses are/were in their early thirties when they first appeared in the role of Galadriel. Maybe it's not Clark's fault -- although her physical smallness in the role of a very tall and strong woman is jarring -- and instead it's because the character is written as such a petulant child that it's horrifying to even think of her parenting anyone.)

#anti rings of power #Galadriel #Celebrían #Elrond

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