Warning! SPOILERS for The Rings of PowerOne of the not-unpleasant difficulties of watching Amazon Prime’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is determining where in J.R.R. Tolkein’s timeline each story lies - in this case: determining Galadriel’s age. Galadriel (Morfydd Clark and Cate Blanchett), the Lady of the woods of Lothlórien, is one of the most storied elves to grace the screen both in the original trilogy and in the show, but even her relative youth in The Rings of Power belies her great age. Given that elves live across multiple lifetimes of the world, time can be flexible, even knowing that The Rings of Power takes place thousands of years before The Lord of the Rings in attempting to determine how old Galadriel is at different points of her history.
Already, The Rings of Power is different from The Lord of The Rings. Although only two episodes of the show have been released thus far, the story is said to be depicting the primary events of the Second Age of Middle Earth. This includes the forging of the rings of power, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the fall of Númenor, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.
This places the events of The Rings of Power in the Years of the Sun, the epoch following The Years of the Trees. The Years of the Trees are shown in the prologue of the first episode of the show when the elves lived across the sea in Valinor. Leading up to Galadriel’s current quest for Sauron, the elves departed Valinor in search of the evil Morgoth, who had taken the Silmarils, enchanted jewels of great cultural import. Once the elves reached the new map of Middle Earth, this led to the War of Wrath, the final battle against Morgoth, which The Rings of Power depict as the war that killed Galadriel’s brother, Finrod (Will Fletcher).
How Old Galadriel Is In The Rings Of Power
Given that The Rings of Power have condensed events that took place thousands of years apart for the series, Galdriel’s exact age is flexible. Based on the events the show is meant to portray, Galadriel was already over a thousand years old during the Second Age. In the official timeline, Galadriel was born in 1362 during the Years of Trees, which lasted until 1500. In the First Age, the War of Wrath took place between 545-587, killing Galadriel’s brother. By the end of the war, this would then make Galadriel 725 years old. However, the show is meant to take place centuries after the War of Wrath as Galadriel goes on her quest to seek Sauron of Lord of the Rings, taking the show into the Second Age. Although the show doesn’t specify how long that period is, Sauron is said to return in the year 500 of the Second Age. The First Age lasted 590 years, making Galadriel 1,228 years old at the dark sorcerer’s return. Following this, Sauron guides the forging of the rings of power in the year 1500, Númenor meets its fate in 3319, and the Last Alliance of Men and Elves is forged in 3430. At each of these points, Galadriel would be 2,228, 4,047, and 4,158 years old, respectively. However, given the condensed form of the timeline for The Rings of Power, this may not exactly be true. Instead, assuming that the show takes place centuries after the War of Wrath and will necessitate Sauron’s return, Galadriel must be at least 1,228 and could be as old as 2,228 years.
How Old Galadriel Is In Lord Of The Rings
Comparatively, Galadriel is as different in LOTR as her age than in The Rings of Power. By the time the Fellowship of the Ring lands on her doorstep, the series has entered the Third Age of Middle Earth. The Second Age, in total, was 3,441 years long, and the Fellowship arrives at Galadriel’s city, Caras Galadhon, in January 3019. By this time, Galadriel has aged significantly, becoming the stateswoman familiar to most viewers at 7,188 years old.
When it comes to entities such as elves in stories such as The Rings of Power or Lord of the Rings, time is always flexible. Years were technically a bit longer in Valinor, of Galadriel's beginning and ending, than they were in Middle Earth. And with the condensed events of the show, it’s difficult to chronologically track each character. Perhaps what matters most, and what The Rings of Power are already adept at showing, is not what Galadriel’s exact age is, but the age of her heart. Audiences can see her youth in her single-minded determination and drive, and that evolution from a young soldier to wise councilwoman is the story that will make The Rings of Power great.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power continues Thursday/Friday on Prime Video.