History Characters / TheSilmarillion

* MeaningfulName: "Thingol" means "Greycloak", after his main of silver hair.

* TheyCallHimSword: One of [[IHaveManyNames his various epitaths]] was the Mormegil, the Black Sword, which he earned in Nargothrond for his prowess with his black sword Gurthang.

* TheMagnificent: Ar-Pharazôn the Golden[[labelnote:*]]Which is redundant since Pharazôn means Golden, making him King Golden the Golden[[/labelnote]]. He was explicitly the greatest High King ever to rule the race of Men. [[TyrantTakesTheHelm And also the worst.]]

* ForcedToWatch: Was forced to watch Morgoth's curse unfold and destroy his children.

* PreMortemOneLiner: "Aure Entuluva! Day shall come again!"

* WeaponBasedCharacterization: Used a two-handed battle axe to kill his enemies in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Though it wasn't actually his, it was just one he picked up from a ''troll'', which says something about its size and thus his prowess and determination.

* NamedWeapons: His sword was named Aranrúth, meaning "king's anger". It survived the fall of Doriath and eventually found its way to Númenor, where it became a royal heirloom and the King (or Ruling Queen's) personal weapon, but was lost when the island sank.

* NamedWeapons: His sword was named Aranrúth, meaning "king's anger". It survived the fall of Doriath and eventually found its way to Númenor, where it became a royal heirloom, but was lost when the island sank.

* NamedWeapons: Tuor's main weapon was an axe known as Dramborleg, which he favored over any sword. (The name is from a very early form of Tolkien's Elvish languages but he never wrote down what the updated form would be.)

* NamedWeapon: Glamdring, his sword, which would survive the Fall of Gondolin and thousands of years later be found by [[Literature/TheHobbit Thorin's Company on their journey to the Lonely Mountain]], and become Gandalf's weapon.

* AnAxeToGrind: The signature weapon of her tribe.

* AnAxeToGrind: Used a two-handed battle axe to kill his enemies in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Though it wasn't actually his, it was just one he picked up.

* AnAxeToGrind: Tuor's main weapon was an axe known as Dramborleg, which he favored over any sword.

* AnAxeToGrind: Described as wielding an axe, same as his troops. Noteworthy that the axes were somehow strong enough to ''pierce dragon-hide'', causing Glaurung and his brood great pain.

* {{Pride}}: Though her homeland and her husband's homeland were conquered by orcs and their people enslaved by evil Men, she initially would not humble herself to go to Doriath as an exile. This was the first step of the tragedy of Túrin's life.

This page is for the book '''ONLY'''. For the characters as they were portrayed in the Amazon's ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'', see [[Characters/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower here]], which are set in a different universe from Creator/PeterJackson's [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings film trilogy]].

* ExcellentJudgeOfCharacter: Among all the arriving Istari, he choose to give Narya to Olórin, who was apparently the weaker Istari. Eventually, Gandalf would be the only wizard to follow their original mission to provide help against Sauron, becoming TheBigGood during the War of the Ring.

A mortal wisewoman of the house of Bëor, eldest daughter and second child of Boromir (not that one), first Lord of Ladros. She was in love with the Elf Aegnor, though they never married for various reasons; in a tragic irony, she ended up outliving him.

* BrainyBrunette: Said to have had dark hair (she’s often depicted as a brunette in art), and was very learned in the lore of Men and more than capable of keeping up with Elves in a debate. The Elves called her Saelind, meaning “wise-heart”.

* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: It's hard not to feel sorry for the poor guy, but why did he have to get "revenge" on Doriath and Brethil for nonexistent wrongs by causing the destruction of both countries? This may be Torture Makes You Crazy instead.

* ForcedToWatch: Was forced to watch Morgoth’s curse unfold and destroy his children.

* LittleBigBrother: Húrin inherited the rather short stature of his mother’s house, while his younger brother Huor was one of the tallest men of the Edain who ever lived.

* PreMortemOneLiner: “Aure Entuluva! Day shall come again!”

* DiedInYourArmsTonight: Passed in her husband's arms as they laid in the memorial of their children.

* TheChosenOne: [[spoiler: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagor_Dagorath According to prophecy, Morgoth will one day die by his hand]].]]

** Ingoldo, "''The'' Noldo" in Quenya [[note]]Ironically, his Noldorin father named him in Telerin, and his Telerin mother named him in Quenya.[[/note]]

** Ingoldo, "''The'' Noldo" in Quenya [[note]] Ironically, his Noldorin father named him in Telerin, and his Telerin mother named him in Quenya.[[/note]]

* TheMagnificent: Ar-Pharazôn the Golden. He was explicitly the greatest High King ever to rule the race of Men. [[TyrantTakesTheHelm And also the worst.]]

* ParentalAbandonment: She tossed herself in the sea rather than giving up the Silmaril, resulting in her twin sons being raised by Maglor and Maedhros. Though in fairness to her, it's not clear if she knew they were even alive at that point.

** Oddly, in the [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness earliest version]] of the Gondolin story Tolkien described him as "swart", meaning dark, on top of having a grim and surly mood, to the point that the people of Gondolin thought he had Orc blood, despite the Elven narrator not knowing how this could be possible (his father Eö, not called a Dark Elf yet, is here said to be from an ancient noble house of the Noldor like his mother, Turgon's sister - implying it's not hereditary). But in the latest version that made it into ''The Silmarillion'' he is the opposite, being pale and fitting the RavenHairIvorySkin mold. No other elf is ever described as having darker skin in any version of the tales.

** Oddly, in the earliest version of the Gondolin story Tolkien described him as "swart", meaning dark, to the point that people thought he had Orc blood, despite the narrator not knowing how this could be possible. But in the latest version that made it into ''The Silmarillion'' he is the opposite, being pale and fitting the RavenHairIvorySkin mold. No other elf is ever described as having darker skin in any version of the tales.

* DyingMomentOfAwesome: After Sauron imprisoned Finrod's party in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, he sent a werewolf to devour them one by one, until they revealed who they were and where they had come from. Sauron saved Finrod for last, because he could tell that Finrod was the one in charge. When the werewolf came for Beren, Finrod [[HeroicWillpower broke his bonds]] and killed it ''using nothing but his teeth and his bare hands'', but he was mortally wounded during the fight.

The youngest child and only daughter of Finarfin and Eärwen of the Teleri, sister to Finrod, Angrod, and Aegnor, and cousin to the Sons of Fëanor. Galadriel was the wisest and most powerful of all Elven-women. Though she hated Fëanor, she took part in his rebellion out of a desire to rule her own kingdom in Middle-earth. In the 1977 ''Silmarillion'' she travelled into Middle-earth over the ice of Helcaraxë with the rest of the Noldor, and lived in Doriath where she met and married Celeborn. Later in ''The History of Middle-earth'' this was revised: she and Celeborn married already in Valinor and sailed to Middle-earth on their own. During the Second Age, Galadriel took up in Eregion under Celebrimbor, and after its fall, she became the White Lady of Lothlórien. See ''Characters/TheLordOfTheRings'' character sheet for tropes that apply to her in that work.

* ActionGirl:
** In some drafts, she fought against the House of Fëanor in defense of her Teleri kin during the Kinslaying at Alqualondë. Tolkien wrote that she was the "only female to stand tall in those days".
** It's more nuanced millennia later if the account of her and Celeborn capturing Dol Guldur and throwing down its walls during the appendices of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' is anything to go by. Celeborn is the one who leads the army of the Galadhrim, and Galadriel is the one who throws down Dol Guldur's walls and lays bare its pits. Unlike the First Age example where she fought with weapons, here she's implied to be a magical PersonOfMassDestruction, but she apparently did her thing after the fortress is captured.
** Tolkien wrote in one of his letters that Galadriel had something of an "Amazon" disposition in her youth, though this was in peacetime before any Elven wars happened, and she often "bound up her hair as a crown when taking part in athletic feats".
* CanonImmigrant: ''The Silmarillion'' is the ''original'' Middle-earth mythos. Later upon writing ''The Lord of the Rings'', Tolkien decided to move hobbits into the same universe as the Silm. In ''The Lord of the Rings'', he came up with the character of Galadriel and took a liking to her. Long story short, he decided to add Galadriel into the original ''Silmarillion'' tales, too. [[ContinuitySnarl This ended up causing a lot of story issues…]]
* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Like all the House of Finarfin, she has golden hair -- in her case, gold intermixed with silver (inherited from her mother) to make her especially gorgeous. Like her siblings, she's wise and calm-headed and largely innocent of any wrongdoing in the rebellion of the Noldor. She even helped defend Alqualondë from the Fëanorians. In his last writings, Tolkien decided that Galadriel didn't even participate in the rebellion at all; she left Valinor separately, and was totally innocent. Unfortunately, nothing was ever revised to be compatible with this later story.
* IntergenerationalFriendship: With Melian (older than her) and later Celebrimbor and Elrond (younger).
* LineageComesFromTheFather: Counted among the Noldor, even though proportionally she has more Vanyarin and Telerin blood.
* MasterApprenticeChain: Galadriel was taught by Melian the Maia during her time living in Doriath in the First Age, and interestingly seems to have employed her own version of Melian's magical and protective 'girdle' to protect her own kingdom of Lothlórien during the Third Age and the events of ''The Lord of the Rings''.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Like many other Middle-earth characters, she is known in legends not by her birth name (Artanis Nerwen) but by the name given to her by her lover, Celeborn. Galadriel means Maiden Crowned With Radiant Gardland, a reference to her hair that is considered wondrous even by Elven standards.
* {{Pride}}: Her reason for going into exile, and later for refusing the pardon of the Valar. Her [[TheFinalTemptation Final Tempation]] in ''The Lord of the Rings'' was the moment she overcame this flaw.
* RebelliousPrincess: She is a Noldorin princess and was one of the most prominent leaders of their rebellion and revolt from Valinor, though she did not side with Fëanor in the Kinslaying but instead fought against him in defense of her Teleri kin.
* {{Rewrite}}: Tolkien could never really make up his mind about what she was doing before ''The Lord of the Rings''. Therefore, several alternative histories exist for her:
** What is implied in ''The Lord of the Rings'': that she came into Lórien from Beleriand before its destruction in the War of Wrath, and met and married there Celeborn, a local wood-elf.
** What is written in the 1977 ''Silmarillion'': that she was there the night Fëanor gave his infamous speech in Tirion, joined the exile out of Valinor, crossed Helcaraxë by foot, lived with Melian in Doriath and met and married there Celeborn, a local Sindar Elf.
** What is written in much later texts: that she met and loved Celeborn, a Teleri Elf of Alqualondë, already in Valinor, that she joined the Noldorin rebellion but fought on the side of the Teleri in Alqualondë, and came to Middle-earth across the Grinding Ice with her brothers.
** What is written in the last document on the subject: that she met and married Celeborn in Valinor, and took no part whatsoever in Fëanor's rebellion, but sailed into Middle-earth independently on a Telerin ship.
* StatuesqueStunner: As well as being exceptionally tall and strong for an elf woman (standing at 6'4"), she was also said to be exceptionally beautiful, see WorldsMostBeautifulWoman below.
* TakeThat: InUniverse, posthumously. Fëanor famously asked three times for a strand of her hair, and she denied him every time. Come Literature/LordOfTheRings, and Gimli makes the same request. She proceeds to give him three strands.
* WorldsMostBeautifulWoman: Being descended from the royal bloodlines of all three elven kindreds, even having the rare blood of the Vanyar through her grandmother, Indis (who herself was named 'The Fair'), Galadriel was often thought of as the most beautiful of all the elves in both Valinor ''and'' Middle-earth, along with Lúthien Tinúviel, and later Lúthien's descendant and Galadriel's granddaughter, Arwen Undómiel. She even stands apart from them as being the only one of the three that has no known maia ancestry, therefore she could be seen as the most beautiful ''full-blood'' elf ever born.

* {{Jerkass}}: And his reaction to earning a broken mouth was to attempt murder by ambush. Nice guy!

* DrivenToSuicide: After he realized that he had been unknowingly helping Morgoth and that he was never truly free, he drowned himself in the ocean.

* SuicideBySea: Went to the ocean to seek his own death.

* TheNapoleon: Short and quick to anger.

->''“Yeah Galadriel, I'm on to you, okay, how did you even say that with a straight face? Like have you completely wiped uncle Fëanor from memory? Immortal, wisest and fairest of all being-- I'll give him one out of three and it ain't wisest.”''

** It's more ambiguous millennia later if the account of her and Celeborn capturing Dol Guldur and throwing down its walls during the appendices of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' is anything to go by. Celeborn is the one who leads the army of the Galadhrim, but Galadriel is the one who throws down Dol Guldur's walls, apparently after the fortress is captured.

** She is still an ActionGirl ''millennia'' later if the account of her and Celeborn fighting against huge orc armies and capturing Dol Guldur and throwing down its walls during the appendices of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' are anything to go by.
** Tolkien even wrote in one of his letters that Galadriel had something of an "Amazon" disposition in her youth, and often "bound up her hair as a crown when taking part in athletic feats".

* DudeWheresMyRespect: He was a valiant vassal of Finrod Felagund and warrior against Morgoth. After the Fourth Battle, Beren lived alone as an outlaw in [[TheLostWoods Taur-Nu-Fuin]], once his homeland, which was now overrun with orcs and worse. He harried the forces of Morgoth until the price on his head was no less than the bounty on High King Fingon. And when things got bad enough he fled south through [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Ered Gorgoroth, "The Mountains of Terror," and Nan Dungortheb, "The Valley of Dreadful Death"]], a feat few elves had even attempted, much less survived. Then, when Beren was brought before Thingol, he was treated like the scum of the earth.

* TrueBlueFemininity: She's wearing a sky-blow gown when Beren first meets her.

* HateSink: Saeros is a racist Elf in King Thingol's court who resented the presence of Turin as a ward of Thingol. One evening Saeros made insulting remarks about Turin's people, causing Turin to injure Saeros. The next morning, Saeros attempted to murder Turin over the last night's events, provoking Turin into stripping him and accidentally killing him by running him off a cliff. When Thingol heard of what Saeros had done, he pardoned Turin, while it was stated that Saeros would be held in Mandos, the land of the dead, for a long time due to his misdeeds.

* KarmicDeath: When Túrin made a return trip to Menegroth, Saeros mockingly asked if “[the women of Dor-Lomin] run like the deer clad only in their hair”. Sure enough, when Saeros tries to kill Túrin the next day, Turin [[ShamefulStrip strips him]] and makes him run through the forest, leading to Saeros running off a cliff and dying.

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: One has to wonder why the elves of Nargothrond would trust a man calling himself “the bloodstained son of ill-fate”.

* PreMortemOneLiner: “Hail, Worm of Morgoth! Well met again! Die now and the darkness have you! Thus is Túrin son of Húrin avenged."

* StrongFamilyResemblance: Turin mostly inherited the looks of his mother Morwen: dark hair, grey (or blue) eyes, tall height. Contrast with his father Hurin who was short (inheriting the height of the Men of Brethil) and blond.

* RapunzelHair: At one point, Lúthien escaped from a tree-house prison (where her father put her "for her own good," of course) with this trope. First, she had to magically grow her hair out in about an hour, then bewitch the guards to sleep. Later, she cut it off and wove it into a cloak.