Celebrimbor now knows Annatar the Lord of Gifts is really the Dark Lord Sauron. Eregion’s true leader also knows his time in Middle-earth is coming to an end. In The Rings of Power season two’s penultimate episode he bid his old friend Galadriel “Namárië.” The elven smith said he will distract Sauron long enough for her to escape with the rings of men. But he sent her off with more than his just his final works. During his darkest moment he also sent her off with words that will shape the future of Middle-earth. In a beautiful and moving moment that stands as one of the show’s best testaments to J.R.R. Tolkien, Celebrimbor told Galadriel it’s not strength that will defeat the darkness, it is light, an idea we know she will one day literally pass on to Frodo.
As Eregion fell around them, Galadriel told Celebrimbor, “I’m sorry I brought [Sauron] here. I’m sorry I wasn’t stronger.” Even while the beautiful city he built crumbled around him, Eregion’s lord told his friend strength has nothing to do with it. Neither is it how they will stand against Sauron. For that they will need something far more enduring and powerful. It’s what binds all of The Lord of the Rings, from the creation of the universe until Frodo’s journey to Valinor. Amid death, destruction, and his own failure, Celebrimbor remembered what will always endure.
Neither of us were strong enough. There might not be anyone in Middle-earth who is. But perhaps the elves need only remember that it is not strength that overcomes darkness, but light. Armies may rise, hearts may fail, yet still light endures, and is mightier than strength. For in its presence all darkness must flee.
Tolkien’s epic tale has always been a battle between light and dark. The world’s first and greatest Dark Lord, Morgoth, sought to bring darkness to the world. He extinguished the two Great Lamps the Valar had made for the coming of the elves. Morgoth might have succeeded, too, if not for Celebrimbor’s grandfather Fëanor. The famed, notorious elf smith had captured the light of Valinor from the Lamps in his famed Silmarils. Thanks to them the light of the Two Trees of Valinor endured even when they were darkened.
On The Rings of Power the fading of the light has been an ill omen, just as its resurgence has brought life. Even Adar mourned its loss when he created the darkness his children needed. But Galadriel herself has shunned the light, both metaphorically and literally. She refused to enter Valinor, land of the Valar themselves. She’s also allowed herself to be consumed by hatred and vengeance. Her embrace of the dark blinded her to Halbrand’s true identity and motivations. It also kept her from telling the truth about him. If she had Celebrimbor and Eregion never would have fallen prey to Annatar’s deceptions.
Celebrimbor did not let the darkness consume him. He didn’t let it hide his shame the way she had. Instead his speech to her embraced the light and everything it represents. The scene captures the show at its best because it both elevates the series own story while deftly tying it into one J.R.R. Tolkien’s most meaningful and enduring themes.
We know Galadriel will take Celebrimbor’s words to heart and carry them with her forever. Thousands of years later, when the darkness returns to Middle-earth she will meet a Hobbit tasked with the most impossible of journeys. He will be asked to bear the greatest power the world has ever know, a ring imbued with the very strength of Sauron and evil itself. But she will not give Frodo a weapon. Galadriel won’t give him anything to make him stronger, either, because she will know Frodo will not manage to carry the One Ring to Mordor because he is stronger than it or its creator. He will do it by holding on to light. To hope.
That light will live on in his friend’s heart. Sam will tell him, when Frodo is at his weakest, that “even darkness must pass.” And the two will also rely on actual light itself, because that is what Galadriel will give Frodo before he leaves Lórien. She will gift him a crystal phial that carries the light of Eärendil’s star, which itself is a Silmaril of Fëanor. Galadriel will give Frodo the enduring light of the Two Trees of Valinor, the very place he will go to with her after defeating Sauron for good.
Without the Phial of Galadriel, Sam and Frodo never would have made it to Mount Doom. It will save their lives when all hope seems loss. Light will save Middle-earth from eternal darkness.
Galadriel will know that phial will keep Frodo—and with him the entire world—safe because even during his darkest moment, long ago her friend Celebrimbor reminded her that darkness won’t flee from strength. It will only flee from light. That has always been, and always will be, the one idea no Dark Lord will ever extinguish in Middle-earth.
