If Galadriel Could Read Sauron’s Thoughts Why Could He Not Read Hers?

Q: If Galadriel Could Read Sauron’s Thoughts Why Could He Not Read Hers?

ANSWER: In “The Mirror of Galadriel” Frodo sees a vision of Sauron’s eye, which the reader is meant to infer is seeking Frodo — calling to the One Ring, which Frodo bears. Galadriel cautions Frodo to not touch the water of the mirror and he is able to break free of the awesome power of Sauron’s gaze. But Sauron doesn’t really see Frodo; he doesn’t know where the Ring is. Galadriel then says to Frodo:

`I know what it was that you last saw,’ she said; `for that is also in my mind. Do not be afraid! But do not think that only by singing amid the trees, nor even by the slender arrows of elven-bows, is this land of Lothlórien maintained and defended against its Enemy. I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But still the door is closed!’

And so begins one of the mysteries that has plagued Tolkien fans for decades. How is it that Galadriel can understand Sauron so well but Sauron cannot perceive her thought?

Well, I’d love to say that I have an answer direct from J.R.R. Tolkien himself but I’m afraid I don’t. Tolkien had not developed Galadriel’s character very much by the time the book was published, and so one should be cautious about interweaving Tolkien’s future backstories for Galadriel into the fabric of this tale. In Unfinished Tales we learn that J.R.R. Tolkien returned to Galadriel’s history and character many times throughout the rest of his life, but there is really no coherent explanation of Galadriel’s abilities. We can just piece together clues from Tolkien’s contemporary writings.

For example, when the surviving members of the Fellowship first arrive in Caras Galadhon and they meet Galadriel for the first time, she engages with each of them in a silent test whereby she holds their gaze and somehow influences their thoughts. We would call this telepathy, which is more openly described near the end of the book where Galadriel, other Elves, and Gandalf spend a week exchanging thoughts in Dunland before they say farewell to each other.

In Letter No. 144, which Tolkien wrote to Naomi Mitcheson in April 1954 (answering questions she posed for him), he wrote:

Galadriel is as old, or older than Shelob. She is the last remaining of the Great among the High Elves, and ‘awoke’ in Eldamar beyond the Sea, long before Ungoliante came to Middle-earth and produced her broods there. ….

It is, I think, significant that he uses the word “awoke” to describe Galadriel’s origin in this letter. I believe that means that — at the time he wrote the letter — he was thinking about the Elves’ origins in a very different way from that which we have come to understand. In later descriptions of Galadriel’s origins we are simply told she was born in Eldamar but that she also learned much from the Valar — and from Melian in Beleriand.

Almost ten years later, in 1963, Tolkien answered a reader’s thoughts about Frodo’s failure (when he claimed the One Ring for himself). In Letter No. 246 Tolkien writes:

…In [Sauron’s] actual presence none but very few of equal stature could have hoped to withhold [the One Ring] from him. Of ‘mortals’ no one, not even Aragorn. In the contest with the Palantír Aragorn was the rightful owner. Also the contest took place at a distance, and in a tale which allows the incarnation of great spirits in a physical and destructible form their power must be far greater when actually physically present. Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic. In his earlier incarnation he was able to veil his power (as Gandalf did) and could appear as a commanding figure of great strength of body and supremely royal demeanour and countenance.

Of the others only Gandalf might be expected to master him — being an emissary of the Powers and a creature of the same order, an immortal spirit taking a visible physical form. In the ‘Mirror of Galadriel’, I/381, it appears that Galadriel conceived of herself as capable of wielding the Ring and supplanting the Dark Lord. If so, so also were the other guardians of the Three, especially Elrond. But this is another matter. It was part of the essential deceit of the Ring to fill minds with imaginations of supreme power. But this the Great had well considered and had rejected, as is seen in Elrond’s words at the Council. Galadriel’s rejection of the temptation was founded upon previous thought and resolve. In any case Elrond or Galadriel would have proceeded in the policy now adopted by Sauron: they would have built up an empire with great and absolutely subservient generals and armies and engines of war, until they could challenge Sauron and destroy him by force. Confrontation of Sauron alone, unaided, self to self was not contemplated. One can imagine the scene in which Gandalf, say, was placed in such a position. It would be a delicate balance. On one side the true allegiance of the Ring to Sauron; on the other superior strength because Sauron was not actually in possession, and perhaps also because he was weakened by long corruption and expenditure of will in dominating inferiors. If Gandalf proved the victor, the result would have been for Sauron the same as the destruction of the Ring; for him it would have been destroyed, taken from him for ever. But the Ring and all its works would have endured. It would have been the master in the end.

I believe this passage reflects what was a lifelong idea or understanding of Tolkien’s with respect to the relationship between Sauron and his enemies. That relationship explains why they were able to overcome him at all.

Sauron has been weakened by the loss of the One Ring, which holds the greater part of his power. Over two thousand years he has slowly recovered some of his self-incarnated strength but he is still very weak compared to what he would be like if he were to recover the Ring. So in that respect Galadriel was not facing Sauron at his full strength.

But Tolkien also mentions that Sauron had been “weakened by long corruption an expenditure of will in dominating inferiors”; here he introduces an apparent paradox. Sauron has grown stronger over two thousand years but he has also grown personally weaker. The increase in his strength must therefore be more associated with his direct control over his servants and less with his innate abilities in self-incarnated form. In fact, I could infer from this passage that Sauron’s self-incarnated form in Third Age year 1100 would have been more powerful than it was in TA year 3018, if only because two thousand years before he had not yet weakened himself as Tolkien described.

So Galadriel had an advantage over Sauron in that he was exerting much of his diminished strength in controlling others while she was simply seeking to understand his thoughts and motives. And given Sauron’s long history of conflict with the free peoples of Middle-earth it’s not like she would have had to start from the beginning to fathom his intentions. Before she learned his true identity she still would have been able to study the moves of the dark forces that threatened the Elves and their allies.

The one critical mistake Sauron made in trying to think through his enemies’ options was ignoring the possibility that they might seek to destroy the One Ring rather than use it against him. So Galadriel’s thoughts were clearly ranging into concepts that Sauron was blocking from his own thoughts.

Also, I am sure that both Galadriel’s long sojourn in Valinor and her close relationship with Melian would have provided her with training and skills that would be suitable for matching her will against a Maia, even one of such considerable power as Sauron. Not that she should have been able to withstand him in person, but she was a more formidable opponent at a distance than the average Elf (lord). Elrond, too, must have been hard for Sauron to read from afar.

And then there is the fact that Galadriel was actually using Nenya to enhance her own power. She was protecting Lothlorien “magically” (as it were) and so the Ring of Power she bore assisted her in this task. Her thoughts and spells would thus have been subjected to the One Ring. Frodo saw her ring when they were standing beside the garden; Sam did not. Frodo was not even using the One Ring to do anything; so great was its power of perception that Frodo observed Galadriel’s spiritual test and saw Nenya as a byproduct of possessing the Ring, perhaps as part of the spiritual growth that Tolkien said he had experienced from resisting the Ring. Sam, too, would eventually be granted the gift of seeing events unfold spiritually no doubt because as Frodo’s companion he was under the Ring’s constant influence and must have been resisting it all along as well.

So, to sum up, I think Sauron was at a disadvantage because he was:

• Physically far removed from Galadriel’s presence
• Distracted by the many plots he was managing
• Weakened by his long practice of controlling or dominating the wills of his numerous servants
• Weakened by his separation from the One Ring itself

And I think Galadriel had advantages in that:

• Sauron had not tracked her movements through Middle-earth and so did not know where she was
• She was already more powerful than most if not all other Elves in Middle-earth
• She had been tutored by Valar and Maiar in advanced knowledge and skill that aided her resistance of Sauron
• Her native power was enhanced by Nenya (but only until Sauron would regain the One Ring)
• She only had to decipher Sauron’s intentions toward the Elves, not all of his schemes

They were both playing a dangerous game of wits with each other but they were not playing the same game. Galadriel’s game was much narrower, more focused on masking her thoughts from Sauron while interpreting his thoughts and actions based on what she could learn from the world outside of Lothlorien.

I don’t think she could have withstood him had he personally entered Lothlorien even without the One Ring, but he never found a compelling reason to do so.

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