When The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power first launched on Prime Video back in 2022, some of us die-hard J.R.R. Tolkien fans cried foul when it was announced that Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel would not be accompanied by her husband Celeborn. To add insult to injury, most of the first season passes by before the character is even mentioned, and now that Season 2 has come around two years later, we’re still awaiting a definitive answer as to what happened to Celeborn in The Rings of Power universe. Though the Elf lord did appear in the Peter Jackson trilogy of films, where he was portrayed by Marton Csokas, we have yet to see Celeborn in either a flashback or in the present of the Second Age of Middle-earth. Here’s why that’s a tragedy.
Galadriel Mentions Celeborn Once in ‘The Rings of Power,’ and That’s Not Enough
It isn’t until the seventh episode of the first season, titled “The Eye,” that Galadriel first mentions her departed husband. As she recounts to young Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin) after the near-fatal eruption of Orodruin (the volcanic mountain that would come to be known as Mount Doom), Galadriel and Celeborn met at some point in the First Age. Their love was instant, and the two were quickly wed. Though they didn’t have much of a role in the First Age of Middle-earth themselves, Galadriel explains that Celeborn never came home from participating in the War of the Great Jewels, a conflict that pitted the Elves against the Dark Lord Morgoth himself. Though Tolkien’s legendarium doesn’t expressly state that Celeborn actually participated in this series of battles, it’s not exactly out of the question that he may have. Of course, where Rings of Power really diverges is by having him pronounced dead.
But unlike with her brother Finrod (Will Fletcher), Galadriel was never reunited with Celeborn’s body, and it’s partially because of that fact — and because of his involvement in the entire Lord of the Rings saga — that we know he can’t be dead. So where is he? How did we get here? What happened to Celeborn, and why hasn’t Galadriel opted to venture to the ends of the earth to find him the same way she was willing to hunt down Sauron (Charlie Vickers)? Given the extended lifespan of the Elves, and Galadriel’s own single-mindedness, it’s hard to believe that the Elf maiden wouldn’t travel the map in search of her long-lost love. More than that, it seems as if the writers of Rings of Power are teasing us with a potential Celeborn return somewhen down the line.
Of course, there is some speculation concerning where Celeborn might be. Some have theorized that Celeborn was corrupted by Sauron or Morgoth and turned into Adar (played now by Sam Hazeldine), a character created specifically for the Prime Video series. Hopefully, that isn’t the case, but there ought to be some good explanation for why this Elf, in particular, was excluded from the first season (and, thus far, the second). Is it possible that Celeborn has been trapped in the unseen realm? We got to see glimpses of that world in the first season, particularly through the broken sword that Theo found in the Southlands. Could he be fighting to get back to Galadriel without much success? Or could Sauron have done something to him that has yet to be revealed? Right now, we have more questions than answers.
Celeborn Is More Closely Tied to the Second Age Than ‘Rings of Power’ Would Have You Believe
If we study Tolkien’s mythology, chronicled largely in The Silmarillion as well as other writings such as the appendix to Lord of the Rings, we can see that Celeborn’s absence in The Rings of Power contradicts much of what we know about the character from the source material. For instance, he has yet to show up in the Second Age on the show, most of Celeborn’s story actually comes from this period of Middle-earth history in Tolkien’s writings. After the War of Wrath, for instance, which saw the end to Morgoth’s grasps for power, Galadriel and Celeborn settled in Lindon for quite some time before traveling to Eriador first and later Eregion, where they would live under none other than the Elf-smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards).
The pair would split for a while (though not due to any marital struggles) when Galadriel would go to live among the Wood-elves, while Celeborn remained in Eregion. According to Tolkien’s timeline, Celeborn may have been in Eregion at the same time as Sauron, when he was posing in his Annatar form, was deceiving Celebrimbor into forging the Rings of Power. Of course, Rings of Power the series has already flipped the created order of the Rings, beginning with the three Elven rings rather than ending with them, so it’s not surprising that they changed Celeborn’s part in these events. When Sauron eventually attacked Eregion, Celeborn (with Elrond’s help) fought back, but the realm soon fell to the Dark Lord’s power, as did Celebrimbor.
Celeborn would fight alongside the likes of Elrond (Robert Aramayo), Elendil (Lloyd Owen), Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker), and Isildur (Maxim Baldry) in the War of the Last Alliance against Sauron and afterward return with Galadriel to Rivendell for a time. In the Third Age, the pair became the Lord and Lady of Lothlórien and later aided the Fellowship of the Ring in their quest to defeat Sauron by destroying his infamous One Ring. As the War of the Ring occurred, with many of their allies facing the forces of Mordor, they defended Mirkwood from the forces of Dol Guldur, the place where Sauron regained much of his power as the mysterious “Necromancer” (as seen in The Hobbit films). Though Galadriel left Middle-earth at the beginning of the Fourth Age, finally taking her place in the Undying Lands, Celeborn remained for some time before joining his wife in eternity.
The Absence of Celeborn Brings Celebrían’s Fate Into Question
But one aspect of Galadriel and Celeborn’s story raises serious questions about the future of The Rings of Power universe. If there is no Celeborn in the early Second Age, then what has become of their daughter, Celebrían? It might seem like a small thing to write off Galadriel’s husband and daughter, stripping her family away from her to make the Sauron deception more believable, but the truth of the matter is that Celeborn’s absence affects the entire fate of Middle-earth, and that’s no exaggeration. Without Celebrían, who was born to Galadriel and her husband in the early Second Age, there would be no Arwen (Liv Tyler), who would marry Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) at the end of the Third Age following Sauron’s defeat, thus once more merging the races of Elves and Men.
But why does Celebrían’s existence affect Arwen’s? Well, because Celebrían is Arwen’s mother! That’s right, Elrond marries Galadriel and Celeborn’s daughter at some point in the early Third Age, and the pair have three children, two sons and a daughter. But without Celeborn, Celebrían doesn’t exist, and Galadriel is left alone in the world — as is Elrond. Now, Celebrían’s story is pretty tragic. Though she was born early on in the Second Age and traveled with her mother to live with the Wood-elves in Lórinand, it wasn’t until she and her mother arrived in Rivendell that she would meet Elrond. But tragedy struck in the Third Age when Orcs attacked Celebrían on her way to visit her parents. Though Celebrían sons, Elladan and Elrohir, rescued her, and her husband healed her wounds, she never fully recovered. Eventually, she left Middle-earth for the Undying Lands.
While much of Celebrían’s story occurs in the Third Age, she should still be alive when we catch up with Galadriel in the first season of The Rings of Power. It makes us wonder how the writers are going to play this all out and if Celeborn and Celebrían will be introduced here shortly to make room for the events of The Lord of the Rings. Without these characters, the Aragorn and Arwen storyline wouldn’t exist. But beyond that, the much-needed familial comfort and guidance that Celeborn in particular could offer his wife during these tumultuous times would be lost. Given how faithful these two are to one another in Tolkien’s lore and how in love Rings of Power makes them out to be, never seeing any of that on screen would be a major disservice to the show. Here’s hoping the Prime Video series does something about this soon and officially brings Celeborn back into the fold. If this is truly intended to be a Lord of the Rings prequel, then adding Rory Kinnear’s Tom Bombadil into the mix isn’t enough; there are still elements of Tolkien’s timeline that need to match up, and this is certainly one of them.
