Episode 4 of The Rings of Power featured numerous references to Elrond and Galadriel’s fathers, but with most of their activities having happened in the First Age, which the series isn’t allowed to adapt, the explanations around them were a bit vague. So who exactly were they, and how are Elrond and Galadriel likely to feel about them by the time of the series? Elrond does give Durin a basic outline of his father’s story in their conversation in “The Great Wave.” He says that his father “single-handedly sailed to Valinor and convinced the Valar to join the war and vanquish Morgoth.” As a result, “the Valar lifted him beyond the bounds of this world to forever carry the evening star across the sky.” The Valar are the Powers of Arda; essentially, they are gods, though Tolkien, being Roman Catholic, tended to steer away from that terminology. Morgoth, the Bad Guy of the First Age, was one of them. The Maiar, lesser heavenly beings, were created to be their servants – the Maiar include Gandalf and the other Wizards, as well as Sauron and the Balrogs. So basically, Elrond’s dad Eärendil convinced the gods to go to war, and was placed among the stars as a result – very Greek mythology. Eärendil is Elrond’s father, and also Aragorn’s ancestor through Elrond’s twin brother Elros (yes, Aragorn and Arwen are distantly related). Eärendil was the son of a Man (Tuor) and an Elf (Idril) while his wife Elwing was the grand-daughter of a Man (Beren) and an Elf (Lúthien), so Elrond and Elros have both Elf and mortal ancestry on both sides. Their father Eärendil was known as “the Mariner” and built his own ship with help from the Elf Círdan the Shipwright. After their bravery in the war against Morgoth, Eärendil and Elwing, along with all their descendants, were given the opportunity to choose whether they wanted to live as Elves or as mortals. Both chose the Elves, but of their sons, Elrond chose the Elves while Elros chose to become mortal, and became the first King of Númenor – we saw his picture in a tapestry in episode 3. This is why Arwen has to choose between going with the Elves or staying with Aragorn and becoming mortal in The Return of the King. That problem may eventually be solved by Galadriel, since he will ultimately end up married to her daughter. However, since Galadriel doesn’t appear to have any children yet and we haven’t heard so much as a whisper of her husband Celeborn, he may have to wait a while. (In Tolkien’s mythology, Galadriel and Celeborn are married but living separately at this point. Whether that’s the case in the show has yet to be revealed as Celeborn hasn’t been mentioned at all). By pointedly calling Galadriel “daughter of Finarfin,” the Númenoreans might just be emphasizing her high status in Elf society as, essentially, a Princess. But they might also be alluding to her family’s violent past; her father may have turned back and not taken part in the Kinslaying, but he was still persuaded to take an army with the intention of waging war in Middle-earth, even if that war was against Morgoth. While Elrond seems to have something of an outsider status due to his mixed parentage, Galadriel is met with hostility from some of the humans she comes into contact with because of her famous Elven relatives.
