“As [he does] with Celebrimbor, I think he’s toying with her,” Vickers says. “Sauron has this hubris and arrogance, and he’s showing her his power and what he’s capable of.”
For the most part, Galadriel holds her own, repeatedly rejecting Sauron’s various temptations and taunts. There’s something almost cathartic about her furious refusal to bend, particularly given how virtually every other character she’s interacted with this season has called her weak, questioned her loyalties, or implied that she simply isn’t strong enough to resist him.
Sauron ultimately gets the upper hand, stabbing Galadriel with his infamous multi-pronged crown. But Galadriel remains unbowed even in the face of what feels like certain death, throwing herself—and the ring he’s been coveting—from a cliff rather than allow him to claim it—-or her. Of course, since this is a Lord of the Rings prequel, the viewers at home already know she’ll survive what seems like it ought to be a plummet to her doom. But according to Vickers, Sauron himself was also likely aware of that fact.
“When he stabs her, I think there has to be a part of him which realizes he’s not going to kill her,” Vickers says. “When she jumps off the cliff, he knows she’s going to live. Even though the crown has this supernatural ability, she’ll find a way to live.”
She has to, after all. And not just because Galadriel still has a great deal, canonically speaking, to accomplish in the world of Middle-earth. It’s because it seems impossible for Sauron’s story to continue without her. Because if there is one constant in The Rings of Power, it may be that Sauron and Galadriel will always find their way back to each other, locked in a cosmic conflict that will continue as long as either of them exist.
“I think that as long as the show goes on, right up until the end, it will be Sauron and Galadriel,” Vickers says. “I think they’ll always be connected, even if they’re not next to each other, even if they’re not in the same scene together. They are the enduring forces of good and evil.”
