Gil-galad - WikiHQ

Gil-galad is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, the last High King of the Noldor, one of the main divisions of Elves. He is mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, where the hobbit Sam Gamgee recites a fragment of a poem about him, and The Silmarillion. In the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, Gil-galad and Elendil laid siege to the Dark Lord Sauron's fortress of Barad-dûr, and fought him hand-to-hand for the One Ring. Gil-galad and Elendil were both killed, but Sauron was wounded. This allowed Elendil's son Isildur to cut the Ring from Sauron's hand, defeating Sauron, and to take the Ring for himself.

Gil-galad briefly appears at the opening of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, in several video games based on Middle-earth, and as a secondary character in the TV series The Rings of Power.

Appearances

Prose

Gil-galad was an Elf of a royal house of Beleriand; beyond that, accounts of his birth vary. According to The Silmarillion, he was born into the house of Finwë as a son of Fingon sometime in the First Age, and as a child, he was sent away during the Siege of Angband for safekeeping with Círdan the shipwright in the Falas. Alternatively, according to Tolkien's last writings on the subject, he was a son of Orodreth, who became a son of Angrod, son of Finarfin. Christopher Tolkien rejected these changes for The Silmarillion, a decision he later regretted. After the War of Wrath and the end of the First Age, Gil-galad founded a realm in the coastal region of Lindon along the shores of Belegaer, the Great Sea. At its height, his realm extended eastward as far as the Misty Mountains. Gil-galad did not take a wife and had no children. He was the first of the Eldar to mistrust a stranger who called himself Annatar, and forbade him from entering Lindon. His mistrust was well founded, for Annatar was in fact Sauron. About the year 1600 of the Second Age, Sauron secretly forged the One Ring. Celebrimbor, the creator of the Three Rings, gave two of them, Narya and Vilya, to Gil-galad for safe-keeping once he knew Sauron's intention to take them. Gil-galad passed Narya to Círdan the shipwright, who stated that this was only to keep it secret; Círdan never used it. Gil-galad chose to give Vilya, and control of Eriador, to Elrond. War broke out between the Elves and Sauron; Gil-galad asked the Númenóreans for help, and their king Tar-Minastir brought a great force, enabling Gil-galad to defeat Sauron's army. A record left by Isildur in Minas Tirith implies that Sauron himself killed Gil-galad with the heat of his bare hands. Recalling the encounter at the Council of Elrond at Rivendell before the Fellowship took the One Ring south, Elrond said that only he and Círdan stood by Gil-galad in that fight.

Sam's companions are impressed, and ask for more; Sam admits that is all that he learnt from Bilbo. Aragorn says the fragment is a translation from "an ancient tongue" and suggests that the hobbits may hear the rest in Rivendell. meaning "snow-point" or "snow-thorn" or more commonly "icicle" (aeg: sharp, pointed; los: snow) because when orcs saw his spear, they would recognize it by its reputation to bring a cold death to them. Elrond said that at the battle of Dagorlad, "we had the mastery: for the Spear of Gil-galad and the Sword of Elendil, Aiglos and Narsil, none could withstand." The connection of Elf and spear could relate to the English surname Elgar, which may represent Old English , "elf-spear".

Heraldic devices

[[File:Gil-galad's_heraldic_device.jpg|thumb|upright|Gil-galad's heraldic device with stars on a blue field

Family tree

Concept and creation

Gil-galad means "star of bright light" in Sindarin.

His names in Tolkien's invented languages of Quenya and Sindarin were Artanáro and Rodnor, respectively. His Sindarin birth name, Ereinion, means "scion of kings".

Tolkien considered several different parentages for Gil-galad in different draft texts, including making him the son of Orodreth. In the second version of The Fall of Númenor, he is called a descendant of Fëanor, who made the Silmarils. Then Tolkien treated him as a son of Finrod Felagund. Christopher Tolkien, editing the published version of The Silmarillion, made Gil-galad the son of Fingon, a decision he later regretted, saying he should have left the parentage obscure.

The scholar of literature Lawrence Krikorian, in Mallorn, writes that Elrond's account of his personal observation of being Gil-galad's herald in the Second Age, thousands of years earlier, helps to make the narrative function as history rather than allegory. This, he writes, lends an impression of depth.

Adaptations

Film, TV, and radio

thumb|upright=1.35|Gil-galad (played by [[Mark Ferguson (actor)|Mark Ferguson, centre right) and his herald Elrond (Hugo Weaving, left), as envisaged in Peter Jackson's 2001 film The Fellowship of the Ring

In the Lord of the Rings film trilogy by Peter Jackson, Gil-galad is portrayed by Mark Ferguson. He appears very briefly in The Fellowship of the Ring during the opening prologue sequence. Gil-galad is mentioned in the behind-the-scenes documentaries included with the Special Extended Edition DVD of The Fellowship of the Ring and is listed in the credits. In an interview with Ferguson and Craig Parker (Haldir), Ferguson stated that it had been planned for his death to be depicted onscreen as in the book, but it was considered too violent.

In the Amazon Prime Video The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power TV series, which focuses on events in the Second Age, Gil-Galad is played by Benjamin Walker.

Games

Gil-galad has been included in multiple video games since Jackson's films were first shown. The 2004 video game The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age featured Mark Ferguson as Gil-galad. Others are the 2007 The Lord of the Rings Online; the 2011 The Lord of the Rings: War in the North; and the 2012 Lego The Lord of the Rings which has Gil-galad near Mount Doom.

References

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Secondary

Sources