Galadriel’s brother Finrod serves a major purpose in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and his words would carry great meaning for her journey ahead.
The story begins with young Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) building a paper sailboat in the scenic land of Valinor before darkness came. She places her makeshift boat in a stream and as it sails, wondrous flaps open up. Fellow elven children follow after it and a boy throws a stone, sinking the boat despite young Galadriel’s pleas. This angers her and she attacks him, but her brother Finrod (Will Fletcher) stops her from going too far. He tells her that a ship floats because it looks at the light instead of the depths of the sea. She asks him how can she know the difference when the water reflects the light, and Finrod whispers something that at this time cannot be heard.
The world grows dark with the rise of Morgoth and Finrod and the elves have to take up arms and fight for Middle-earth. War is waged for centuries and Morgoth is defeated, but Sauron remains with his army of orcs. Finrod fights valiantly, intent on killing Sauron, but he falls in battle. This death is something that Galadriel can’t get over and drives her forward in vengeance.
In her older age, Galadriel takes command of a team of elves and they journey north in search of Sauron. They travel across lands, climb cliffs, and tread through the snow of Forodwaith. She’s told that they need to turn around and warned that she’s in defiance of King Gal-galad (Benjamin Walker) searching for a threat that might not exist, but she doesn’t listen. They realize that they’ve come to Morgoth’s abandoned fortress. When they enter it, Galadriel finds a mysterious symbol and they fight a snow-troll, which Galadriel handles exquisitely. Afterward, the elves are even more shaken and they call off the hunt.
When Galadriel returns to Lindon, she’s told by Elrond that she needs to let her quest go and she should sail west to the Undying Lands where she will find peace. It takes some convincing from Elrond (Robert Aramayo), and she sets sail with her fellow Elves. As the boat gets closer to the Undying Lands, Galadriel grows more uncertain. She still worries that Sauron will return and plunge the world in darkness. A fireball streaks across the sky and she thinks back about what her brother told her. A flashback scene shows what Finrod whispered to her. Finrod’s answer was, “Sometimes we cannot know until we have touched the darkness.”
This inspires Galadriel to leave the boat and plunge into the depths to continue her mission. It’s symbolic of the rock that was thrown at young Galadriel’s paper boat and foreshadows that she will have to face the darkness if she hopes to defeat it.