The Lord of the Rings, Book 2, Part 2, chapters 6 through 10 was covered in session eight of the Big Read on July 13, 2026.
Christian Trenk presented, “I much desired to speak with him? Thoughts on the Evolution of Galadriel Through the Drafts”. While the presentation was recorded and played, big credit to Christian who lives in Germany and was online for chat questions throughout it (the program started 3 a.m. local time for him).
He opened with a very solid overview on Book Two and then zeroed in on Galadriel and Celeborn, specifically how their roles were refined through the draft process.
I found this presentation to be of great interest. In the end it seemed obvious, based on the chapter as published, Galadriel was very focused on the ‘global’ events and Celeborn was fixated on ‘local’ events. His ability to secure the safety of Lothlorien allowed Galadriel to focus on the bigger picture.
This was not the case in the early drafts. Trenk examined the usage of ‘I’ vs. ‘We’ and how it evolved. He noted that as the drafts evolved and the roles were refined it revealed the craft of writing employed by Tolkien.
The exploration of character focus and defining their role within the story is worth exploring throughout History of Middle-earth where these texts are made available to better understand how the characters developed.
My breakout group was very good and unfortunately my Zoom app glitch cost me once again as I got an error related to camera and it shut off and I could listen but not engage. I did remove and re-install, hopefully that will fix my issue as it has happened across multiple events and it is clearly my problem not the host.
Ross Raymond Nunamaker 