This revelation shook Galadriel, who had no idea why Sauron was in the Sundering Seas in the first place. She didn’t realize that the choices she made in these moments would have fatal consequences for hundreds, by keeping alive a darkness that would rage across Middle Earth for the next thousand years. But there is actually an interesting moment in the show in which she foretells some of the events to come. She almost predicts her own part in the terrible mistake that she has made in trusting the stranger from the sea.
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Even before audiences knew his real identity, Halbrand was never the most genuine character. Heoften acted questionably, which aroused suspicions surrounding him in the first place. He abandons his fellow shipmates on the wreck to the sea monster; he severely beats several members of the Blacksmith’s union in Numenor, which promptly gets him thrown in prison there. Whilst he is locked away beneath the city, Galdriel goes to question him about the unusual crest that he wears around his neck, believing it to the symbol of the lost king of the Southlands. This is where his iconic “I got this off a dead man” line comes in. That line will later come to have terrible connotations once Galadriel realizes that it is the truth: it probably means that Halbrand/Sauron killed the true king of the Southlands long ago.
But during this scene, several things pass between the two characters that have an eerie resonance with the fate of Middle Earth across the ages. They almost appear like a prediction by Galadriel of her own mistakes and wrong-doings. Regarding the crest, she tells Halbrand:
There is so much tragic irony within this statement. The evil that the king fought against was, of course, Sauron, who is sitting right in front of her. When she reminds him “your lands,” she doesn’t realize just how horribly true that will become, and just what she is igniting within him. Unfortunately, the lands that they refer to, do eventually become his. They become Mordor, which is where the tower of Bharad-Dur and the evil eye of Sauron will dwell in the Third Age of Middle Earth. The second series is bound to explore whether Adar and Sauron will join forces, or fight for rule of Mordor, but either way, these lands do eventually become his, which is terrible foreshadowing in itself.
“Many ages ago, a man bearing that mark united the scattered tribes of the Southlands under one banner. The very banner that might unite them again today. Against the evil that now seeks to claim their lands. Your lands, Halbrand.”
Galadriel then goes on to perpetuate this further, by saying: “Your people have no king, for you are him.” Unfortunately, this only seals her fate further. It feeds into all the self-serving desires that Sauron holds. He later tries to convince Galadriel to join him to rule Middle Earth, because this is what he ultimately wants: to be the king, the dominator, the all-powerful being who puts the world in check. He has always been obsessed with perfect order. He believes that if he can rebuild the world anew, he can control everything in it to make it ‘perfect,’ unchanging. In convincing Halbrand that he can be the Southlanders’ king, and that they will follow him if he asks it, Galadriel reignites that long-ago desire within him. The ancestors of these exact people did follow him once. They swore their allegiance to him, hence the problematic elven occupation of the Southlands, to prevent it from ever happening again.
Finally, as if to really add insult to injury, Galadriel makes another unwitting prophecy that will come to be true, and will be devastating for many of her people. She tells Halbrand:
In essentially telling him to take up arms, Galadriel not only allows the events that follow during the rest of the first series of the Rings of Power. She also predicts a much worse war during which Sauron will indeed don his armor and almost destroy the world: the Battle of the Last Alliance. During this battle, Sauron is depicted in physical form, wearing the iconic black armor shown in the Peter Jackson movie prologue. Although he is eventually defeated and the ring is cut from his finger, he causes much devastation first, killing many important characters including Elendil and Gil-Galad. At that moment in the jail cell, Galadriel doesn’t realize just what a terrible mistake she is making. Yet, those words will come to haunt her for the next thousand years.
“The armor that ought to rest upon your shoulder, weighs upon your soul.”
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