The Problem of Gil-galad, High King of Elves
Tolkien Did Not Explain Gil-galad Because there was a hole in his story of the 2nd Age
(Painting by Drazenka Kimpel, 2017)
Gil-galad is a minor figure in the world created by J.R.R. Tolkien. His name is mentioned a few times in The Lord of the Rings, and he appears in the Appendix at the end of the Return of the King.
What we do not have is the story of Gil-galad’s life. We know neither his parentage nor his wife, nor his children. He plays essentially no role in the history of Middle Earth until the end of the 2nd Age when he leads the army of Elves alongside Elendil. He and Elendil both die in the final battle against Sauron, although Sauron is defeated and (seemingly) destroyed.
The puzzle is that Tolkien worked out the genealogy of most of his characters. Aragorn is descended from Elendil via some 22 named kings. Elrond’s genealogy is perfectly defined (being one of the oldest living people on Middle Earth, he doesn’t have many ancestors). Tolkien knew the genealogy of hundreds of Elves and Men of the first age from Feanor to Turin, from Hurin to Earendil.
But not Gil-galad. His background and his life are a curiously set of notes which were written, rewritten, revised, and left undefined, odd, given Tolkien’s detail oriented approach to creating the backstory for his magnum opus, the Lord of the Rings.
I have a theory as to why Tolkien shied away from writing a back story to Gil-galad.
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The Reason - Gil-galad’s Life Would have Blown a Hole in Tolkien’s Plot for the 2nd Age
Tolkien didn’t need the 2nd Age when he started on his sequel to The Hobbit. But as he started thinking about the sequel he decided he would connect The Hobbit to his unpublished writings about the war between the Elves and Men against Morgoth. This large body of work had occupied a good deal of Tolkien’s time and energy starting when he was in a hospital in France in 1917, having nearly died serving at the front as an officer in the British Army. Tolkien worked hard on what is now called The First Age, from 1917 until 1925 - when he got a teaching post at Pembroke College, Oxford. From 1925 to 1930 he only added bits and pieces to his 1st Age stories
The Hobbit, a children’s story which started out as a retelling of Siegfried killing Fafnir the Dragon, had only a small connection to his earlier, unpublished, work. With the success of The Hobbit (published in 1937) Tolkien began work on a sequel. In early 1938, he decided that his New Hobbit book would be centered around Bilbo’s ring of invisibility and he spent much of 1938 working out the backstory for what became the Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien decided that his new book would be fully based on the stories he had created 10 to 20 years earlier. However, he also decided that the New Hobbit would be set far, far after the events of his earlier stories, which opened up a large gap in the history of his world. To fill this gap he created The Second Age (and a large history of the 3rd Age as well) - all to explain the creation of Bilbo’s ring, and why there were both wizards and Hobbits.
The Second Age, which I wrote about in my essay What Did the Second Age Mean to Tolkien was not that interesting to Tolkien. It was a means to an end, the end being the starting point for The Lord of the Rings. Speaking as an author, I feel Tolkien spent too much effort on the Second Age but one cannot argue with the results. Tolkien produced a masterpiece, in part due to his perfect understanding of the background of his novel.
To be clear: the history of the Second Age had only one purpose - to set up the Lord of the Rings.
The Second Age was not going to be a setting that Tolkien used to write stories in. We know this because Tolkien himself was dismissive of the 2nd Age in some of the letters he wrote, and, after the Lord of the Rings was published, he spent the last 20 years of his life (1953 to 1973) rewriting the stories from the first age; the stories he had invented as a young man.
Why Gil-galad was a Problem - He Would Have Known Too Much
As I wrote in my essay The Problem with the Creation of the Rings of Power, Tolkien’s story about the creation of the Rings of Power was fatally flawed due to a subtle problem which he seems to have not considered. The problem is: the Valar were still connected to the world of Middle Earth when the rings of power were being created.
After Earendil pierced the veil which the Valar had created to protect their land from Morgoth and his minions, a steady movement of ships back and forth from Valinor to Middle Earth took place.
Most of the ships sailed to Valinor, carrying elves who were tired of living on Middle Earth, but some ships sailed from Valinor back to Middle Earth. For example, a huge fleet from Valinor sailed to Middle Earth at the end of the first age. On board this fleet were the Valar and an army of High Elves who came to defeat Morgoth’s hosts, his dragons, and his demons.
From that point on, the high elves were able to sail back and forth between Valinor and Middle Earth. Tolkien mentioned this on a few occasions. Strictly speaking the ships sailed from Middle Earth to the port of Avallone on Tol Erassea and from that blessed isle, some elves continued on different ships to Valinor proper.
Gil-galad, the High King of the Elves on Middle Earth must have had a special connection to the High Elves who lived on Tol Erassea. It would be absurd for the King of the High Elves on Middle Earth to not have regular communication with the leaders of the Elves of Valinor - the place where he and nearly all of his fellow High Elves intended to go once they could no longer resist the call of the sea. Further, many of Gil-galad’s friends and relatives had already sailed to Tol Errasea, and there is every reason to think they still cared about the elves who remained in Middle Earth.
If Tolkien had sketched out Gil-galad’s life story, it would have been obvious that Gil-galad should have known all about Sauron as an evil demi-god because his friends and relatives in Avallone would have let him know: this guy who is advising Celebrimbor is one of the Maia, and the only Maia unaccounted for are the servants of Morgoth. Gil-galad’s friends in Avallone would have told him: We know from talking with the Valar, that this Annatar fellow must be a servant of evil because is not working for any of the Valar.
Tolkien wrote that Elrond and Cirdan mistrusted Sauron (Annatar) - but you wouldn’t mistrust a servant of Morgoth, you would drive him away or try to kill him. Further, the gods of Middle Earth, the Valar, would have been duty-bound to send help, to clean up the mess left over after Morgoth was defeated. However, Tolkien didn’t want any of this to happen because that would destroy the narrative he needed in order for the Lord of the Rings to take place. Tolkien needed the rings to be made, he needed the One Ring to be evil, he needed Sauron to act like Satan - a fallen angel - and successfully deceive the High Elves of Middle Earth.
Deceiving the High Elves is only possible if the Elves are not getting information from the Valar.
Tolkien explains why the High Elves in the 3rd Age aren’t getting help from the Valar, because Valinor was no longer part of the world. During the fall of Numenor, the Valar remove their land from the world (also destroying Numenor) and now you could sail around the world but never reach Valinor. However, that wasn’t the case when the rings of power were made. For almost all of the 2nd Age, Valinor was still in the world and elves sailed there and some elves sailed back.
When Annatar (Sauron) appears on the scene, in a month or two, Gil-galad should have heard from his friends and relatives on Tol Errasea that this entity calling himself Annatar is not a servant of one of the Valar, and thus he must be a servant of Morgoth. There was no third option. It is reasonable to think the Valar might have sent a group of Maia to deal with Sauron, since very few of the remaining High Elves in Middle Earth were capable of fighting a demi-god. Elves like Fingolfin and Feanor were no longer found in Middle Earth.
Again, this would have prevented the One Ring from being created, so Tolkien avoided this issue by not giving Gil-galad a background or a history and the curiously uninvolved High King of the Elves plays no role except fighting a long war with Sauron until an army from Numenor comes to Middle Earth and defeats Sauron.
Tolkien gave Gil-galad no character, except that he wields a spear and he dies fighting Suaron. As mentioned earlier, he has no wife, no children, and no one cared enough to take on his role as High King of the Elves after he died.
Tolkien’s Notes About Gil-galad
I’ve read the detailed backstory on the various fragments which Tolkien wrote about Gil-galad’s parentage. It all in the Tolkien Gateway’s page on Gil-galad. Gil-galad’s history consists of small notes and names being added, then later crossed out.
The bottom line is: Tolkien never wrote a biography of Gil-galad, and never explained what Gil-galad did during the 2nd Age before Annatar-Sauron appeared. Gil-galad is said to have mistrusted Annatar but he took no action when Annatar took up residence with Celebrimbor and started helping him make the rings of power. This makes little sense but then Gil-galad wasn’t really a character for Tolkien. The One Ring had to be made. Everyone had to act like naive fools when Sauron shows up. After all, Sauron is Satan, the most powerful evil force in the world, and yet, curiously unopposed by the Gods who are supposed to be protecting the world, at least during the 2nd Age.