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Galadriel and She Who Must Be Obeyed
My only excuse for not seeing this before is that I've never actually read H Rider Haggard's She - I have seen the film many years ago but don't remember it at all. Anyway, having just finished A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder which many people erroneously thought was derived from She (erroneously because the former was written before the latter, though only published posthumously some years later) I thought I'd tackle She as well. And imagine my surprise when Ayesha (the she of She) is a powerful and ancient woman clothed in white who is both terrible and beautiful, given to probing the hearts and motives of people, and even has a little pool mirror in which she (and those she invites) can see things happening far away.
“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”
She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful.
I strongly suspect that both women are ultimately derived from the description in Song of Songs
Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? (King James Version)
Anyway, a bit of searching online reassured me that I wasn't the first to spot this, and indeed whole books have been written about it. Tolkien greatly enjoyed H Rider Haggard's books (no great surprise, as Haggard insists on including large chunks of Latin and Greek in his prose) and said in 1966 "I suppose as a boy 'She' interested me as much as anything." and folk have run with this to adduce all kinds of parallels.
Of course ultimately in Tolkien's world Galadriel turns away from that
Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.
“I pass the test”, she said. “I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel.”
So arguably for Tolkien, Galadriel is a redeemed She
Comments
Now you must read the others - Wisdom's Daughter (a prequel), Ayesha: The Return of She, and She and Allan.
I have always thought this. I didn't know Tolkien was so enamored of She, but Haggard was one of my favorite authors growing up. Knowing after reading this how influential Haggard was to Tolkien, I would say there is little doubt Galadriel was an evolved version of She.