The history of Galadriel and Celeborn was to have been changed
greatly from the way we understand it from The Silmarillion and The Lord of the
Rings. In these books Galadriel took part in the rebellion of the Noldor and met Celeborn in
Doriath. It was not made clear whether Galadriel either refused the pardon of the Valar at the
end of the First Age, or was not even offered it. However, Tolkien planned to completely revise
Galadriel's part in the First Age of the World. She was to have left Valinor separately from the
rebellion of the Noldor; indeed, she was to have had no part in the rebellion at all. She was to
have met Celeborn in Alqualondë and have sailed with him to Middle-earth, reaching it before
Fëanor. However, these are ideas that Tolkien was working on in the
last month of his life, and it would have taken great amounts of revision before they could have
been incorporated into The Silmarillion. For convenience and for continuity's sake, I now
present Galadriel's history as it is in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings,
only taking information from Unfinished Tales when it agrees with these.
Galadriel was the daughter of Finarfin, and the greatest of Elven
women, the only woman of the Noldor to stand tall among the contending princes on the day of the
rebellion of the Noldor. In fact it is said that she was the greatest of the Noldor except
perhaps for Fëanor, although she was wiser than he.
