Why Galadriel left Valinor?

[Landroval]

Maybe Melkor was not lying, but saying as it is? "Something is rotten in the State of Denmark" (C) Shakespeare), if you have to ask a permission to leave a gilded cage.

Who said there is such an obligation??

Originally Posted by Of the silmarils and the unrest of the noldor

The Valar had brought the Eldar to their land freely, to dwell or to depart; and though they might judge departure to be folly, they might not restrain them from it.

[Galin]

Landroval: I would say it was Galadriel's power that kept them in Middle-Earth alive

Jammi567: what, from her ring, or her general elvishness(sp)?

Landroval: Most likely her ring, my son

This brings up the issue of chronology with respect to the mallorn-trees growing in Lórien under Galadriel's power. When did she introduce the mallorns there? keeping in mind that if her ring had anything to do with establishing them, Galadriel cannot use Nenya until the One is taken from Sauron.

I had a bit of trouble here, using the extant text anyway. In relatively late notes published in Unfinished Tales, Tolkien gives Galadriel a visit to Lórien at about the time the Shadow arises in Dol Guldur -- no problem yet perhaps, because even though we are around a thousand years into the Third Age, there's still enough time for the growth of mallorns before Frodo arrives much later. And actually, in a relatively late note published in The History of Galadriel and Celeborn chapter (Unfinished Tales), it is said: '... for Lórien after the end of the first millennium of the Third Age became a land of uneasy vigilance, and Amroth must have dwelt in growing disquiet ever since Dol Guldur was established in Mirkwood.' And that Amroth's flet on the hill of Cerin Amroth: '... was principally designed to watch Dol Guldur across the Anduin.'

So maybe Galadriel is visiting -- can now use her Ring -- and establishes mallorn-trees in Lórien at this general time.

But yet Tolkien (had possibly forgotten that he) had published Haldir's: '... and here is the mound of Amroth, where in happier days his high house was built.' My guess at 'happier days' for Amroth would have been the years before the Shadow arose. Granted it is only happy -er but still, according to the text titled Amroth and Nimrodel for instance: 'His land had peace for many years after the defeat of Sauron. Though Sindarin in descent he lived after the manner of the Silvan Elves and housed in tall trees of a great green mound, ever after called Cerin Amroth. This he did because of his love for Nimrodel. For long years he had loved her...'

This is arguably better, I think (to some degree!), with respect to agreeing with The Lord of the Rings.

But if I adjust my chronology along these lines, I think I will have trouble with Galadriel using Nenya to aid with the introduction of the mallorns in Lórien, because again, the suggestion is that her first visit there in the Third Age was roughly about the time of the growing shadow of Mirkwood (TA 1050 a shadow falls on Greenwood) and the matter of Dol Guldur (in c. TA 1100 the Wise discovered that an evil power had made a stronghold in Dol Guldur).

Of course I'm a bit constrained here in a way that Tolkien is not (he can alter some of Galadriel's history, for instance), but I would hold even JRRT to work around what he had already put into print. Plus, one wonders a bit why Galadriel would not have grown the mallorns in Lindon or Eregion, and yet in Lórien before she came to rule there.

Thoughts?

[Noble Elf Lord]

Suppose the Ring was needed to maintain, not to originally grow the mellyrn?

And the dog on the chain is too rough a metaphor; I'd say the dog is allowed free movement within a front/backyard. So it won't be killed by cars and such...

[Galin]

If they grew under her power (noting Sam's mallorn in any case) then it seems to me that that would be enough. Nenya maintained a lot of things in a sense, but that was preservation power.

And if the trees were maintained in some way by Nenya, Galadriel did not make Lórien her 'permanent' home until roughly two thousand years had passed in the Third Age.

Granted her visit there around TA 1000 could have been quite long, but...

[Belwen_of_nargothrond]

Galadriel wanted to rule her own lands. She thought she could find that in Beleriand.

[Morwen]

I believe that Galadriel is very proud, and did not wish to meet the confines of the Valar, such as they were. When the flight of the Noldor came about, Galadriel was still young (in elven terms, I mean) and had a rebellious spirit that matched her brothers.