inafadingcrown | Powers Information Post

First of all, there's the standard elf things:

Better than human sight and hearing: Elves have been shown to see and hear things from absurd distance.
Light and swift of foot: Elves generally move more quickly and quietly than should be possble for their size.
"Immortality": kind of a misnomer. Elves can be killed and they can die from grief, but they are immune to sickness, do not age as humans do, and won't die of old age.
Sleep is not strictly necessary: Elves can rest their minds by meditating, rather than sleeping, and achieve rest that way.
Perfect memory: a blessing and a curse, really. Elves are like elephants; they don't forget.

And then there's Galadriel's personal gifts and abilities. These are never explicitly spelled out, so this is my own attempt to break it down.

Nenya: Not relevent in Riverview because of her canon point. The Ring of Water, or the Ring of the Adamant, one of the three elven rings of power, was entrusted to Galadriel during the Second Age of the world. She did not use it while Sauron still had the One Ring, but after it was lost to him, she used it to sustain and protect Lothlórien. Its powers appear to be primarily nurturing growth, preservation, and protection. There's not a lot of information on how this works, but we do know that it's extremely powerful.

There are few explicit references to Nenya's powers, most of which refer only to its ability to protect. One, we hear from the lips of Galadriel herself: "But do not think that only by singing amid the trees, nor even by the slender arrows of elven-bows, is this land of Lothlórien maintained and defended against its Enemy." The use of the Ring for defense is further demonstrated in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings where we learn of the attacks against Lothlórien. Tolkien states that "[t]hree times Lórien had been assailed from Dol Guldur. but besides the valour of the elven people of that land, the power that dwelt there was too great for any to overcome, unless Sauron had come there himself." This strong protection of a particular area brings to mind the Girdle of Melian, albiet on a much smaller scale. And, indeed, Galadriel was a pupil of Melian, so it is not at all improbable that she would employ similar methods.

Telepathy/sanwe-latya: While this is not an uncommon skill for elves, Galadriel possesses it to an extraordinary degree. This includes the ability to read minds and to communicate with others with her mind through words, visions, feelings, etc.
- General Awareness/Surface Knowledge: We know from her questioning of the fellowship in Lórien that she is able to sense certain people for quite a distance. She is able to state that Gandalf did not pass into Lórien, implying two things. First, that she is able to sense the "spirit" or "mental presence" of people well enough to distinguish specific individuals and, secondly, that she is capable of doing this over a great distance. These don't seem to be thoughts or specific communication, so I'm assuming it's more like recognizing someone's voice. If you know them, you can give them a name; if not, you can maybe guess at some details.
- Reading Thoughts and Two Way Communication: She can read people’s thoughts. She explicitly acknowledges as much to Frodo by verbally responding to one of his thoughts. I tend to think that this is an ability that can be turned on or off, though, given that she doesn’t do this all the time and that she seems to be pretty sane- which constantly hearing the thoughts of hundreds/thousands of elves would not encourage. She also is able to speak into the minds of others, which means that she can hold a non-verbal conversation perfectally well (as she does in ROTK in "Many Partings," actually).
- Testing hearts: Probably an extension of the above, but worth mentioning seperately because of its significance and intensity. In The Fellowship of the Ring, she basically "tested" each of the characters by offering them something they desperately wanted. It's said to feel like being intensely questioned.
- Blocking her mind:Blocking her mind: Basically, this is her ability to prevent other people from reading her mind. Canonically, she is able to keep Sauron out of her mind, so it's safe to say that she has some very strong walls up.

Foresight
- Visions and insight: She can see "what is, what was, and some things that have not yet come to pass." It seems that these visions come both unbidden and, to a lesser degree, on command. She makes it abundantly clear that the future that she sees is by no mean inevitable, but rather a possibility that is either fulfilled or averted through choice and human action.
- With the mirror: She seems to be able to use this to show visions to others. I think it likely works as an amliphier for her own powers and as a means of channeli. I would not mention it except that it's essentially a silver basin filled with water from a running stream, so she could easily re-create it.
Healing: Some of this is just knowledge of herbs and skill, but it's also likely that there is a certain amount of magic ability involved in Elven healing. With Nenya, obviously, this ability is amplified.

Large Scale Destructive Power: In a passage in Lord of the Rings, Galadriel goes to the fortress of Dol Guldur after Celeborn and his forces have taken it and “threw down its walls and laid bare its pits.” This is really the only time any magic like this is attributed to her. And, significantly, it is after the destruction of the One Ring, so it is probably the power of Galadriel herself and not Nenya.

There is a similar passage in The Silmarillion where Lúthien Tinúviel is said to have destroyed a fortress. “Then Lúthien stood upon the bridge and declared her power: and the spell was loosed that bound stone to stone, and the gates were thrown down, and the walls opened, and the pits laid bare […]”

It's highly unlikly that this will come up in rp, but it is something that she can and has done.