Why is Galadriel always barefoot?

Question

In both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movie trilogies Galadriel is always shown walking barefoot. Does it say in the books that she walks around barefoot or did Peter Jackson just want to show off Cate Blanchett's feet?

A couple of examples:

• The Fellowship of the Ring:
  When the Fellowship is asleep she walks barefoot to the mirror.

• The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies:
  In the scene where Gandalf is being tortured by the original Bolg, Lady Galadriel enters walking barefoot on the black stone fortress ground and rescues him then fights Sauron along with Saruman and Elrond.

Answer 1

In the books, Galadriel's feet are never mentioned, so the question is moot.

She doesn't appear in The Hobbit (book) at all, and in Lord of the Rings she appears only in The Fellowship of the Ring and briefly in The Return of the King. About all we know about her footwear is that if she does wear shoes, they must be white.

• The Fellowship's first meeting with here:

On two chairs beneath the bole of the tree and canopied by a living bough there sat, side by side, Celeborn and Galadriel. They stood up to greet their guests, after the manner of Elves, even those who were accounted mighty kings. Very tall they were, and the Lady no less tall than the Lord; and they were grave and beautiful. They were clad wholly in white, and the hair of the Lady was of deep gold, and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright; but no sign of age was upon them, unless it were in the depth of their eyes; for these were keen as lances in the sunlight, and yet profound, the wells of deep memory.

_{— The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, chapter 7: The Mirror of Galadriel}

• When she comes to lead Frodo and Sam to the Mirror:

Even as he spoke, they saw, as if she came in answer to their words, the Lady Galadriel approaching. Tall and white and fair she walked beneath the trees. She spoke no word, but beckoned to them.

_{— The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, chapter 7: The Mirror of Galadriel}

• When the Fellowship meet her again for their last farewell to her and Lothlórien:

In the midst of the vessel sat Celeborn, and behind him stood Galadriel, tall and white; a circlet of golden flowers was in her hair, and in her hand she held a harp, and she sang.

_{— The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, chapter 8: Farewell to Lórien}

• When she comes to Minas Tirith after the end of the War of the Ring:

First rode Elrohir and Elladan with a banner of silver, and after them came the Lady Galadriel and Celeborn, Lord of Lothlórien, riding upon white steeds and with them many fair folk of their land, grey-cloaked with white gems in their hair; and last came Master Elrond, mighty among Elves and Men, bearing the sceptre of Annuminas, and beside him upon a grey palfrey rode Arwen his daughter, Evenstar of her people.

_{— The Return of the King, book 6, chapter 5: The Steward and the King}

(all emphasis mine)

So it could well be, as you say, just Peter Jackson wanting to show off Cate Blanchett's feet. However, as others have said, going barefoot fits with her nature-goddess image and with what we can surmise from the footwear of Legolas about the toughness of elves' feet.

Answer 2

Because she doesn't need to.

Elves don't feel the cold as we do. For example, Legolas climbs a mountain in light shoes.

With that he sprang forth nimbly, and then Frodo noticed as if for the first time, though he had long known it, that the Elf had no boots, but wore only light shoes, as he always did, and his feet made little imprint in the snow. ‘Farewell!’ he said to Gandalf. ‘I go to find the Sun!’ Then swift as a runner over firm sand he shot away, and quickly overtaking the toiling men, with a wave of his hand he passed them, and sped into the distance, and vanished round the rocky turn.

^{The Lord of the Rings | The Ring Goes South}

I would suspect this is an extension of that.

Answer 3

I can't give you a direct quote since I returned the book to the library, but I just finished reading "The Hobbit Party" and the authors claim that Galadriel has some of the same characteristics found in popular renaissance and modern depictions of The Virgin Mary. As well as more modern accounts of seers (like at Lourdes where Mary appeared barefoot)

Even given the fact that the Lord of the Rings is not an allegory, it's not out of the way for characters to appear in books as "Types" of other characters from history or literature. Eru being a "Type" of the Creator God and the Istari being types of angels and Melkor being a type of fallen angel.

The key to understanding Galadriel and her affect on Gimli is in the Lady of the Galadhrim’s Marian roots. Tolkien clearly meant her as a figure of the Virgin Mary. Galadriel is beautiful and majestic. She reflects the light of the stars. She is perceptive and gracious. She gives gifts and help and comfort. Many of these qualities don’t quite reflect Mary as the poor and lowly handmaid of the Lord. So, without a Catholic perspective, the allusions could be easy to miss. But Tolkien possessed not just a devotion to his Catholic faith but a devotion to Our Lady as well. So he surely viewed Mary as she truly is, Queen of Heaven and source of perpetual help.

Word on Fire - Gimli, Galadriel and Guadalupe

So, given this, it's no altogether unlikely that Jackson, Dickson, Taylor, et al. from WETA would attempt to make the queen appearing in the book with the most abundant intercessory power as much as possible (in little details) like the one in the imagination of millions of people.

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As to her rebellion and banishment; Mary is a type of Eve from the Old Testament too (one being the Mother of all the Living, the other the Spiritual Mother of all the Living), and that just rounds out the character of Galadriel as being both the original Eve and the "new Eve" as Mary is often called.

Still, the blog post I linked to said that Tolkien had a semi-confused character developed out of Galadriel who was possibly unfinished at his death.

Interestingly, the character of Galadriel changed over the course of the years as Tolkien developed his world’s history. At first, he wrote that she, along with many of the other elves of her kind, was culpable in the rebellion in Valinor (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry. Just nerd stuff). But, later, he changed his mind on this and wrote that she was innocent of any wrongdoing. Actually, the word he used was “unstained,” clearly an allusion to Mary’s Immaculate Conception. Apparently, Tolkien’s vision of Galadriel became clearer even to himself. In a letter to a priest friend, Robert Murray, Tolkien wrote:

“I think I know exactly what you mean by the order of Grace; and of course by your references to Our Lady, upon which all my own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded. The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.”
Letter to Robert Murray, S.J., 2 December 1953

ibid

That quote is often used to justify quite a bit of Catholic speculation about the characters in LotR, but like most people are apt to point out, there aren't a lot of ladies in the books and if one embodies "majesty and simplicity", it's probably Galadriel.

Philip Kosloski at Voyage Comics and Publishing writes that Mary is reflected in Arwen, Éowyn, Lúthien and Galadriel:

Galadriel is an excellent reflection of many characteristics of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is said to be the fairest of all the elves and was granted the ability to see into the mind’s of others, seeing their thoughts. She was called the “Lady of Light” or the “White Lady.” Her hair was so beautiful that even Gimli desired to have a single strand of her hair. She also dispensed many gifts to the Fellowship when they stopped in Lothlorien. Galadriel reflects that heavenly beauty of Our Lady and reminds us of the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the “Mediatrix of All Graces;” the one who intercedes most powerfully for us and dispenses many gifts to the faithful who call upon her.

4 Women in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth who reflect the beauty of the Virgin Mary

Some of the titles given to Mary (which there are hundreds in Catholicism) are very similar to the titles given to prominent women in LotR. (i.e. Evenstar is to Arwen as Evening Star is to Mary). So I'm not saying it's a one-to-one match, but every woman of valor, majesty, wisdom and grace in his books is a very clear reflection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I'd add Rosie Cotton, in her humility, to that Philip's list too!

Answer 4

Galadriel is not always barefoot in the LOTR movies.

She is not barefoot in the "Galadriel and Celeborn" scene, where the two descend the stairs to welcome the Fellowship. She appears to be wearing a kind of silver-white ballerinas or similar (there is only a glimpse of her shoe though). As befits her role at that moment.

As for Galadriel trotting barefoot to the Mirror by night, although I cannot claim anything, I always took that scene to be hinting stealth. This is not a queen walking regally through the halls of her abode in full view; this is a woman seeking private, important conversation with a guest, walking barefoot in her own house by night.

[And as for Hobbit, her very appearance there is just totally off the hook.]

Answer 5

Galadriel barefoot in Lothlórien means she's in direct physical contact with the land itself. It's a neat way of showing how interconnected the two are and how dependent the maintenance of Lothlórien is on the power of Galadriel and her ring.