Sauron feared her The author said that she was the “last remaining of the Great among the High Elves” in the Third Age, and consequently was the one person Sauron must have feared most among all his enemies in the War of the Ring.
Sauron Feared Galadriel
Tolkien also stated that Sauron saw Galadriel as his equal, and therefore, in his rise to power he feared that she would go after that power herself. As we saw in The Fellowship of the Ring, Galadriel told Frodo that the One Ring would consume her and turn her into a Dark Queen.
Sauron wants Galadriel to become his queen because she's useful, says Vickers. As he's already shown, Sauron can accomplish his objectives much more quickly when he has a highly regarded Elf warrior to get him into places like Numenor and Eregion (where Celebrimbor lives). “He feels a connection to her.
According to Tolkien's writing, Galadriel didn't fight in the War of Wrath because she didn't believe Morgoth could be defeated without the help of the Valar.
Sauron feared Elves the most (hence his machinations to corrupt and control them) but he hated Men the most, not least because of the Numenoreans, who foiled him on a few occasions.
Morgoth Was Originally More Powerful Than Sauron
In the depths of time, Eru Ilúvatar created Arda and the Valar. He made the Valar to help create and order the world, but the most powerful Valar, Melkor, turned out to be nothing but problems.
Thus, Galadriel's dark form in Jackson's The Lord of the Rings personified what would have occurred had the Lady of Lothlorien given in to temptation and taken the One Ring for herself. She would have succumbed to evil because the Ring was indomitable, even with her power.
She already feels an outcast after Gil-galad tried to send her back to the Undying Lands, and she fears that if she reveals what she has done, it will be the final nail in the coffin. Instead, when Elrond pulls her from the river Glanduin, and she races back inside to Celebrimbor's forge, she chooses to stay silent.
Galadriel has very strong magical powers, and she is said to be the greatest of the Ñoldor after Fëanor. The majority of her powers come from her Ring of Power, Nenya, the Ring of Water.
It is therefore unlikely that Galadriel would have been able to save him or turn him towards the light if she had agreed to rule beside him. She even tells him this herself when she whispers: “No penance could erase the evil you have done.”
Galadriel has a potent spirit. Her spirit is arguably the greatest that any Elf ever possessed. But against the spirit of Sauron even the greatest Elf spirit fell short. Hence a contest of spirit being channeled into power would go in Sauron's favor.
The Dark Lord easily overpowers her, and after Galadriel rejects his proposal to join him, he traps her in illusions and leaves her to drown in the water.
But when it becomes clear to Galadriel that Halbrand/Sauron cannot tell the difference between “saving” and “ruling” Middle-earth, she rejects his proposal.
Sauron did desire Galadriel... He desired to make her his puppet-Queen. He didn't have any romantic feeling for her. He didn't want to marry her or have romance with her.
In Lord of the Rings, Galadriel was not shown as a warrior, which makes the comparison with the character depicted in The Rings of Power jarring and difficult to reconcile. There's considerable contention surrounding the idea that she was a warrior with many battles under her belt.
Elrond and Galadriel Go Back a Long Way
Being immortal, all the Elves who play a part in The Lord of the Rings have been around a while by the time the story starts. But even by elven standards, Galadriel is old. She was born in the Undying Lands when the Two Trees still lived.
In The Lord of the Rings, it is said that had Galadriel chosen to use her powers for evil instead of good, she would have been even more destructive and terrifying than Sauron himself. Galadriel was the greatest and most powerful of all Elves in Middle Earth in the Third Age.
Though neither is someone you'd wish to annoy, Galadriel is generally considered more powerful than Elrond in Lord of the Rings. Not only is she older than her Rivendell counterpart, but Galadriel witnessed the light from Valinor's Two Trees, giving her a mystic quality.
Regardless, Glorfindel remains one of the strongest characters in The Lord of the Rings, with powers similar to that of the Maiar after being, essentially, brought back from the dead to aid in the Third Age and the War of the Rings.
Though Galadriel doesn't share her news, Elrond is suspicious and wanders out to find the genealogy scroll that leads him to figure out that Halbrand is Sauron. Unfortunately, he finds this news too late, arriving back at the workshop just as the elven rings (the rings of power) are being completed.
But the Elves were not so easily ensnared, and as soon as Sauron put on the One Ring they and Celebrimbor were aware of him, and realised they were betrayed. They hid their Rings from Sauron and did not use them.
Boromir was put under great stress by his father to retrieve the Ring, and he let the Ring take control of his mind. Because of this, he is ashamed and disappointed in himself. This proves the Boromir is at his core a good person. Boromir knows what he has been thinking is wrong, and so he cries.
Therefore, the line's more accurate meaning would be “I pass the test to Frodo”. Thus she can finally accept the diminishing of the elves, trust the idea that Frodo can and will destroy the ring and rid Middle Earth of Sauron's menace, and find enough harmony to allow her to retire to the Grey Havens.
Elrond's was born nearly 600 years after Galadriel, but he was born as a half-elf, and so until he made the choice to become an elf, he aged at a faster rate, though still slower than mortals. Tolkien says that his initial 24 "growth years" took 24 sun years, after which each life-years took five sun years.
Many Lord of the Rings fans also say Tom Bombadil is actually the most powerful character in all of Middle Earth, due to his apparent immortality, ability to completely resist the Ring, power over his domain, and knowledge that comes from living since the beginning of time.