Galadriel Higgins

AI Generated with Gencraft

## Biography

### Early Years

Galadriel, also known as El, was raised by her mother Gwen Higgins in the Radiant Mind commune in Wales.

Gwen spent El's early childhood teaching El how to manage her anger and her power. She stopped El from pulling malia from animals by taking the animals El found away and then buying her ice cream to make up for it. When El was old enough that Gwen couldn't have stopped her taking the life force of living creatures, she had taught El how wrong and dangerous malia use is. When El was twelve they had a massive fight over malia use when El found a dying bird. After storming off El only sat with the bird until it died, making her mother deeply proud.

El struggles over the fact that she has no friends and most people barely tolerate her presence. While El can be abrasive, the reason most people stay away is because she has a dark presence due to her affinity. Aadhya described this effect as the feeling a storm is approaching when you are far away from shelter.

When El was about five, her mother tracked down El's father's family, the Sharmas, in India and contacted them. El's father died getting Gwen out of the Scholomance, and the two did not exchange contact information. The Sharma family were all excited for Gwen and El to join them, seeing it as a way to get a piece of Arjun back, even though he died. Gwen was willing to join the family because they were an enclave of strict Hindus' that never used malia. When El arrived, she was introduced to the entire family, including her great grandmother. When her great grandmother touched El, she fell into a fit and prophesized that El would be the destruction of every enclave.

Several men of the Enclave wanted Gwen to give them El, to kill her, but Gwen wrapped her up in a blanket and left; hitchhiked to the nearest airport where they were given a ride back to Wales on a private jet by a tech investor.

When she was nine, El's mother was hospitalized and El was left alone in their yurt when a mal called a scratcher made it through the wards and tried to eat her. El screamed for help, but no one in the commune came to her aid. When El saw lights on in a nearby building, she realized no one was coming to save her. El used the only spell she knew--a cooking spell her mother used often--and melted it. By the time she turned fourteen, mals were coming at a rate of five a night. Her mother offered to keep El out of the Scholomance, but El realized that she and her mother would never survive as independent wizards. Despite her mother's wishes, El declared that she would join an enclave once she left the Scholomance.

## Summary

### A Deadly Education

At the beginning of the story, El has already been at the Scholomance for nearly three years. It is nearing the end of their junior year and she is considered one of the losers, even though, unbeknownst to the rest of the class, she is one of the most powerful students at the school.

Her affinity is to for mass destruction as befitting a Dark Sorceress with the ability to effortlessly pull malia from anyone, as well as providing her easy access to powerful and deadly spells. Despite El not wanting the spells, she had to work through many of them before she could learn smaller, useful spells.

She is very put out that Orion Lake has once again saved her life, even thought she was perfectly capable of saving her own life without his help.

She spends a great deal of time either angry or day dreaming about how she can let everyone know through some great deed, just how powerful she really is, but every time she has an opportunity to impress everyone with her power something happens. The one time that she does finally uses her abilities, she is alone and there are no witnesses. After taking out the Maw-mouth she finally realizes that if everyone knew that she alone was able to accomplish what it has always taken a team of adult, experienced wizards to do, then it would cause everyone around her to fear her more then be impressed and want to recruit her. She also finally realizes that she really doesn't want to join an enclave.

When Orion starts to hang around with El, it makes other people start looking at her differently. The people that had just kind of tolerated El at the fringes of their group start to include her a bit more, at first so that they can be around Orion, but gradually for herself.

She finally makes friends, a couple of people that have always tolerated her, Aadhya and Liu as well as Orion. Aadhya, Liu and El form an alliance to help each other to get out of the school.

### The Last Graduate

El and the gang are now seniors and it seems that the School is out to get her, or is it? When she receives her home room assignment, it is located on the library floor, in a room that she had never seen or heard of before. When she arrives she finds it is full of only Freshmen! Then she finds receives her new class schedule!

## Prophecies

Reference to Great Grandmother's (Deepthi Sharma) 'visionary fit'

"[my great grandmother] said I was a burdened soul and would bring death and destruction to all the enclaves in the world if I wasn't stopped"

Magic Mirror
"Hail Galadriel, bringer of death, you shall sow wrath and reap destruction; cast down enclaves and level the sheltering walls; cast children from their homes and -"
## Skills and Abilities

### Affinity

El has an affinity for mass destruction and associated magics. She can learn a hundred spells related to her affinity by glancing at them, but has a harder time with smaller spells such as those for cleaning and household chores. Due to her affinity she can easily pull malia from others. She works hard to only ever use mana that she has generated herself or was freely given to her ("strict mana") so she doesn't accidentally kill someone when reaching for power.

### Spells

* Killing/Combat spells
	+ La Main de la Mort (French). One of the most powerful killing spells; must be cast with a careless flick of the hand and the words *a la mort.*
	+ Crushing spell (Latin). Created by a Roman maleficer to efficiently kill a pit full of sacrifices for malia. Can be used to create a makeshift form of pressure chamber.
	+ Disintegration curse
	+ Electric Shock spell
	+ Fire Wall/Mortal Flame Summoning spell
	+ Mind control spell
	+ Spell to unravel souls; effective on a soul eater
	+ Spell to liquify one's enemies
* Phase Control Spell (Sanskrit). Can shift the phase of matter of the target material, from solid to liquid to gas. Gained from the Golden Stone Sutras, useful for a wide variety of situations including enclave building. Exceedingly valuable.

* Shielding Spells
	+ Group Shield spell (Spanish). Written by Clarita
	+ Personal Shield spell. Written by Gwen Higgens.
* Utility/Household spells
	+ 99 household cleaning charms in Old English
	+ Medieval spell for tanning leather. Part of a longer spell to create a cursed grimoire
	+ Glamour spell
	+ Multiple cantrips for personal appearance.

### Languages

* English
* Marathi
* Hindi
* Welsh
* Spanish
* French
* Sanskrit (Learning)
* Latin (Learning)
* German (Learning)
* Middle English (Learning)
* Old English (Learning)
* Arabic (Learning)
* Mandarin (Learning)

### Artifices

* Magic mirror, gives the user glimpses into the future. Made with the help of Aadhya and Orion; likely cursed due to the fact it offered El information without being asked

### Gallery

Imaged generated in Midjourney and edited in Adobe Photoshop Beta and OnOne Photo Raw 2024. By Tim Connolly.by MOMO @giacomofblack on twitter
## References

1. ↑ Novik, Naomi. A Deadly Education (The Scholomance) (p. 4). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
2. ↑ Novik, Naomi. A Deadly Education (The Scholomance) (p. 81). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
3. ↑ Novik, Naomi. A Deadly Education (The Scholomance) (Chapter 1 Time 11:15). Random House Publishing Group. Audiobook Edition.
4. ↑ Novik, Naomi. A Deadly Education. (The Scholomance) (Time 7:06:00). Random House Publishing Group. Audiobook Edition.