[Keeper of Dol Guldur]

In Tolkien's letters he states that while Celeborn is indeed a relative of Elu Thingol, king at Doriath and a grey elf who has not seen the light of Aman, Celeborn had. They were distant in relation, although they would have recognized eachother as kindred. Indeed they must have, because Celeborn was one of those elves who went to Valinor, and there he met (or even before that) Galadriel. They have been together from the beginning, practically, since before the sun we shall say. They (meaning Galadriel) had already planned on returning to Middle Earth for legitimate reasons, when the rebellion of Feanor took place, and so they got there via a different means than they first planned. Galadriel (with Celeborn) were forced to cross the Helcaraxe, and endured hardships, only now the ban of the Valar and the doom of Mandos had been placed, and so Galadriel in the least was unable to return unless some unforeseen redemption may come about. Celeborn and Galadriel then dwelled in Doriath with Thingol and Melian, and then later (probably even before the second age) they migrated to the region between the Blue and the Misty Mountains. Here they dwelled, until later before Sauron first returned, and even visited Khazad Dum, frequently, when later they founded Lothlorien. So Celeborn's past, is not so much shady as always at the side or with Galadriel's, as she was more important and referred to more from a historical point of view. How he went about courting and later wedding the great and beautiful spirit that was Galadriel, with her enormous beauty (which even Feanor was in awe of), and in olden days her knack for participation of sports only 'males' tended to embark upon or participate in, is unknown. He seems to have been very, very lucky. Then it comes to Celeborn's children. Treebeard near the end of Book III said in elvish, something like "welcome, beautiful ones and parents of beautiful children." Children, plural, which tends to say that there were more than just Celebrian (and later Arwen Undomiel as grand-daughter). This could support the claim that Amroth was Celeborn's son. Indeed, then since Amroth (and many elves) left because evil had been awakened in Khazad Dum, and this led to Amroth's demise, could explain his slight resentment towards Gimli at first, of course being the great and flexible lord he was, (and that Galadriel had the keener insight that he listened to) he changed his mind. His past, though, is not altogether 'shady.' It is, however, shadowed.