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Neniel
Joined: 29 Dec 2004
Posts: 147
Location: Hiding from the men in white. Contrary to common belief, psychiatrists are *very* sneaky people
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 Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | a certain full figured actor shifted his weight on purpose at a time when a certain younger actor was showing off a difficult canoing maneuver for his buddies. |
 *giggles like a maniac*
Seriously, though, I too had forgotten that Elrond was the one who did the picking...  Shame on me and all the times I've read the LotR. I swear those movies are like a brainwash!
I guess you're right Alassante, I may have gotten a bit carried away, but the fact remains that Legolas and Gimli, the two more interesting characters of the Fellowship (them not being humans and all) are the ones we know less about!
We certainly know why Aragorn goes with the Fellowship, Tolkien gave us a pretty good idea of the dilemmas and doubts that shade his past (Arwen, being Isildur's heir, etc). Same goes for Boromir (Gondor on the brink of extinction, Denethor's a nutcase, you get the idea) and the hobbits (Sam, Merry and Pippin would follow Frodo to the end, Merry and Pippin feeling useless among the Big Men but proving the opposite).
But why do Legolas and Gimli get chosen? What do they think about this mission? How do they feel about it? Other than Gimli's admiration for Galadriel and their initial distrust, we know next to nothing about them. I mean, there's got to be more about them than the *princely stand-offish warrior elf* and the *sturdy all-business fighting dwarf*! What are their true thoughts? These questions have been bugging me almost ever since the first time I read the books... It is part of the reason why I may be looking into things a little too much, I feel there are things missing from their character development.
| Quote: | | we do not see the reasoning for why it was legolas who was chosen and not any other powerful elf-lord (like the very lord Glorfindel, who was powerful enough to throw some nazgul off and would have been a lot more sheer muscle than the prince), of which he had a reasonable amount in his own house. |
Well, another of my big questions as well... Legolas may have been a great warrior, but the fact remains he was quite young for one of his race. Why not someone else, one with more experience in fighting against such evil? I'm pretty certain that there must have been at least one or two elf-lords from the Last Alliance in Elrond's home, even if we don't count Glorfindel that had fought in Gondolin...
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Dubbed Neni by the sweet OSA raving lunatics
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SilverMoonLady
Joined: 14 Jul 2003
Posts: 1201
Location: Breaking in a Brandybuck... *wicked grin*
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| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:57 pm Post subject: |
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Totally out of my depth here, but isn't Legolas's age a matter of much debate? Granted, he's obviously younger than some, but how young is that, and among those few of the elders still there in Middle-earth...
Just a thought..
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Neniel
Joined: 29 Dec 2004
Posts: 147
Location: Hiding from the men in white. Contrary to common belief, psychiatrists are *very* sneaky people
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| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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You're right, we're not sure about his age, but most assume something along the lines of 1500-2000 years old... which I think is quite young... I mean it would be a surprise to discover he was actually about the age of Elrond!
But I also suppose that most of the really ancient elves would have departed for Aman by the time of the War of the Ring... (not sure about those Sindar/Silvan guys though).
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Dubbed Neni by the sweet OSA raving lunatics
http://www.livejournal.com/users/nenielsildurien/
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Never be afraid to try something new.
A lone amateur built the Arc. A group of professionels built the Titanic. |
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Jael
Joined: 18 May 2005
Posts: 1
Location: USA, Wisconsin
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| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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| SilverMoonLady wrote: | Totally out of my depth here, but isn't Legolas's age a matter of much debate? Granted, he's obviously younger than some, but how young is that, and among those few of the elders still there in Middle-earth...
Just a thought.. |
The Elf's age certainly is a matter of debate, and Tolkien never gives it. Everything else has to be drawn from inference. Having read the book and seen the movies, I was rather surprised to see some Tolkien scholars aguing that the Legolas of the book was fairly young. I think the links to those essays are earlier in this thread.
I had thought the Legolas of the movie was written younger than in the book for a number of reasons -- he defers so readily to Aragorn, for which I can see no reason for a three thousand year old Elf to do, even to a king of men, and he allows a Dwarf (a Dwarf!) to call him "Laddie." Yet Peter Jackson , or maybe Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens have given him an age of almost three thousand. I wonder how much thought they actually put into that detail.
Same with the comment that Arwen was among the last born of her people. Come on -- they mean us to believe that the Eldar quit having kids two and a half thousand years ago? I ccan see a dropoff in birthrate because of general world-weariness, but not so severe and not for the past two and a hald millenia. If that were the case, no wonder they're leaving for Valinor in droves.  |
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