September 21, 2003

How Did Legolas Lead Such a Sheltered Life?
Niphredil

In the FotR commentaries, Orlando Bloom explains Leogolas’s reaction after the supposed loss of Gandalf in Moria as him struggling to comprehend death. Death being ‘foreign’ to him due to elves immortality and the fact that he is relatively young (for an elf). I found this comment rather annoying and I think inaccurate.

I’m sure Legolas would have been well acquainted with death. After all, I don’t think Mirkwood would have been the safest of environments, not with the ‘Necromancer’ plotting away in Dol Guldur. And did Thranduil give his son the day off when the Battle of Five Armies was going on. I do believe that the elf-host returned to Mirkwood ‘sadly lessened’. There was also the case of Orcs rescuing Gollum in which some elves were lost. So I think Legolas would have had his fair share of skirmishes and that death was not such a mystery to him. What do others think?

Having said this, I actually like Orlando Bloom’s performance at the Dimrill Gate, it was just the comment that it was not merely grief that I found irritating.