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Orlando Bloom portrays Legolas in Motion Picture

Legolas

Biographical information

Other names

Greenleaf

Titles

Prince of the Woodland Realm

Date of birth

Unknown; after TA 1000

Year ascended to the throne

Date of death

Unknown (Departed to Aman, FO 120)

Realms ruled

Spouse

Weapon

special Bow gifted by Galadriel, two long, curved, white knives in the movies, one in the books, bow of Mirkwood

Physical description

Race

Elves

Culture

Sindar, Elves of Mirkwood

Gender

Male

Height

Hair color

Uncertain (book), Golden (movie)

Eye color

Grey (book), blue (movie)

Peter Jackson's Film Trilogy

Actor

Orlando Bloom

Voice

Character

This article is for The Lord of the Rings. For the Elf of Gondolin see: Legolas (elf of Gondolin).

"He was as tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war-bow and shoot down a Nazgûl, endowed with the tremendous vitality of Elvish bodies, so hard and resistant to hurt that he went only in light shoes over rock or through snow, the most tireless of all the Fellowship."

—J.R.R. Tolkien on Legolas (Book of Lost Tales 2, p. 333)

Legolas Greenleaf was an elf who was part of the fellowship. He is the son of the King Thranduil of Mirkwood, was a Prince of the Woodland Realm, a messenger, and a master Bowman. With his keen eyesight, sensitive hearing, and excellent bowmanship, Legolas was a valuable resource to the other eight of the Fellowship. His age was never stated by Tolkien but was estimated by some to be between 500 and 3000 years old. In the movies and the books, Legolas becomes great friends with the dwarf Gimli, who was also a member of the Fellowship of the Ring.

It is not known whether Legolas was Thranduil's only son, or whether he was heir to his father's crown.

"Legolas Greenleaf, long under tree, In joy thou hast lived. Beware of the Sea! If thou hearest the cry of the gull on the shore, Thy heart shall then rest in the forest no more." Galadriel's message to Legolas (The Two Towers, Chapter 5)

History

Legolas came to the Council of Elrond, the great meeting held by the elf lord Elrond, as a messenger from his father to discuss the escape of Gollum. When the council was choosing the "Nine Walkers" to pit against the "Nine Riders," Legolas volunteered to represent the elves, and become one of the members of the Fellowship that set out to destroy the One Ring.

Within the Fellowship Legolas and the dwarf, Gimli clashed because of the ancient quarrel between Elves and Dwarves, which began after the destruction of Doriath, and also because Legolas' father Thranduil once imprisoned Gimli's father, Glóin, (during Bilbo's Quest to the Lonely Mountain). They became friends, however, when they entered Lothlórien and Gimli greeted the Lady of the Golden Wood with gentle words. In the Battle of the Hornburg, he and Gimli engaged in Orc-slaying contests with Gimli winning by one, though Legolas was not jealous, stating "You have passed my score by one but I do not grudge you the game, so glad am I to see you on your legs." In the movie adaptations, the same contest was also carried out in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. The contest apparently counted the number of kills only, with no extra points being gained for killing larger or more dangerous foes: at Pelennor Fields Legolas single-handedly brought down a Mumakil, and Gimli, begrudging such a ridiculous feat, states "That still only counts as one!"

After the destruction of the One Ring and of Sauron, Legolas and Gimli went travelling together to Helm's Deep, visiting the Glittering Caves, and then later travelled through Fangorn Forest as Legolas and Gimli had agreed. Eventually, Legolas came to Ithilien with some of his people, with his father's leave, to live out his remaining time in Middle-earth helping to restore the devastated forests of that war-ravaged land. After the death of King Elessar, Legolas left Middle-earth to go over the Sea, and Legolas' strong friendship with Gimli prompted him to invite Gimli to go to the Undying Lands; making him the first and only Dwarf to do so.

Character and Personality

Although he lived among them and in their culture, Legolas was not fully of the Silvan Elves. As a son of the Elven-king Thranduil, who had originally come from Doriath, Legolas was at least part Sindarin Elf, as his mother's identity is completely unknown. This is complicated by the fact that a small minority of Sindarin Elves ruled the predominantly Silvan Woodland Realm of Northern Mirkwood, a minority to which Legolas belonged. The Sindarin minority in that realm, who should have been nobler and wiser than the Silvan Elves, can be seen as having "gone native" at the end of the First Age: after Morgoth was defeated and all of the grand Elf-kingdoms of Beleriand were destroyed, they can be seen as going back to "a simpler time" in their culture.

Like all elves, Legolas has a great respect and appreciation for nature. While in Fangorn Forest he longed to return once more in order to explore its wonders more thoroughly. He is kind, and cares greatly for his friends, even Gimli the Dwarf, though it was a rarity for Elves and Dwarves to express a liking for one another. Due to his age however, he is somewhat egotistical and thinks of those around him, adults in technicality, as children (all except for Gandalf).

In the Extended version of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Legolas is shown to hold his liquor very well. Eomer challenged Legolas and Gimli to a drinking game, which he won, when Gimli fainted and collapsed after drinking too much ale. After drinking numerous amounts of ale he simply said, "I feel something, a slight tingling on my fingers. I think it's affecting me."

Legolas' name

The name Legolas is a Silvan dialect form of pure Sindarin Laegolas, Greenleaf. It consists of the Sindarin words laeg, green; and golas, a collection of leaves, foliage (being a prefixed collective form of las(s), leaf). The Quenya form (mentioned in the Book of Lost Tales in the context of another character of that name) is Laiqualassë.

There might, however, be a certain meaning to his name: laeg is a very rare, archaic word for green, which is normally replaced by calen (cf. Calenhad, mutated Parth Galen and plural Pinnath Gelin) and is otherwise almost only preserved in Laegrim, Laegel(d)rim (Sindarin form of Quenya Laiquendi), the Green Elves of the First Age. It may be that Thranduil named his son Legolas to at least in part refer to this people, who were remote kin and ancestors of the later Silvan Elves, the people Thranduil ruled and to whom - very likely - Thranduil's wife belonged.

Weapons

Elven bow and long knife

Legolas carries two weapons with him on his journey with the Fellowship. He sports a slender bow of Mirkwood, which he aims with deadly precision. He prefers to pierce his enemies from afar, but he also carries "at his belt a long white knife" (The Fellowship of the Ring, p. 314). In Lothlorien, he was given a long-bow of the Galadhrim, stouter than those of the fashion of Mirkwood. Nevertheless he adopts his new bow and makes deadly use of it in the remainder of the War of the Ring. This bow had a draw weight of about 150 pounds. It could reputedly send an arrow with deadly force for over 400 yards. The bow was over six feet tall, and was made from a single piece of Mallorn heartwood. Its string had a single strand of Galadriel's hair entwined with it to help speed the arrow along even faster. Legolas' skill with the bow is revered, even as good as that of Beleg Cúthalion.

In the movie adaptation, he wields a Rohirric sword at the Battle of Helm's Deep, presumably because his daggers would not be very effective from horseback. He also carries two knives across his back, instead of a single knife in his belt.

Age

Tolkien does not specifically give Legolas' age but many have used what details Tolkien does give to hazard a guess. In the 'official movie guide' for The Lord of the Rings, a birthdate for Legolas is set to TA 87. This would make him 2931 years old at the time of the War of the Ring. This date for Legolas' birth was made up by the movie writers, as in the books there are no known dates concerning Legolas before TA 3018. It's safe to say that, most likely, Legolas was born after Oropher, his grandfather, moved his people across the Misty Mountains, since in the book, he referred to the Noldor elves as a "strange race". That would mean he's at most 999 years old which places his birthdate in the latter part of the Second Age, at the earliest. Legolas is never mentioned in any account of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, so most assume he was born in the Third Age, after Isildur took the Ring of Power. Legolas has never been to Lórien before he travels there with the Fellowship. Therefore, we can assume that he was not with his grandfather's people when they left Lórien for Northern Mirkwood. Before the Shadow of Dol Guldur fell on Mirkwood in TA 1000, Legolas' people spent time amongst their Lórien neighbors. But when the Shadow fell, they "retreated before it as it spread ever northward, until at last Thranduil established his realm in the north-east of the forest and delved there a fortress and great halls underground. So, we can safely assume that Legolas' birthdate was after TA 1000, when the Kingdom of Northern Mirkwood was created. This would make him younger than any other elf character in the series, including Arwen. In the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Legolas refers to his travelling companions many times as "children". Yet when he arrives at Fangorn, he claims to feel young compared to the forest. Legolas says, "It is old, very old. So old that almost I feel young again, as I have not felt since I journeyed with you children."

Appearance in the Books and Films

In the books

In the Movies

Portrayal in adaptations

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy

Due to a technical mishap involving Orlando Bloom's contact lenses, in the films Legolas' eye colour sometimes changes between brown and blue.

Peter Jackson also filmed, but never used, footage of Legolas in his new home.

Orlando Bloom returns to the role of Legolas in The Hobbit. However, Legolas does not appear anywhere in the book, so it is expected that his role will be minor. Bloom joins Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Andy Serkis, Christopher Lee, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Elijah Wood from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Legolas has also been portrayed by Anthony Daniels in the 1978 Ralph Bakshi animated version of The Lord of the Rings. He is reduced to an extra with no lines the Rankin and Bass animated adaptation of The Return of the King. His appearance there retcons the appearance of Wood Elves in Rankin and Bass adaptation canon.

Radio versions

Legolas was voiced by Frank Duncan in the The Lord of the Rings (1956 radio series), by John Vickery in the The Lord of the Rings (1979 radio series), and by David Collings in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation.

Video games

In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Legolas is voiced by Michael Reisz.

In Peter Jackson's movie The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers (2002) video game and the movie based The Lord of the Rings The Return of the King (2003) video game and The Lord of the Rings The Third Age (2004) Legolas is voiced by Orlando Bloom.

In The Lord of the Rings: Aragorns Quest (based on Peter Jackson's movie Trilogy) Legolas is voiced by Orlando Bloom

Legolas appears as a hero in The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth and The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II is voiced by Crispen Freeman for both games.

Legolas appears as a hero in The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, and voiced by Crispen Freemen in the PS3 and Xbox 360 version there is a specific achievement called "That still only counts as one", which is earned by using Legolas to kill an Oliphaunt single handedly, just like Legolas did in the third of Peter Jackson's movies and is named after what Gimli said to him immediately afterwards.

In The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Legolas was voiced by voice actor Crispin Freeman.