Was Legolas neglected by Tolkien?

[Legolas]

Hi everyone

I've got a question concerning the book-Legolas. When I compare the Legolas in the books to the Legolas in the movies, I get the feeling that Tolkien didn't put a lot of effort into the elf of the fellowship. Given the fact that Tolkien originally wanted to choose Glorfindel to represent the elves in the fellowship, I got the feeling that Legolas was a more last-minute addition. This seems quite surprising to me, since Tolkien always put so much effort into the background stories of the first children of Iluvatar. We literally don't know anything about his background, except that he is the son of Thranduil.

Furthermore, his relationship towards Gimli is kind of odd. It seems like Gimli is much ruder to him, than Legolas is to Gimli and I didn't really get the feeling that they were close friends until the end to be honest. I find it also kind of strange how Legolas completely admires Aragorn, since the elf is most likely a lot older and a lot more experienced than him. Also, when it comes to his looks, they are not even described properly.

I could keep going and list up so many other things, but I believe that you understand my point. I definitely know that I'm not the only one who feels that way about Legolas, due to the lack of information that was given about him. This made Tolkien state the following about the elvish prince:

“He was tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war-bow and shoot down a Nazgul, 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, The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two

Do you understand my point and what do you think about it? I'm looking forward to your answers.

[Lirimaer]

Yes.

I know that Legolas is not a main protagonist, but he is the most understated figure of the Fellowship, and I have to say I cherish every titbit of description we get.

To me it is just shocking that there is NO DATA regarding his birthdate or his mother when we have extensive genealogies for many other elves, but also men, hobbits, Rohirrim, dwarves ...

[Boromir88]

In part I agree, because Legolas is the member of the fellowship we know the least about. I also recall Tolkien writing in a letter correspondence that he accomplished the least of all the members of the fellowship. This could be do to Legolas being a later addition to the story?

I disagree though about Gimli and Legolas' friendship. It starts out contentious of course, but there's a noted change in Lothlorien:

Legolas was away much among the Galadhrim, and after the first night he did not sleep with the other companions, though he returned to eat and talk with them. Often he took Gimli with him when he went abroad in the land, and the others wondered at this change. - Fellowship of the Ring: The Mirror of Galadriel

I think part of it with Gimli seeming rude is just how dwarves are. We know from The Hobbit they aren't the most courteous of house guests and once Bilbo gets them out of one rough situation they seem to expect Bilbo to do everything. In the end though, we're told they would have risked their lives and done all that they could for Bilbo if necessary.

[Elenhir]

Legolas isn't really a later addition to the story. He joins the Fellowship, developmentally, at the same time Gimli does; neither of them appear in the first version of 'The Ring Goes South', in which the party consists of Gandalf, Boromir, and five hobbits. He's there, in the narrative, from the first draft of every chapter after.

I think your disconnect has more to do with focus the movies put on him. Tolkien can't really be faulted for Jackson wanting to appeal to certain demographics with a pretty face and cool flip tricks. That's really your only difference between the two.

[Legolas]

@Elenhir I'm sorry but I have to disagree. First off, I don't have a disconnect and it's not at all my only difference between the two. I just threw the question out there if Tolkien neglected Legolas and it is actually a fact that Legolas in the books is the most understated figure of the fellowship.

However, there are certain hints Tolkien gives us showing that he has been around for quite a while (i.e. His super long history lessons he gives the fellowship, etc.) and I find that Peter Jackson does a great job portaying what Tolkien didn't.

Therfore (and I'm sorry that I've got to ask you this question but) have you read the Silmarillion? If yes, than you should know that certain elves have done a lot crazier things than the things Legolas does in the movie. Given the fact that Elrond chose explicitly HIM chosen to join the fellowship of the ring, should already prove enough that Legolas is a formidable warrior. Why else would Elrond have chosen him? So it's very very likely that Legolas is capable of doing the things he does in the movies.

In conclusion: Legolas pretty much must be the type of warrior he is in the movies, just that Tolkien's writing style didn't show it, what I find kind of sad.

[Fuin Elda]

I honestly don't think it's that shocking In the Third Age the elves were fading they were no longer meant to be the most powerful of the races of Middle-earth the mantle was suppose to be falling to men. As such while yes Legolas is a 'cool fighter' in the movies, Tolkien didn't overly go into a lot of detail about battles in the books, there are only certain battles that he really goes into details about, where as the movies were very very battle and fighting heavy - to the point I believe the ratio of battle to other information was flipped in reverse in terms of book vs movie.

Legolas is one of the last 'princes of the elves' in Middle earth, he is not fighting in one of the major elven battles akin to those in the Silmarillion in which the elves were the main protagonists. The story was NOT about how Legolas was fighting it was about bring the race of men to power and destroying the ring. Neither of which goals would be accomplished by being more detailed about Legolas so I would in fact say it's a disconnect. Not necessarily between the book and the movie but what the book is about and what Legolas' role in it is. He is not the hero of the story nor was he ever meant to be. He is at best, a supporting character.

[Androthelm]

I think @Fuin Elda is right -- Legolas is, much more than Frodo or Sam (or even Aragorn, Merry, and Pippin), a supporting character. Gimli is too. We don't learn much about them -- in the final text, they function mostly as stand-ins for their broader races (Gimli offering the service of the Longbeards in repairing the gates of Minas Tirith, Legolas crafting a ship to depart across the sea, each of them struggling to trust the other). They are not even substantially tempted by the Ring or by Sauron, in the way that ... almost every other named character (Besides maybe Merry and Pippin? But they have conflicts of their own) is to some degree.

Jackson did expand both Legolas and Gimli's parts substantially for the movies -- they aren't even (or hardly are? I just finished a read-through but I'm forgetting) mentioned between the Paths of the Dead and the breaking of the Siege of Minas Tirith, in the books!

[Legolas]

@Fuin Elda You've actually got some good points there, however, I never even claimed that the story was SUPPOSED to be about how Legolas was fighting and not about the destruction of the one ring. No offense, but why even mention it in such exaggerated way? It's also obvious that the Lord of the Rings is awesome the way it is and the story achieves what it was supposed to WITHOUT Tolkien having been to detailed about Legolas. It would have also not been an issue in any kind of way either.

Thanks though for underlining that the Lord of the Rings is about bringing the time of the elves to an end and bringing the race of men back to power. That awakens the feeling inside of me that this is the reason why he created Legolas and made him join the fellowship instead of Glorfindel, since Glorfindel would have been too op and would have stolen Aragorn's show.

@Androthelm All I'm saying is that I feel like book-Legolas is pretty vague and cryptic and a character to whom I feel Tolkien put the least thought compared to the other characters, also considering that he was more or less a 2nd choice. I understand that he is not a main Character, still I find it odd compared to how detailed Tolkien's desciptions have always been, which has never been a problem.

[Androthelm]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by Tolkien's detailed description / lack thereof. Tolkien doesn't really... write fight scenes, at least not ones with true "choreography" (I was surprised on the reread to see the Chamber of Mazarbul described so... abstractly), and even his character descriptions are pretty sparse. He tends more toward the big picture -- nature, the world around them, etc. I'm not sure Legolas gets any less description than, say, Boromir -- but then, Boromir gets a deeper / more relevant internal conflict.

If you're just talking about the Family trees... Yeah. We don't know a ton about the Elves of Mirkwood, which has always confused me just a little bit. I'm sure someone who knows more about the development of the world could help to explain that better.

[Fuin Elda]

The reason I stated it so was because honestly you're talking about how good of a warrior Legolas is - I don't remember any highly detailed battles in any of the books... Tolkien even in the Silmarillion never got super descriptive of the combat and you are acting very much like he was. The closest I remember was Fingolfins battle against Morgoth, maybe at one point an uruk from Isengard jumping up in a surprise attack in Helms Deep? Over all the combat was exceptionally vague, most of the battles are abstract because the fighting itself was never the important point it was the ideals and why behind each side fighting that that was important.

I am curious as to what details that you are comparing him to, I honestly don't remember any concrete specific details about any of the supporting characters. I don't even remember Frodo or Aragorn being overly physically described, their lineages and some of their deeds. Like Androthelm said it seems odd that that there aren't more family trees and information about the Mirkwood elves considering we do see them in multiple books but if we look at what they actually did in those books I think you can see why:

Thranduil is a bad guy primarily in the hobbit (we don't see lineages of other badguys really at all), thranduils father is mentioned in LOTR as basically being impatient and getting many Mirkwood elves killed in the War of the Last alliance... and Legolas as a supporting character non of them are main characters, nor are they mentioned in the Silmarillion which is where we get most of the lineages from say Galadriel (whos lineage is exceptionally short) and Elrond (who is admittedly only as noted as he is in terms of family tree because he is I would guess a direct relation to Aragorn)

[Androthelm]

@Fuin Elda fully in agreement, I also think we can't ignore the fact that, for the purposes of Tolkien's own creative process, the "Elvenking" of the Hobbit and Thranduil of the Lord of the Rings are essentially different characters (to the extent that Thranduil even appears in the LoTR). The Elvenking and his halls have more in common with Finrod and Nargothrond (and earlier folklore) than they do with the Mirkwood elves we see via the story of Gollum's escape in FoTR.

[Legolas]

@Fuin Elda and @Androthelm I firstly want to thank you both for your replies. You both have some really good points and it is very clear to me that you both have a great knowledge about Tolkien and his literature.

However, I still have to disagree with @Fuin Elda in some points. No offense, but at this point it seems to me that you're just trying (for the most part) to argue against me by trying to prove some points without actually wanting to understand mine.

1.)

The story was NOT about how Legolas was fighting

Thanks for revealing the obvious. I never said it was supposed to be.

2.)

The reason I stated it so was because honestly you're talking about how good of a warrior Legolas is

I never stated how good of a warrior Legolas is. I only said that he most likely was or could have been. Why else would Elrond have chosen him to join the fellowship over any other elf if he wouldn't have been? Many readers had the impression that Tolkien portrayed him like he wasn't, due to a lack of detail Tolkien gave us about him. That, along with the emphasis the books put on Legolas's focus on beauty and grace and his singing and his poetic language gave some readers the impression that Legolas's a bit of a lightweight. For no other reason Tolkien revealed in a letter that,

“he was tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war-bow and shoot down a Nazgul, 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.”

3.)

He is at best, a supporting character.

I never said that he was supposed to be anything more than a suppoorting character. As said (and I'm also repeating myself here) I have only got the feeling (like many others) that Legolas is a character to whom Tolkien put the least thought which lead towards many readers being confused about him. Why is it Legolas who joins the fellowship?? He frequently gives speeches about Aragorn's awesomeness which honestly makes him seem alot like an obsessed Aragorn fan.

4.)

Tolkien even in the Silmarillion never got super descriptive of the combat and you are acting very much like he was

Untrue. The Silmarillion talks about the incredible deeds of certain elves however, I never said that he got super discriptive about combat.

5.

I am curious as to what details that you are comparing him to

- Background? As in age, family-tree, etc.
- @Androthelm And yes also looks. It's kinda odd that the most significant elf character's looks are not described.
- What were the reasons why Elrond chose him to join the fellowship?
- What made him actually special? (Tolkien only revealed that in his letter afterwards)

[Silky Gooseness]

The Elves of Mirkwood lost Gollum. Perhaps Legolas being sent upon the Quest was a good way of trying to rectify this oversight.

[Lirimaer]

I made a very good case (though I do say so myself) for Legolas being evil. Perhaps we should consider that some more.

[Androthelm]

@Legolas if we're following the text, Legolas -- along with Gimli -- is chosen to ensure that the Fellowship is representative of each of the "Free Races" of Middle-Earth. If you're asking why he was chosen above any other elf, I'm less sure -- in universe, perhaps @Silhouette is right in that Legolas is repaying the mistake of his people in losing Gollum. Then again, I'm not sure -- so much is made over the course of the books of the fact that the Fellowship is a voluntary mission (especially toward the end of the second book, but even here -- Elrond only promises that Gimli and Legolas will accompany Frodo over the Mountains, suggesting perhaps that he is giving them the opportunity to depart to their respective homes once that path diverges from the Nine Walkers?) that I have a hard time imagining anyone being compelled to join as penance.

That being said, the real answer: @Lirimaer is 100% right. Legolas is the true Shadow over Mirkwood.