More LOTR Musing So. I’ve

More LOTR Musing
So. I’ve babbled about Pip, mused on Boromir and Gandalf… I think it’s time for Legolas.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t really remember having much of an opinion on Legolas when I was reading the books/having the books read to me. He was buddies with Gimli, which is very cool. He was an Elf, also very cool.
Then I saw the film.
Now, let me make it clear, that Pip is, and always will be, my #1 fave from this film.
But DAMN Legolas is gorgeous. It’s just not right.
What’s scary is that Orlando Bloom, the actor who plays him, is only moderately cute when he’s not being Legolas. But as that Elf… whoa. Stand back.

I think what really makes it work is that Bloom is so graceful and distant. He’s gorgeous, but in a very organic way – organic the way that, say, a waterfall or a cat or a glacier is. They’re beautiful to look at, but also very alien.
When I was rereading the book recently (and boy, was finishing hard to do. I just didn’t want it to end!), I was struck by how well Bloom’s version of Legolas fit on the page. Legolas is young by Elf standards, but he’s about 100 times older than the youngest member of the Fellowship, and it shows. What’s really cool about him is that he doesn’t hold the age of the people around him against them.
Legolas follows Aragorn even though Aragorn’s (a) a man and (b) about 3% of his age. Why? Because Aragorn is a great leader. It’ll be interesting to see if they play up Legolas’ age in the coming films or not. They haven’t really mentioned it yet.

It’s strange; I really like Legolas, but in some ways I think he’s the least developed of the Fellowship. He’s very inaccessible, which may be why he comes across that way. He’s a great fighter – almost too great. He’s not afraid of anything except, perhaps, the Balrog. His one flaw that I can remember is his bias against Dwarves… and he loses that about halfway through the story when he and Gimli become such good friends.
Hm… maybe I should reread the book and look for more stuff about him. I was so busy focusing on Pip that I may have missed something interesting.