This is right after Gandalf says, “A balrog. A demon of the ancient world.”
I just love how PJ chose to cut to Legolas’ face because he is exactly who you should cut to at this moment. You need an elf to show what it really means. Other than Gandalf, the rest of the Fellowship can sense something is gravely wrong, but they don’t understand just how grave. Like Gandalf, Legolas knows the terror. He understands the gravity of what lies around that corner. He’s got a piddly little bow and he is mere steps away from a demon of the ancient world. This frame shows a kid coming to the realisation that he is way out of his depth, that this mission will take him to places he only knew to exist in legends of the Elder Days, a time long gone, barely history.
He’s probably one of the youngest elves in Middle Earth at this point. He probably grew up on stories of the balrogs, slaying the ancient High Kings of the Eldar and tearing Middle Earth apart, thousands and thousands of years ago. They are legends in old crumbling books, read illicitly by a little elfling who was kept up at night by the terrible tales.They are the monsters under the bed and the shadows in the heart of the forest. They are the beasts behind the winged hordes of hell, that older elves, who’ve seen the worst that Arda has to offer, always assured him were no more than distant nightmares, stories relegated to dust and ancient memory. Except now they are real. They are here. They are coming.
The best part is that in the books he just starts screaming when he lays eyes on it
In its right hand was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left hand it held a whip of many thongs.
‘Ai! ai! wailed Legolas. “A Balrog! A Balrog has come!’
Legolas can be relied upon to have the correct reaction to everything.
It is not necessarily normal, or socially appropriate, or sane, but it is always 100% correct.
Okay, so maybe the film guide says he was born in TA 87, but looking at clues from HOME and the Silmariilion, he’s at the very most a bit over 2000 years old at time of The Fellowship of the Ring. He’s the youngest elf that we know about in that time period. ARWEN is older than him. He’s creeped out by Fangorn being so old but he calls all mortals children because he’s a little shit.
Tolkien would get super pissed off when Legolas was shown in illustrations as “pretty or lady-like” and insisted that he was the biggest, roughest, toughest of the elves and the most hardcore of the Fellowship. Legolas is like the freaking Schwarzenegger of the elves, nbd.
Best friend is a dwarf whose father was literally imprisoned by Legolas’ father and yet he still brought him to the Undying Lands for the most awkward family reunion because screw you Thranduil. And let me remind you that a) Gimli is the only, only dwarf who got to make the trip and Legolas invited him. Other people had to get permission from like the literal Valar and Legolas was like I want to bring my mortal bff yeah he wasn’t a ringbearer but whatevs. Also b) most of the people who left in TA 3201 went on like these fleets of beautiful vessels with a master shipbuilder but Legolas was like nope, going to build one myself, never built one before but it can’t be that hard, right?
While Sindarin is the most common Elvish language by the time Legolas is alive, it’s considered really ugly and and unrefined, but here Legolas is running around probably not even able to speak the language of his ancestors, and I imagine him super proud of what must sound like an awful accent to his people.
Also super explains how useless he was at Moira trying to decipher the door because he doesn’t have time to deal with those snobs.
All the Fellowship got useful gifts or ones with spiritual meaning but instead Galadriel was like no, Legolas, I’m going to give you this big ass bow that’s bigger than the Mirkwood ones and it’s going to be so sick yeah it’s like taller than you are BUT ITS GOING TO LOOK SO SWEET.
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Gimli: *trying to find Legolas mid-battle*
Gimli: fuck it
Gimli, yelling at max volume: SEVENTY-EIGHT!
Legolas, swooping past on large eagle: EIGHTY-FOUR
Gimli: there he is
the best lord of the rings thing ive seen is the headcanon that gimli is like Prince Tier of beauty for dwarves and is absolutely stunning and legolas is like, for an elf, absolute butt ugly like relatively and everyones always like gimli how could you marry such a shit tier ugly ass elf and gimli is like ach.. nae…i love him
