Thranduil

**Thranduil** was the King of Mirkwood during the time of Thorins' Company and the War of the Ring. He was also the father of Legolas and son of Oropher, the first king of Mirkwood.

## Background

It is unknown how old Thranduil is, but he is at least four thousand years old, having fought in The Last Alliance against Sauron with his father Oropher, who died in that battle.

Having inherited his throne, Thranduil became the Elvenking of the Wood Elves of the Green Wood, even though like his father he was a Sindar. He therefore considered himself superior to his Silvan subjects.

At some point, his realm entered the war with Angmar. During an attack on Gundabad, the stronghold of Angmar, his wife the Elvenqueen was captured and killed, which grieved Thranduil. He pulled out of the war, and retreated his people to their underground fortress in the Mountains of Miwkood.

At some point later, an Orc raid from Angmar cost the lives of two of his Silvan subjects. Recalling his own loss, he adopted their surviving child, Tauriel, who became the head of his guard.

At some unknown point in his life, Thranduil had fought with the Dragons of the North.

## *An Unexpected Journey*

When Thrór re-estabilished the Kingdom Under the Mountain at Erebor, Thranduil paid homage to him. He entrusted the Dwarves with fashioning the gems of Lasgalen, the only token left behind by his wife, into a necklace. However, he also warned Thror, who had already begun to amass a huge treasure which was beyond any use or measure, that his greed would summon some kind of evil.

When Thranduil arrived to retrieve the necklace, Thror denied it of him, much to the disapproval of Thorin, who was present. Thranduil was shocked and left.

During the Sack of Erebor, Thranduil arrived over the Western Spur at the head of the Woodland Army. It is unknown why Thranduil arrived, and so armed. It is possible he came having spotted the dragon, or even to try and take the gems by force, only to find the realm overrun by Smaug. Thorin looked to him for help, but the Elvenking withdrew.

At some point later, Thror came to Thranduil to seek shelter for his people in the Elven realm, but was denied. This solidified the Dwarves' resentment of Thranduil and of the Elves.

## *The Desolation of Smaug*

Thranduil appears on his throne after the capture of Thorin and Company. Thranduil offers to release the Dwarves from captivity and help them in their quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain if Thorin will give Thranduil the White Gems. Suspecting that the Elvenking is deceiving him, Thorin refuses. He speaks up so that the entire Woodland Realm could overhear him rebuking their king's honour, which causes Thranduil to burst out, demanding that Thorin should not talk to him about the dragon fire for he has suffered from it himself, having "faced the great serpents of the North." At this point—by temporarily either creating or removing an illusion—he briefly shows himself with severe burns on the left side of his face, including a missing cheek and an apparently blind left eye, and asserts that it was Thrór's greed that incurred the dragon's wrath. He then orders his guards to take Thorin away. Additionally, Thranduil is more antagonistic toward the Dwarves in the films, locking them into dungeon cells as soon as they arrive.

Later, Thranduil confronts Tauriel, telling her that as a captain of the guard she must drive the Giant Spiders out of Mirkwood. She explains that new spiders would enter the kingdom after the previous ones were wiped out, and suggests sorties to destroy the spider's source outside the kingdom's boundaries near Dol Guldur, but Thranduil quickly dismissed this idea due to his isolationist doctrine. When she brings up that other lands would also be susceptible to spiders, Thranduil says that he doesn't care about other lands. He mentions then that Legolas, his son, has grown fond of her but that she should not give him hope, because she is a common Silvan elf and Legolas is the son of a king, and a Sindar.

Thranduil is once again seen when Legolas and Tauriel return with an Orc hostage, Narzug. He is interrogated but refuses to answer, mocking Tauriel about the impending death of a dwarf. Thranduil rudely dismisses Tauriel after she threatens to kill the Orc, commenting that he doesn't care about the death of one dwarf. However, when Narzug begins to mock Thranduil about a coming great war, saying his master serves "The One", the Elf-king swiftly decapitates the captive with a stroke of his sword, clearly fearful of what the Orc had revealed. When Legolas asks why he did that when the Orc could have told them more, Thranduil replies, "There was no more he could tell me." Reminded of his promise to free the Orc, Thranduil replies, "I did free him. I freed his wretched head from his miserable shoulders." He then orders that all the gates to the kingdom to be closed, now knowing that the dangers of war were upon them, stating that,"No one enters this kingdom, and no one leaves it."

## *The Battle of the Five Armies*

An armoured Thranduil arrived in Dale upon a magnificent large elk, and gave supplies to the townsfolk who had lost everything to the dragon's fire. Despite Bard's thanks, he told him that his true purpose for coming was to reclaim a jewel necklace in Thorin's possession, the White Gems of Lasgalen, which was revealed much later to be a remembrance of his late wife, who had died in the hands of the Witch-king. Bard was aghast at the prospect of fighting for jewels, but Thranduil doubted that a Dwarf could be reasoned with. Nevertheless, he agreed to give Bard a chance to convince Thorin to give in. Bard failed, and Thranduil ordered his army to march.

Elsewhere, Legolas revealed to Tauriel that his mother (Thranduil's wife) had been taken prisoner to Gundabad, where she died, and Thranduil never spoke of her, as if she had never existed to begin with. When Gandalf arrived, he urged Thranduil and Bard to call off the attack on the Lonely Mountain, and informed him about Sauron's elaborate plans of taking the Mountain, which would enable him to eventually destroy all of Middle-earth. However, Thranduil refused to believe him, and accused him of reigniting the enmity between Elves and Dwarves by urging Thorin and his Company to embark upon their quest. Even after Bilbo gave them the Arkenstone in an attempt to stop the fighting from materializing, a war nearly broke out, but Azog's arrival and Dain's departure to deal with the army of Orcs called it off. Initially, Thranduil was intensely reluctant to participate in the fight, but after Gandalf forced him to realize that it was madness to not fight the Orcs, he relented, sending his swordsmen into the fray, instructing his archers to rain down death, and he himself wielded his broadsword skillfully against the forces of evil.

However, Azog realised that the armies could not fight on two fronts, and sent the rest of his army to Dale to cut them off. This forced Thranduil to retreat to the city with Bard, Gandalf, Bilbo, and a large portion of his army, leaving the Dwarves to fend for themselves. Upon his entry into the city, he was dismounted and surrounded, but easily killed his assailants and continually participated in the battle, but ended up being aghast at how much Elven blood was spilled in defense of a Dwarven land, and rather than warning Thorin or helping Dain, he attempted to take advantage of the respite to pull out. It was then that he encountered Tauriel, who declared that he would not depart, for the Dwarves would die if he left, but his response was that it did not matter as the Dwarves were mortal. At this, Tauriel drew her bow and accused him of being a loveless person who viewed his life as more important than those of others. Thranduil retaliated by slicing her bow, telling her that what she felt for Kili was not real, and asked if she was ready to die for love.

This reduces Tauriel to tears, but before Thranduil had time to strike at her, Legolas intervened by striking down Thranduil's sword, and told him flatly that he would have to kill his son if he wished to slay her. Legolas and Tauriel then departed for Ravenhill, leaving Thranduil in shock. In a deleted scene, it was at this moment that Gandalf reminded him that his wife not only left him with gems, but also a flesh-and-blood son (Legolas), and asked him which did he think she would prefer him to value more, causing Thranduil to turn to Gandalf in a state of greater shock and grief.

It was unknown if Thranduil had a change of heart, and stayed to aid the Dwarves. However, after the battle ended, he went to Ravenhill alone to find Legolas and Tauriel. He ran into Legolas, who confessed that he could not go back with him. Thranduil advised him to find the Dunedain, for there was a young ranger there whom he should meet, his father, Arathorn, was a good man, and he might become a great man himself. He went on to explain to Legolas that the ranger's name in the wild was "Strider", but his true name (Aragorn) was something he had to learn for himself, and he also confided in Legolas that his mother loved him more than anything else in this world. At this, father and son exchanged a mutual gesture of farewell and affection, and Thranduil accepted Legolas' decision to be on his own.

As Legolas left to go to the North, Thranduil found Tauriel weeping over Kili's corpse, and upon seeing him, she asked him why love could hurt so much. Touched by the sight, along with the memory of his wife's death at Angmar's hands, he replies "Because it was real", and agreed with her plan to bury Kili. Though he was not seen afterwards, it was safe to assume that after the funerals and burials, he departed for Mirkwood.

When Bilbo and Gandalf bade farewell, Bilbo gave Thranduil a necklace of silver and pearls. The king gave Bilbo the title of "elf-friend" and returned with his host to their halls.

#### War of the Ring

During the War of the Ring, he sent his son Legolas to Rivendell, along with other Elves, to report Gollum's escape from Mirkwood. The gradually-established friendship between the dwarf Gimli and Legolas later helped to reconcile Thranduil's people with the Dwarves.

When the forces from Dol Guldur later attacked Mirkwood, Thranduil repulsed the attack and had the victory. He came into an agreement with Celeborn that the southern part of Mirkwood would be counted as East Lórien. Thranduil took the northern region as far as the Mountains of Mirkwood; the wide forest between Mirkwood and East Lórien was given to the Beornings. At this time also, Thranduil renamed Mirkwood *Eryn Lasgalen*, the Wood of Greenleaves.

### Fourth Age

After the fall of Sauron, Thranduil fixed the southern boundary of his realm as the Mountains of Mirkwood, and his realm flourished well into the Fourth Age. He may have stayed on as the king of the Great Forest or left Middle-earth and departed to the Undying Lands.

## Personality and traits

Thranduil is aloof and mysterious, but behind this he hides deep-seated grief, born out of lost love. Having lost his father to the struggle against Sauron and his wife to the battle against Angmar, he became an isolationist who only cares for the preservation of his own people rather than the favour of the world at large.

One of the enduring signs of Thranduil's sorrow is his incessant drinking. Outside of his visit to Thror's realm, he is always seen drinking his favourite wine, which he goes to great effort to procure and stores in huge wine cellars in his realm.

When he's triggered, his cold appearance often gives way to outbursts of rage. When an Orc hints at the return of Sauron, triggering Thranduil's traumatic memories of the Battle of Dagorlad and the Black Years, the Elvenking immediately kills him, breaking his promise to set him free. When Tauriel accuses him of being unloving, her ungratefulness for his adoption of her, and the memory of his deceased wife, cause him to hold her at the point of a sword. When Thorin acuses him of having no honour, he reprimands him.

A Sindar elf, believing in the superiority of his lineage to that of the Silvan Elves he rules, Thranduil is often imperious, and he pays little heed to Gandalf's warnings of the approach of the Dol Guldur Army, not treating the wizard with the same respect that other Elf lords like Galadriel or Elrond do.

Thranduil is highly perceptual, being able to intuit Thorin's intention to reclaim the Arkenstone with little context. He likewise asserts that Tauriel cares for Kili, and is quick to realize that Narzug's evocation of "the flames of war" referrs to Smaug.

However, he can prove compassionate, such as when he brings supplies to the Lakemen in the ruins of Dale, and even joins forces with Dain's Dwarves in fighting against the Orcs. He adopts Tauriel after her parents are killed, and it is the loss she suffers, quite similar to his own, that changes his heart.

He was a tall elf, around 6'5," with long blonde hair, fair skin and blue eyes. Thranduil wore mostly long robes that would trail behind him as he walked and a wooden crown. During the Battle of the five Armies, he wore silver armor and replaced his wooden crown with a simple silver circlet.

## Family/Relationships

* **Oropher** (father, deceased)
* **Legolas** (son)
* **Queen of Mirkwood** (wife, deceased)

## Behind the Scenes

* Thranduil was portrayed by American actor Lee Pace, who is actually younger than Legolas' actor Orlando Bloom.