Thranduil

**Thranduil** is one of the main characters of *The Hobbit*film series.

He is portrayed by Lee Pace.

## Background

Thranduil was born during the reign of his father, King Oropher as King of Mirkwood. When his father fell in battle, Thranduil became king of Mirkwood. Married to a woman he loved very much, the couple had a son named Legolas. She seems to have passed away before the events of the novel or joined her kin across the sea (In The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, it is stated that the Queen of Mirkwood passed away).

In The Hobbit trilogy, it is also added that Thranduil was once great friends with Thrór, the king of Erebor. However, their friendship came to an end after the Mirkwood King was denied the White Gems he so richly deserved. In that iteration, Thranduil leaves the Dwarves and doesn’t aid them when Smaug invaded Erebor, causing Thorin to develop a strong dislike for Elves.

In the film, it is added that Thranduil raised Tauriel for at least six hundred years, something of a foster daughter.

## The Hobbit

### An Unexpected Journey

Thranduil only appears at the beginning of the film, where he pays homage to Thror and ultimately turns away from the Dwarves. After Smaug attacked Erebor. This caused Thorin to develop a deep resentment for Thranduil and other elves that followed.

### *The Hobbit: 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 a share of the treasure. Thorin refuses, recounting the time when Thranduil refused to help his people during the siege of Smaug in the Lonely Mountain. As Thorin continues his narrative, Thranduil looks horrified and angry. He demands 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, whereas in the book The Hobbit he was more generous, giving the Dwarves (aside from Thorin, whom he had previously captured and imprisoned) free run of his stronghold until they proved insulting and disagreeable toward him.

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. 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 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 Hobbit: 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.