#orlando bloom as legolas

[winwin17]

Don't mind me, I'm just here to ramble about the frequent misinterpretation of Legolas.

In a lot of fan content, I tend to see him get portrayed as a feminine, scatterbrained diva or something along that line. He's depicted as girly and overly dramatic. It's not like I haven't been entertained by the memes about Legolas and his hair products or stuff like that, but hear me out - just because he's pretty doesn't mean he's girly or shallow (equating those two things is another separate issue altogether).

The thing is, even though he's pretty and has perfect hair, he's actually quite masculine, and his actor even has quite classically masculine features (face and physique). What's more, Legolas is an elf. Elves don't need beauty products, and I doubt most of them would care much for them anyway. They're naturally like the most beautiful creatures. Both the dudes and the ladies have long hair, so in that context, that feature doesn't necessarily suggest girlishness to me. Anyway, this is basically to say that I don't care for the self-absorbed, appearance-focused, girly diva interpretation of Legolas I see in fan content. There's much more to him than that.

The movies unfortunately gave Legolas his reputation as a Captain Obvious, which does him a disservice in bringing out this depiction of Legolas as a ditsy, dumb guy with an empty head. (It probably wasn't the intention, but it's a byproduct nonetheless.) Besides being portrayed as a Captain Obvious, another disservice done to him by the movies is the emphasis on Legolas as a cool action guy, superhero level, and maybe even invincible. But book Legolas is actually more human(?). That is to say, he gets scared and downhearted and cries just like all the rest of the Fellowship. While it's true that even in the books he does tend to maintain a more optimistic, lighthearted disposition than the others, he's still imperfect. He's still a person with hopes and fears and dreams and feelings, and he's not beyond forgetting the words to songs. ;p Yes, he cracks jokes, but he also does "not wish to go to Moria," and he grumbles when he has to be blindfolded in Lorien. Pretty relatable on many levels.

None of this is meant to be a book purist's rude degradation of movie Legolas, but just to lament the way I personally feel he is so misinterpreted and misrepresented. Legolas isn't shallow or one-dimensional. He's brave, he's strong, he's caring, and he's open-minded enough to take risks and make connections that are unconventional. He's respectful to his leaders, he's passionate about saving the world, destroying the Ring, and rescuing Merry and Pippin. He's helpful and committed to the Fellowship even though he doesn't have to be. He's compassionate towards people he doesn't have to care about.

So while we have characters like Boromir who are so frequently misunderstood and misrepresented, let's have some justice for Legolas, too.

[janusfranc15]

This is utterly insane. For today. And for the time it was set in probably!

It reminds of learning that there was an Episode of Blue Peter where a presenter Scaled Nelson’s Column (which is VERY TALL).. without a harness. Like a MADMAN.

Health and Safety is not present in this place.

Dangers of working on a set.

That’s what I said.

[animusrox]

The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers (2002) dir. Peter Jackson

[forgetriestowrite]

The funniest part of the LOTR movies is Legolas. This man has like five lines total across all three movies but sometimes they'll zero in on his face during a big scene and he's having the BEST reactions. It gets better when he's in the back of a shot judging everyone around him. Orlando Bloom was doing the MOST

[hollyyy555]

Lord of the Rings BTS, Pt. 2

[badadder1]

I had posters on my wall of both of them.

reblog this with your first celebrity crush that you can remember in the tags

this shit really interests me

[drewbaylor13]

Legolas with his hair down🫠

[vancruejovi]

Legolas 🏹

[whorefindel]

forever mad that legolas in pj's trilogies was watered down to basic stereotypical mysterious stoic slightly confused brooding blonde elf instead of the whimsical quippy silly guy we see in the books who jokes about grabbing the sun from the sky to warm his mortal friends and screams when he sees a balrog :/

[sugurugetos]

Orlando Bloom as LEGOLAS THRANDUILION THE LORD OF THE RINGS — Return of the King (2003)

[k-wame]

JACOB ELORDI · Interviewed by Lynn Hirschberg for 🎭 W Magazine · 24 Feb. 2021

[tenaciousgeckos]

Shakespeare: So, in Macbeth, the forest doesn't actually move, it's just an army holding branches

C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien: And we took that personally

[autistook]

Bernard Hill on Viggo pranking him, Cast Commentary, The Two Towers

[animusrox]

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) dir. Peter Jackson

[hollyyy555]

Lord of the Rings BTS, Pt. 1

[drewbaylor13]

PETER JACKSON PLEASE GIVE US THIS SCENE. WE NEED IT 😭