Thranduil

"Take him away and keep him safe, until he feels inclined to tell the truth, even if he waits a hundred years."

- The Hobbit, Chapter VIII: "Flies and Spiders"

Thranduil, referred to as only the elf-king or the king in the original unabridged text of The Hobbit,  was King of the Woodland Realm at the beginning of the Third Age, and was known as King of the Elves of Northern Mirkwood by its end. He was a Sindarin elf, son of Oropher and father of Legolas. Because of Bilbo's exploits and tales, Thranduil was perhaps the most well-known of the Elven kings among non-elves. He was the leader of the Wood-elves of Mirkwood for more than three thousand years in Middle-earth, seeing his realm through attacks by giant spiders and orcs. In the spring he wore a crown of woodland flowers; in the autumn of berries and red leaves. He carried a carven staff of oak.

First and Second Ages
Thranduil was the only son of Oropher. He was born sometime during the beginning of the First Age and lived in Doriath with Thingol and Melian before its fall. At the beginning of the Second Age, Thranduil lived in Lindon with Gil-galad while his father lived in Greenwood. After Oropher died in the war of Last Alliance, Thranduil went east to claim his inheritance and some time before TA 1000 inherited Oropher's title of King of the Woodland Realm, reigning over the entirety of Greenwood the Great.

Third Age
At the beginning of Thranduil's reign his kingdom encompassed all of Greenwood the Great and was known as the Woodland Realm, but as the Third Age progressed, the shadow of the Necromancer advanced, the Greenwood grew dark and became known as Mirkwood, and became infested with orcs and giant spiders. The Silvan Elves of Mirkwood were reduced in number and retreated to lands in the north of Mirkwood. By the time of the events of The Hobbit Thranduil's title was King of the Elves of Northern Mirkwood.

The Quest of Erebor


When Thorin Oakenshield and his party of dwarves entered northern Mirkwood, Thranduil captured Thorin and locked him up in a secure room (although treating him quite well, with plenty of food and drink) when he refused to divulge his true intentions. Subsequently, when the rest of the dwarves had been captured by the elves, Thranduil had them unbound and treated them as his guests (save that they were not allowed to leave the caverns), until they angered him by being surly and impolite, insulting him for keeping them as prisoners, and not revealing why they had entered the forest, after which he gave them each their own cell. He did not tell them that Thorin was also his prisoner.

After the death of the Dragon Smaug, Thranduil supported Bard the Bowman's claim of a share of the treasure the dwarves recovered from the Lonely Mountain (Erebor), since Bard was a descendant of Lord Girion of Dale, and the treasure of that town had been taken by Smaug to the Lonely Mountain.

Thranduil led the elven forces in the Battle of the Five Armies. 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.

War of the Ring
When the forces from Dol Guldur later attacked Mirkwood, Thranduil repulsed an attack and had the victory. His actions were in concert with the Dwarves and the Men of Dale against the Easterlings who attacked from the East. 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; the wide forest between Mirkwood and East Lórien was given to the Beornings. By 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.

In the books

 * The Silmarillion
 * The Hobbit (First appearance)
 * The Fellowship of the Ring (Mentioned only)

In the films

 * The Fellowship of the Ring (film) (Mentioned only in the Extended Edition )
 * The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
 * The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
 * The Hobbit: There and Back Again

Portrayal in adaptations
"Such is the nature of evil. In time all foul things come forth."

- Thranduil in The Desolation of Smaug

The Hobbit film trilogy
Lee Pace portrays Thranduil in Peter Jackson's adaption of The Hobbit and is a major character in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The films incorporated several changes to Thranduil's character and actions. While the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain are fleeing their home after Smaug's attack, Thranduil, riding an Elven elk, arrives with an army. Thorin sees them and asks for help, but Thranduil, realizing that he would just be leading his soldiers to their deaths, refuses, not wanting to risk the lives of his kin, causing Thorin to develop a strong dislike of the Elves. In the extended edition of An Unexpected Journey, it was revealed that King Thror withheld gems from Thranduil, causing goodwill between dwarves and elves to run thin.

In 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 (at which—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 Thror'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 (woodland) elf and Legolas is the son of a king. Thranduil is once again seen when Legolas and Tauriel return with an orc hostage. The orc 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 the orc 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. 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."

Rankin/Bass's The Hobbit


In the Rankin/Bass 1977 animated version of The Hobbit, Thranduil was voiced by Otto Preminger.

Radio
In the 1968 BBC radio series, he is voiced by Leonard Fenton.

Video games

 * He was also one of the playable elven heroes in The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II real-time strategy game.

External link


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