So I was rereading The Two Towers
the other day, and it struck me that there is literally one instance in that
entire book that Legolas speaks without being prompted to someone he doesn’t
know. And that out of three instances in
the entire book that he speaks to someone he doesn’t know at all (one of whom
is not even a person, but an Ent, which I don’t think counts since elves talk
to trees anyway). And it made me think
back on what we see of Legolas, and come up with the following headcanon which
I present for your perusal: shy Legolas.
Legolas who is fine in his woodland
home, because they’re all elves; everyone basically gets to know each other,
because you have so many centuries in which to develop at least some level of
comfort with each other. But he doesn’t
really go very far away very often, particularly if you headcanon him as being
kind of young, so he’s not very good at talking to people outside of his
immediate sphere.
So, painfully shy Legolas who takes
on the role as messenger to Elrond because he feels responsible for what
happened to Gollum. Legolas who spends
the entire time before the council sweating in anticipation of having to speak
to someone else – to a lot of someone elses, in fact. Legolas who has been psyching himself up so
intensely and for so long that as soon as someone mentions Gollum, he’s
blurting out his news – no matter that he’s kind of interrupting someone, he’s
been working on these words for the last three days, they’re coming out right
now.
Legolas who goes on this journey
with a ton of people that he doesn’t know.
I imagine he’s met Aragorn, at very least because Aragorn brought Gollum
to them, and he knows Gandalf, because who doesn’t know Gandalf. But other than that, there are all these new
intimidating people that he doesn’t know, and they seem great, but he has no
idea how to interact with them, and he keeps getting tongue-tied when he tries
to say anything.
Legolas who is actually really
lovely when you get to know him – he’s sweet, and can wield some devastating
sass, and he actually has quite the poetic streak, but you really only get to
experience that part of his personality once he’s become comfortable with you.
So, Legolas who spends the first
few weeks of the Fellowship’s journey saying almost nothing to anyone but
Gandalf and Aragorn. Everyone else thinks he’s stuck-up, but he’s actually just
too uncomfortable to know what to say to them.
And then he finally starts gaining some confidence on Caradhras, because
finally he doesn’t feel like he’s at a terrible disadvantage, but of course he
just ends up aggravating everyone because – now that they’re all miserable is
when he decides to be cheerful? So they
all just think he’s self-absorbed and kind of rude, when really he’s just
socially awkward and terrible at first impressions.
And then Moria happens, and Gandalf
“dies,” and they make it to Lothlorien, where Legolas is kind of the only
person who CAN negotiate for them. And
he does his duty when he has to – besides, these are wood-elves, the closest to
his people he’s run into anywhere else, so he’s at least able to talk to them
about the Fellowship and ask them for passage.
Besides, Gandalf is dead, and he’s too busy being sad to be anxious.
Legolas who is one of the only ones
who can look at Galadriel for very long because a) he’s an elf, and more used to
this sort of thing, and b)
he’s frankly so relieved he doesn’t have to talk out loud that having her in his mind is nothing. And
maybe she’s able to sort of gently ease his worries about the people around
him, at least to the point where he starts relaxing enough around the other
members of the Fellowship to interact with them like a regular person – or,
elf.
This headcanon actually makes me
have even stronger feelings about his relationship with Gimli – because a) once
they become friends, the two of them are almost never seen outside of each
other’s company, and b) Gimli often seems to be the designated speaker, but
what he says applies to both of them.
Also, Gimli is very confident, self-assured, and charming. Legolas is decidedly none of those things.
So, looking back through their
relationship starting from the beginning: Gimli’s ready to try to look beyond
the elf-dwarf feud, because he’s diplomatic enough to realize that they need to
be able to get along for the rest of the Fellowship. So he makes some cautious overtures towards
friendship, which Legolas responds to with one-word answers and lack of eye
contact – which leads Gimli to think that he’s giving himself airs, when actually
Legolas just has no clue how to do this social thing. So then Gimli, offended, gets a little snippy
towards him, which makes Legolas withdraw further, and before Lothlorien they’re
both pretty much ignoring each other, with the occasional snappish comment here
and there. And of course the blindfold
business doesn’t help matters.
But in Lothlorien, the Lady gives
Gimli the inspiration to try to look beyond the feud again, and gives Legolas a
little more confidence. So Legolas goes
to Gimli and tries to apologize for the blindfold thing, and Gimli – while not
quite ready to forgive – does sense that he’s really uncomfortable and is
honestly trying, so he gives him a chance.
They start spending more and more time together, and eventually Gimli
realizes that Legolas is actually lovely one-on-one, but he’s just so
uncomfortable around unfamiliar people.
This activates Gimli’s mama-bear
instincts, and he sort of becomes Legolas’s protector. I imagine that the two of them become really
good at communicating nonverbally in the presence of other people (though of
course they do talk when they’re together), but they just get a really good
feel for each other, and usually Gimli is able to just speak for both of them
after no more than a shared glance and some facial expressions. And they become each other’s most important
people, and make sure to stay close all the time.
This, of course, makes “he stands
not alone” even more touching and poignant, because this is the only time in
the entire book that Legolas speaks to someone unfamiliar without first being
spoken to. (Which gives me EVEN MORE FEELINGS ABOUT THIS SCENE THAN I ALREADY
HAD) The thing is, Gimli is all set to speak for both of them: Eomer asks why
the two of them aren’t saying anything, and Gimli immediately goes on the
defensive. Which would make sense
because he’s not only defending Galadriel, but also taking some of the heat off
of Legolas with his own reaction. Eomer of
course reacts – and then Legolas leaps in to defend Gimli without any
prompting. The thing that makes him overcome his reluctance to speak is Gimli
being threatened.
I also – to move things into the
more romantic angle; forgive my shipper heart – absolutely headcanon that Legolas was the first of the
two to realize his feelings, and also the first to bring it up – and I think that
that, too, is heightened by Legolas being so timid and awkward. Because Gimli makes him feel comfortable –
enough to tease, enough to defend, and enough to confess. I think it’s even more meaningful if this
poor awkward and socially-anxious elf is the first one to gather the courage to
speak.
Basically: Legolas is shy and
socially awkward and Gimli is confident and protective and they both deserve
all the hugs.
I love the idea of these stout, hairy, dirt-under-their-nails people writing the most beautiful poetry; singing the loveliest songs; being the floweriest mofos to ever pop out of the ground.
And I can’t stand when people say it’s not proper to have them like that simply for being dwarves. That’s wrong. So wrong. Because there’s so much diversity, in this world and fantasy ones.
Why should all dwarves be lumped together as vulgar, ineloquent beasts?
Why should all elves be pristine, clean, and graceful?
Why should all hobbits be scared, weak, and uneducated about the outside world?
Great stories are made from bending the ideas that have been laid out before, not sticking to them like bugs to flypaper.
“And, Legolas, when the torches are kindled and men walk on the sandy floors under the echoing domes, ah! then Legolas, gems and crystals and veins of precious ore glint in the polished walls; and the light flows through folded marbles, shell-like, translucent as the living hands of Queen Galadriel. There are columns of white and saffron and dawn-rose, Legolas, fluted and twisted into dreamlike forms; they spring up from many-coloured floors to meet the glistening pendants of the roof: wings, ropes, curtains fine as frozen clouds; spears, banners, pinnacles of suspended palaces! Still lakes mirror them: a glimmering world looks up from the dark pools covered with clear glass; cities, such as the mind of Durin could scarce have imagined in his sleep, stretch on through avenues and pillared courts, on into the dark recesses where no light can come. And plink! a silver drop falls, and the round wrinkles in the glass make all the towers bend and waver like weeds and corals in a grotto of the sea.”
Gimli, The Two Towers
(the “Glittering Caves” speech is often cited as Tolkien’s most beautiful and lyrical writing ever. Hell yeah, I am down with poetic Dwarves!)
The Glittering Caves speech is gorgeous. And Gimli is clearly shown to be an eloquent character throughout the book:
-His very first lines in FotR have him engaging in a bit of wordplay with Elrond:
‘Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens,’ said Gimli.
‘Maybe,’ said Elrond, ‘but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.’
‘Yet sworn word may strengthen quaking heart,’ said Gimli.
‘Or break it,’ said Elrond
And we can’t forget that Gimli asks Galadriel for a gift of her hair – something denied even to Feanor – and she specifically comments on his eloquence: “None have ever made to me a request so bold and yet so courteous.” In doing so, she practically scolds the gathered elves for their prejudice against the dwarves and their belief that they have no skill in words. And with good reason! Gimli’s request is lovely and poetic, saying that her beautiful hair “surpasses the gold of the earth as the stars surpass the gems of the mine.”
There’s also that haunting moment in Khazad-dum where Gimli recites some dwarven poetry to the Fellowship. The poem (read it here – it’s quite long so I won’t paste it) is so haunting, filled with loss and grief and longing. Gimli’s recital clearly has an effect on the Fellowship, and Sam (who, as we know, loves poetry and even writes it himself) liked it so much that he wanted to learn it.
Gimli is only one dwarf, of course, and he’s clearly a dwarf of some status and education, but he’s Tolkien’s greatest representation of the dwarves and clear evidence that they can be eloquent and poetic.
There are lots of passages in LOTR that I love, but my uncontested favorite is this sentence by Galadriel:
‘Dark are the waters of Khaled-zaram and cold are the springs of Kibil-Nala and fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dum in elder days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone.’
This is the moment Gimli gets her, or at least he gets that she gets him. In this one sentence,
She acknowledges that Gandalf (and Gimli) was not wrong to pass through Moria.
She shows empathy for Gimli’s wish to see Moria again, even if it is ruined or unsafe.
She deliberately uses the Dwarven names of places – endonyms instead of exonyms, Khazad-Dum instead of Moria, Dwarrowdelf instead of Black Pit.
She doesn’t only show respect and understanding, she shows knowledge – in addition to knowing dwarven names, she seems to know dwarven culture, since the descriptions she uses are very similar to the ones in Gimli’s song.
Knowing Galadriel’s past, it seems like her understanding of Gimli’s grief for Khazad-Dum stems from her experiences with losing… well, she lost a lot of people and places over the eras. She stood witness to the losses of various paradises, she gets it. But the fall of Gondolin is the most obvious parallel, or maybe Doriath, and the knowledge that Lothlórien can only be a faint echo of its glories.
Knowing Galadriel’s future, it seems like her grief for losing Middle-Earth forever also shines through the sentence. The world is changing and beautiful things fade or die or must be left behind, and she knows this probably best of everyone on Middle-Earth.
And in this one utterance of knowledge and compassion, where she acknowledges the beauty of dwarven lands and the grief of their loss, she uses one-syllable adjectives, which, as @thearrogantemu pointed out, are Tolkien’s favorite mode of signaling beauty, age and gravitas. Dark. Cold. Fair.
Let’s not forget that also, sadly unlike Gimli, Galadriel HAS seen Khazad-dum in all of its glory; she & Celebrían travelled through it when escaping Ost-in-Edhil in the 2nd Age on their way to Lorien.
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