Decided to rewatch the Hobbit films recently (which in itself was inspired by hearing potential of this character counting) and as someone who personally likes the films fine (though I will certainly admit they have lots of problems that even I can't help but groan over sometimes myself), I figured I'd perhaps handle this character, particularly since I've had a teensy weensy but ever so crucial little tiny feeling that he may have met this trope when I had rewatched the films back then, for a discussion regarding this trope. So let's get to it!
Side note: just for the record, I might also do some discussions regarding other characters from this franchise elsewhere, so stay tuned if you're up for that.
What's the Work?[]
The Hobbit film trilogy are all live-action film adaptations of the one book J.R.R. Tolkien had written as a prequel to the three Lord of the Rings (one could wonder how that would work, but hey, what can I say? Life finds a way) books made by Peter Jackson himself. The first film, An Unexpected Journey, shows how the dwarves had lost their home of Erebor to the vicious dragon Smaug (who also casually burned the city of Dale along the way and massacred thousands of its citizens through his fiery breath) conquering it and hoarding all their wealth for himself before running into yet more vile company in the form of Azog and the legion of orcs he leads who went to war against them and slaughtered thousands of the dwarves with their ruler beheaded and his head thrown against the crowd. It focuses on how the main company of the dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield himself, guided by help of the wise elderly wizard Gandalf, enter the home of Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit of the Shire (initially against his will lol) to feast on the food he made in his home. There, Gandalf and the dwarves explain that they're there to make plans to activate a journey back to Erebor to reclaim their home and gold from Smaug with Gandalf offering Bilbo as someone to be their burglar in the guide to do the job of sneaking in and such. The dwarves are initially opposed to this idea as is their leader Thorin due to doubts on Bilbo, Bilbo himself initially not wanting to come due to the dangers of the journey. Soon, though, he decides to go. With the company, they embark through many obstacles in their quest; trolls, goblins, etc. Along the way, Bilbo finds the one ring in his encounter with Gollum and discovers its power to make himself invisible and carries it with him along the way albeit learning severe temptations that come with the ring along the way. They even have a run-in with Thorin's nemesis Azog who seeks to slay Thorin for cutting off his arm years ago and the other dwarves in the company with him to put an end to his bloodline once and for all. At the climax of the film, Azog comes close to succeeding in this goal if not for eagles Gandalf has had be sent to help them arriving and flying them away to safety. By the end, Thorin would come to realize he was wrong about Bilbo and gives him his full acceptance into the team.
The second film, The Desolation of Smaug, builds up to the dwarves' eventual arrival at Erebor. Throughout their quest, the dwarves would encounter more obstacles like spiders, racist elves (lol) with Thranduil at the lead imprisoning them for the crime of setting a mere one foot into their lands and out of spite for the king of the dwarves long ago refusing to give the Arkenstone to Thranduil, which was to be a gift for his beloved wife, orcs led by Azog engaging in battle against the Dwarves and the Elves that ends with the Orcs losing, etc. Bilbo, throughout, would use the ring's abilities to help the dwarves evade their enemies and escape their situations albeit whilst discovering the ring's temptations throughout. Eventually, the Dwarves end up getting in company with a man named Bard who would sneak them into Laketown via hiding them in barrels covered filled with fish to pass them off as mere fish barrels. While hidden in the town for a bit, the dwarves would get discovered and taken to the greedy and selfish master of the town himself. Thorin, however, would make a proposition, explaining their quest to reclaim Erebor and all its gold, giving word to the townsfolk that once they succeed, they will share it with them. The master, wanting to be rid of them, accepts this bargain even with the skepticisms Bard himself shows, knowing that this could lead to angering Smaug enough to the point of where the town itself could be a subject to his brutal wrath. Bard himself gets arrested, however, while the dwarves carry on with their journey. Bilbo manages to sneak in, but ends up awakening Smaug. After a long conversation with him where Smaug taunts him knowing that the Dwarves have come to try to reclaim the mountain, Bilbo escapes wearing the ring before the dwarves themselves, led by Thorin, go into the mountain and engage in a lengthy battle against Smaug where they eventually try to outwit him and cause him to be drowned with a lot of molten gold only for Smaug to survive this and escape. Breaking out of the mountain, Smaug sinisterly flies over to Laketown with intent of burning it to the ground and its people to ashes both out of spite for being in league with the dwarves and for his own sadistic pleasure.
The third and final film in the trilogy, The Battle of the Five Armies, opens with Smaug unleashing his sadistic wrath on Laketown, burning it and its townsfolk to death as they panic and flee for their lives as the dwarves themselves and Bilbo can only look on in pity and guilt at the atrocity. Bard himself manages to break out of his prison and with a bow and arrows in his arms, he engages against Smaug, shooting arrow after arrow to no avail at first. Soon, his young son comes in to give him the black arrow to shoot at Smaug (the only arrow that could penetrate his skin and kill him) and as Smaug gleefully taunts the man over how he'll burn his son alive to death, Bard shoots the arrow into the hole where the black arrow before had made his mark and finishes Smaug off, saving the rest of the people from being burned to ashes at the monstrous dragon's hands (or technically in this case claws... and fire... and death you get the gist). The aftermath sees the folks of Laketown trying to get new homes to live in (initially temporarily residing in the long abandoned city of Dale) and Bard being their new leader. With all the gold in his possession, Thorin would get the dragon sickness and go mad over his greed of gold, going so far as to refuse to share a single coin with the people of Laketown despite their bargain. Eventually, the Elves themselves come in led by Thranduil and provide Laketown's people with plenty of food to stave away their starvation, Thranduil being there with the intent of claiming what was long agreed to be his in a bargain with the past Dwarf ruler, that being the Arkenstone (which Bilbo took for himself to avoid Thorin being droven mad as Smaug sadistically taunted at). They ask Thorin to give it, but he refuses. Bilbo himself sneaks out of the tower to go down to Dale and give the Arkenstone to Thranduil, thus preventing any war from going on between the sides.
Once Thorin finds out about this through Thranduil and Bard revealing it to him at his gate and Bilbo confessing that he gave it to them, he was initially furious and went into a brief rage, nearly throwing Bilbo overboard before Gandalf himself calls him out. Soon, the other Dwarves in the form of an army arrive at the scene due to the reclamation of their home Erebor and engage in battle against the Elves. However, Azog himself would show up, leading legions of orcs granted to him under the command of Sauron with intent to wipe out the Elves, Dwarves, and Men present to make the mountain represent their tomb and engages in battle against them. As they fight, Thorin would overcome his madness driven by the gold and storm into battle himself with a few of the main company being specifically in a group with him. Thorin aims to kill Azog both to stop the battle and to avenge his father once and for all and goes to the area he is in with his dwarves. Unfortunately, one of them, Fili, gets captured and killed by Azog right in front of Thorin as he taunts him about how he will kill Kili next and then Thorin, proclaiming this to be the end of his "filthy" bloodline. Thorin soon directly engages in battle with Azog and after a lengthy fight that sees him fighting some of the orcs with Azog, the eagles arrive to help take out the orcs, catching Azog off guard enough for Thorin to temporarily cause him to fall into the icy water where at first Azog seems to have drowned to death before he impales Thorin in the foot with his sword, jumps out of the icy lake, and stabs him albeit at the cost of Thorin taking the opportunity to fatally stab and wound Azog right then and there, killing the vile defiler once and for all. The battle ended with many lives lost, Bilbo arrives just in time to converse with Thorin in his final moments before he fully kicks the bucket. In the aftermath, Thorin and the fellow dwarves that died get a funeral hosted with their fellows mourning them in death. After saying goodbye, Bilbo soon returns to Baggensvile but not before being warned by Gandalf, who was aware that he had the One Ring the whole time, about the ring's evil, which carries on into the OG trilogy, LOTR.
Who is Thranduil? What has he done?[]
Thranduil is a major character in the films. He would start off as kinda sorta maybe an antagonist with a bias against the dwarves but would later go on to become something of a supporting character. In the past, he was a former ally of the Dwarves before this alliance would eventually fall apart when the king of the Dwarves refused to give him a necklace that was to be Thranduil's gift to his wife and mocks and laughs at him in the process, causing him to develop a hatred of Dwarves and passing this down to the other Elves, making them all racist and Legolas himself an unlikable racist prick lol. As he was leading his Elf army, when the Dwarves' home of Erebor was being taken over by Smaug who had either eaten or burned countless of them alive to death and the survivors were escaping, Thranduil denied them any help and left them in the dust. Years later, when his Elves catch Thorin and company setting a mere one foot in their lands after having evaded a group of giant spiders, they get arrested and taken to Thranduil's castle. There, Thranduil converses with their leader Thorin himself in an attempt to bargain with him, explaining that he knows of their quest to reclaim Erebor and proclaiming that if they agree to give him the necklace that was long overdue to him once they do so, he will let them free. Thorin, however, refuses and as such, Thranduil has them all be imprisoned. Bilbo, however, would sneak in using the One Ring's powers and as Thranduil converses with his daughter Tauriel over the situation with the spiders spreading around and the comments Legolas made on her as a fighter, he sneakily gets the keys to all their cells and frees them, helping them escape via getting into barrels that he has be sent into the river.
Unfortunately, the Elves would discover this and halt their attempt at the watergate under a bridge. However, Orcs themselves show up to engage in battle against both the Elves and the Dwarves that, in the midst, allows them an opportunity to open the gate and let them come flooding through and escaping. In the aftermath of the battle, one Orc is captured and taken to Thranduil to interrogate. Figuring out from the Orc's words that they intend to unleash a weapon so great that it will destroy all before it and orders a total lockdown to have them be prepared. Later, Thranduil would arrive at Laketown after Thorin and company have reclaimed Erebor and the mighty Smaug had fallen in their time of need and has food be given to its people. As Bard thanks him for the help provided, Thranduil makes it clear he is there to reclaim what is rightfully his, being clear that he and his Elves are ready to go to war against the Dwarves for their fair share of the gold. After Bard makes a failed attempt at convincing Thorin to give them their fair share of the gold like he had promised to them in his bargain, Thranduil only comments on how they cannot be reasoned with and has his Elves stay watch during the night, telling them to shoot at any Dwarf they see walking across the above column. Bilbo himself, however, would sneak out of the tower and into Laketown where Thranduil and Bard are conversing with Gandalf and gives them the Arkenstone he had took and kept from Thorin to save him from being driven mad. In the morning, Thranduil, Bard, and Gandalf would try to use it as leverage to try to further convince Thorin to give some of the gold.
Thorin remaining defiant to the very end, the army of Dwarves that had arrived in due to the reclamation of Erebor would engage the Elves in a battle of war, Thranduil boldly leading his troops and taking them on. Only moments after would a legion of Orcs show up led by Azog with intentions of killing them all and going forward into battle against them. Throughout, Thranduil himself would engage in battle against some of the Orcs, skilfully taking them out using cunning, strategy, valor, combat skills, and surprise moves that come with being as skilled of an Elf fighter like him. Soon, Thranduil initially tried to leave the fight with his men due to not finding it to be worth dedicating this much Elvish blood to fighting for the mountain before Tauriel confronts him and tries to convince him to help the Dwarves, even holding him temporarily at arrowpoint before Thranduil easily cuts her bow in half. Then, Legolas comes in, telling him if he harms her, he will have to kill him, forcing him to step down and have a bit of a Heroic BSOD. Gandalf himself comes in to give him a form of encouragement of his own by telling him that his wife didn't just leave him with jewels, she left him a son, inspiring the king to return (see what I did there, ha) and continue fighting for the mountain. After the battle, he converses with Legolas, telling him to go North to find the Dunedain to meet a young ranger amongst them and talking about how his father Arathorn II was a good man and his son might grow to be a great warrior, his name being known in the wild as Strider and his true name being left for Legolas to discover for himself. Right before Legolas leaves, Thranduil tells him of how his mother loved him more than anything else as a last note. He is last seen consoling Tauriel as she mourns the death of Kili, a Dwarf she's come to love, acknowledging her feelings as real.
What Makes Him Magnificent?[]
He doesn't really do a jackton in regards to feats but with what we get of the limited screentime he has as a supporting character, I'd say he's got enough to meet the marks. He commands every scene he's in with a badass persona and charisma as a leader/ruler to boot. And it's not just the scenes he commands either. He commands his soldiers too with a great amount of valor, boldly leading them into battle when need be and allowing them to showcase their skills through their bows and arrows, sword slashing, dodging and slaying the orcs, etc. He figures out quite accurately from one mere interrogation with an orc that Sauron and his forces are plotting something big, that being to unleash a weapon so great that it will destroy all before it, even ordering a total lockdown for his soldiers to prepare them. He shows himself to be a skilled fighter, using strategy, valor, combat skills, and wit to fight against the Orcs during the Battle of Five Armies via boldly riding forth on his reindeer and effortlessly culling through various orcs that attack him with his sword, even having his reindeer take some out by ramming them all at once with his antlers to allow Thranduil the perfect opportunity to slice off all their heads, falling down from his reindeer when surrounded by orcs to make it look like he surrenders and is helpless... only to quickly rise up and slash at the orcs with his swords instantly slaying one from the other with quick moves and dashes through his sword one at a time no matter how close they get or how they try to one-up him. When Tauriel holds him at bowpoint, he merely cuts her bow in half skillfully to show she doesn't stand a chance before Legolas comes in.
The Appendices apparently give him further bonus points by conveying that Thranduil had a pretty good role to play in stopping Sauron and his forces as he and his Elves had ambushed and caught tied up in ropes a large sum of Sauron's forces and resources to prevent Sauron from being able to use the fullest of his resources to his capacity to conquer Gondor and saving the North in the process. Thranduil, despite his harshness, can also be quite benevolent even in moments where he's being harsh ironically. He does think about his people and aims to protect them as much as possible, denying the Dwarves help when Erebor was being burnt partially to avoid risking the lives of his people and later while talking with Tauriel on how big a problem the spiders have become and her offering a suggestion to kill them at their source, he denies this and says her task is only to keep the lands clear of them, stating that while they will spread to other lands that are not of his concern, their kingdom will endure against them. While he does imprison the dwarves, he was willing to release them if Thorin agreed to give him his overdue necklace for his wife once he and his company reclaimed Erebor which Thorin unfortunately denies. When arriving in Laketown with his Elves, he has them give out food to the people in need. He has his forces protect Laketown during the Battle of Five Armies against the Orcs, having them surround the town and fight as many off as they can.
Apparently, according to the Appendices, he even flat out changes for the better by riding into battle not just for himself or the Elves but for the sake of other folks as well, going in with a more selfless mindset instilled. He also has people he deeply cares about. He loves his wife as he had years ago tried to get a necklace through a bargain with the ruler of the dwarves for her, but he mockingly denied him this and cast him out, leading to him holding a grudge and understandably cutting ties with them. He mourned her death when she was slain by orcs and even still tried to get the necklace in her name years later, trying to bargain Thorin and the company's freedom for the necklace and trying to go to war against them later for the gold. While he can be harsh with Tauriel, he is conveyed to care for her, commenting on how Legolas remarked on her skills as a fighter and later consoles her over Kili's death, acknowledging her feelings as real. He even winds up staying to fight for the mountain when reminded by Gandalf that his wife didn't just leave him with jewels, she left him a son. He tells Legolas to go to Rivendell to meet a skilled warrior with it being implied they eventually reconcile sometime in the future. As a formidable foe against Sauron, he helps the main co in bringing him down and ensuring his defeat once and for all. All in all, for the limited screentime he has, I'd say he meets these marks decently.
What Makes Him a Baddie?[]
While not quite exactly a villain, as an anti-hero, I'd say he meets the shadiness part decently well, particularly in contrast to his more reasonable book counterpart. When the Dwarves of Erebor were being burnt to death en masse and their home taken from them by Smaug, despite being present nearby with his army, Thranduil denied them any help and turned his and their backs on them. Later, when Thorin and company set a mere foot on his land despite having mainly wound up there by escaping from a group of giant spiders, Thranduil has them be imprisoned with it being clear that this was primarily out of spite against them for denying him the necklace that was owed to him long ago. Later, upon arriving after the dwarves had reclaimed Erebor and all its gold, Thranduil was ready to go to war against them for the treasures right off the bat with no hesitations. To provide further bonus points in regards to that, at nighttime, he flat out tells one of his elf soldiers to shoot any dwarf that wanders on top of the column.
Too much of one though? No. Yeah, not providing any help to the Dwarves while their home was being burnt and people turned to ashes was a dick move, but it was to keep his own people safe and the dwarves did mockingly deride him and deny him a long overdue gift to his wife and cut ties with them long ago, so while not justifiable, it does show an understandable reasoning. The imprisonment itself isn't anything that bad, just imprisonment. The going to war with the Dwarves was to claim their treasure. Plus, Sauron, Azog, Smaug, Saruman, and Gothmog exist and are far more vile in their crimes and deeds to make him seem all the more not so bad in comparison, so there's that too as bonus points.
Verdict[]
A hearty yes from me, but what about you?