Archives: Legolas/Bloom popularity

Kirinki: There was a poll recently by Arwen Evenstar (too seldom seen these days) on whom of the Company would die after Boromir. Of the 46 votes cast, Pippin 'won' by 13 votes, and Gimli/Legolas was next with 12 each.

IIRC correctly Pippin and Legolas got the most votes initially. There was a speculation that Legolas (or was it Bloom) had been made too big a star, and people wanted to kill him off from envy.

Could there have been other causes? He did end up on a shared second. Was the reason that some hold the opinion that Legolas was the one of the Company who accomplished least on the Quest?

(I hope this is not heracy...

Rain: Hi Kirinki, giant Water Monster speaking here
IIRC the poll was posted on the LOTR movie forum - I do remember some of the reasons people posted with regards to their choice of Legolas. I may be speculating here and I don't want to offend anyone, but at the time I think many of the people in the movie forum had not read the books, or had started reading them after the movie (which is a huge thumbs-up for PJ, IMHO ). Therefore, their opinions were governed by what they saw in the movie. If you have seen the movie (which I have repeatedly - no comments please Elanor ) PJ gives Legolas quite a lot to do, so I don't think they wanted him killed because they thought that he was the one to have accomplished the least - in the movie, that would have had to be Gimli, because other than getting them into Moria and getting nearly killed by the cave-troll, he did very little.
I think it must have been jealousy of Orlando Bloom - some of the posts are hilarious, with the girls trying to convince everyone that OB is a hottie and the guys trying to convince everyone that he's not that special. So I think killing Legolas off was HUGE wishful thinking on the part of some members of the forum.

P.S. With regards to Pippin, he is depicted as a walking disaster-zone in the movie, and IMHO that's why he got a lot of votes too. In the books, Pip is not as disastrous as in the movie - other than the palantir issue, of course.

Kirinki: No, I don´t believe you are a Water Monster, Rain! You have such a poetic alias...

In fact the poll was run at this forum a few weeks back. I did not read allt the posts, just the results and the rest is from memory which might well be wrong.

So you think there is nothing to the view that Legolas did not achieve as spectacular results as the other members of the Company?


PS Don´t forget Pippin perhaps waking the Balrog, at least stirring up something in the depths of Moria...