Wood-elves in Ithilien

[dawtheminstrel]

I have recently been pondering the question of why Legolas started the colony of elves in Ithilien. He never seemed to me to be someone who was looking for his own realm to rule. So why doesn't he go home and stay there?

Any ideas?

[Joee]

Hmm, that's an interesting question. I'm speculating here because I don't have my books anywhere near me to look anything up, but doesn't he remark about the lands? Or is that someone else? Maybe he feels that he can help them thrive once more.

I agree with you Daw, that he doesn't seem like someone who would want to rule his own lands, but maybe the quest changed him. Even though his role was small, maybe he still felt like he was a part of something big, that he helped change the world, and that after such a feat, he couldn't just go back home and resume life as it had been before.

I'm going to go ponder this some more while I'm at work, but I'm interested in what other people think.

[French Pony]

Maybe it's a case of "how do you keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen Paree?"

Legolas seems to have been pretty much a kid from the sticks (rim shot) when he set out on the Quest. He saw so much, so many places he'd never imagined or were only stories to him, he made new and incredibly interesting friends, and he saw the Sea.

How could he just go home again? Since Thranduil survived the War, it didn't look as though Legolas would need to take up the crown any time soon, and there was a lot of useful work he could do in Ithilien. (Personally, in my little universe, the Ithilien elves have discovered that Ithilien is a great place for vineyards and they're working to do to Dorwinion what California did to much of Europe with their grapes.)

[Karri]

Hm, I haven't really pondered this question before, so I may change my mind upon reflection, but for now...

I think Joee hits fairly close to the mark. The way I see it, Legolas planned to and did go home for a little while, but knew that his heart, as foretold, would never again find peace within the bounds of Middle-earth. Staying in Mirkwood would have made it harder for him, I think, for he would have been torn even more than he was by the desire to answer the Call and the desire to stay with his family. Also, he might not have wanted to burden his family with weight of a lingering farewell when there was so much that their attention in Mirkwood – he might even have feared that if he stayed in Mirkwood under the shadow of Sea-longing, his family would be unable to watch him suffer and would press him to go, but not want to be parted from him and would go with him, and he knew that Mirkwood needed its king for a while longer if it was to recover. Perhaps he hoped to make it easier on both his family and himself by making that smaller goodbye first. A part of him, too, might have wanted his family to go with him, but wanted it to be because they were ready, and not just for him. So, he rebuilt Ithilien as a way dawdling in the hope they would catch up, while giving them space to choose according their own hearts. Perhaps he even as he spoke of bringing elves to Ithilien after the War, he knew in his heart that his family would leave Middle-earth once they found out about his Sea-longing, but comprehended that Mirkwood needed its king a while longer, and decided he would bring a colony to rebuild Ithilien so that his father would remain long enough to rebuild Mirkwood.

The jist of all that: I think it grieved him that a once beautiful forest, much like his own, had been so ruined, and he saw in the rebuilding of Ithilien an opportunity to keep his heart and mind occupied sufficiently to distract him from his Sea-longing, while still remaining near to the sea, until he was ready to depart – whatever his reason for dawdling (be it Aragorn, or Thranduil, or other) – and that it would have been too painful to dawdle in Mirkwood.

[dawtheminstrel]

Somebody help me remember. Where is it that Legolas vows to make the colony if his father allows it? Does he have sea longing yet? I'm thinking about what both French Pony and Joee have said about how Legolas might have changed and that's certainly a change we know about. Maybe that increased his restlessness, or he wanted to be nearer to the rivers.

[dawtheminstrel]

And Karri weighed in while I was posting. That all makes sense.

[Karri]

dawtheminstrel said:

Somebody help me remember. Where is it that Legolas vows to make the colony if his father allows it? Does he have sea longing yet?

LOL! I searched for this quote before replying and couldn't for the life of me remember where it was, and so I winged on the assumption that it had to be after Pelargir, because Ithilien is in Gondor. Of course, then I was sure it would turn out that he made the vow before Pelargir...

Well, the long and short of this tale is that Legolas mentions bringing birds that sing and tree that do not die to Minas Tirith when he and Gimli enter the city at the start of The Last Debate (book 5, chapter 9), and states that he will bring elves to Ithilien if his elvenlord allows at the end of The Field of Cormallen (book 6, chapter 4). *whew*

[dawtheminstrel]

Cool! So he has sea longing then. That's interesting.

[Gwenneth]

Yah know, everything said here is what I would have said too...so I can't add much, but I can pick and choose what strikes me as really really good reasons.

I have to agree that if the forests around Ithilien needed work, needed reconstruction and tenderloving care, then Legolas would have been drawn to them. He seems to be enthralled with trees, giddy about them. Granted, if he was suffering from the sea-longing he would probably need something to distract him...he did stay in Middle-Earth until Aragorn passed, so he was there a good amount of time.

I think that staying in Mirkwood would have proven troublesome. In many stories, not talking about LotR here, a character that goes through a major, lifechanging event or in this case quest, cannot go back to life as it once was.

For example, think of some books written about World War I and II. Soldiers came home on leave, after the war, during convalescene, and they were not comfortable. Everything is alien to them. I think it would have been possible it was like that for Legolas. He had seen so much, done so much and met so many wonderful people and races, I just can't imagine how he would survive in Mirkwood.

Ithilien would give him the chance to do something new, something he had never done before. Once you get the bug of new experiences, I think it is hard to get over it.

Just my two cents worth.

[dawtheminstrel]

Thank you, Gwenneth. That's food for thought too.

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