rocky41_7

The Legolas post is still going around and I feel the need to say that like, I don’t mean Legolas and Thranduil had a perfect relationship. I’m not rejecting the very notion there was any tension there. I think it’s pretty impossible that Thranduil’s own issues never caused problems in his relationship with Legolas. But I do think that it matters that he tried, he tried very hard, and was largely successful, in raising an emotionally healthy child with whom he has a primarily positive relationship.

Additional headcanon type thoughts below

I tend to think that while there’s solid evidence in LotR that Legolas loves and admires his dad a lot, I don’t think he ever felt like he really knew Thranduil. So much of his dad was closed off to him because Thranduil is naturally, in my view, a private person, and because his trauma made it difficult to speak of a lot of things that had been formative experiences for him. And I think that would be hard for any kid, and I think it was hard for Legolas in particular because having that connection with his dad was important to him. So while I think he always knew Thranduil loved him, there was some frustration in that it felt like he was never allowed to be as close to Thranduil as Thranduil was to him.

Borrowing from movie canon, if you track with the notion of Legolas’ mom dying when he was young, this is one issue I can see being a significant one with them. On the one hand, you understand why Thranduil is traumatized and grief-stricken about his wife’s death and finds it too painful to speak of her. On the other, it’s more than fair of Legolas to be frustrated, even angry, that one of the people who knew his mom best won’t talk about her to him. I think this is one of those things that becomes more of an issue as Legolas gets older. If there was one lingering issue in their relationship, this would probably be it.

I stand by everything in the original post, but lest I be seen as trying to insist their relationship was flawless, enjoy some angstier ideas.