Legolas

The shield-surfing, oliphaunt-bungee-jumping, orc-hunting, Isengard running elf himself, Legolas!

Legolas Greenleaf Acres O'Lembas is the son of Thranduil, King of the Mirkywood Forest and Calathiel the Carpathian Princess of Lore. He was is an elf renowned for his role in The War of the Ring, orc hunting, and being better than us. Good grief, he was born so long ago. We're talking a long ass time. Being immortal he can get away with such things. Extremely skilled at archery, and sword combat, he can jump, and fight, and flip, and stab, and shoot, and jump. He killed anything that got in his way and we loved it. Possessing the only anti-gravity boots in Middle Earth, he was essential in defeating the orcs, trolls, Iron Mountain dwarves, some elves that didn't bring their own moose, and graboids the size of Jabba the Hutt's asteroid mother.

He fought in the various battles that almost brought every land into despair and hopelessness. The conditions that would disillusion everyone and bring morale way down. He had great wisdom to know how to defeat Fake Historical Events as presented by fake news, also known as the Mouth of Sauron Media. It was his shiny hair and good looks that gave people hope. Blonde and flowing. Even in the deadliest of battles, his hair was the one thing that others looked to, to keep from slipping into despair and hopelessness. But couldn't focus too much on it, or they would get themselves killed by not paying attention to the flabby monsters that were easy to avoid due to how loud and slow they moved around.

The orcs had major problems with Legolas outshining them, so they kept going to the Dark Lord who they worshiped and asked for billions of dollars in funding their projects. All of which failed on account that Legolas was a skilled and immortal elf warrior who could jump, and fight, and flip, and stab, and shoot, and kill anything that got in his way.

Woodland Upbringing

Still as shiny as ever.

As a baby, Legolas was so cute. Adorable. Downright angelic, with a touch of puke on his chin. Root squash doesn't agree with him. He was a very good student. Behind everyone's back he was also a great prankster. He spent a lot of time learning archery, how to fight with any form of blade, and he was deadly with his daggers. Even Robin Hood was impressed. He spent a considerable amount of time keeping journals of as many orc records that he could get his hands on. He stashed away a lot of names, although many of those names were used repeated times for generations. It was hard to determine if Grugg the Gut-Extractor was the one from the First Age, or the other, smaller version from the Second Age. Or the whiny one from the Third Age. And there were ten more of these orcs with the same name. It was a virtual Democratic Oligarchy of cloned invaders who were paid to settle in and reproduce.

Legolas had amassed such a database of the orcs, that he began to memorize only the stand-out names. Like Charles Manson, George Bush, Janet Reno and Joe Scarborough. One of his first missions was to take down these particular orcs. All were a success except the last one. The only reason Scarborough survived was on account of some crop-haired lady who scared the shit out of poor Legolas. No elf had ever seen a Witch and Lego Pixie Mistress combination before.

He was dearly loved by his parents, and sadly lost his mother at a young age. His father doted on him and gave him all the love he had and was gracious enough to share his kingdom with him, if ever anything happened to him, but until such a thing would ever happen, the moose throne was his alone. Thranduil was no pushover. He also visually shared his past traumas by allowing Legolas see his dragon-fire scars. It became a family secret, until Thranduil got to the point of just showing his scars to anyone who asked. There were missing jewels from a chest kept in the tunnel where he had a private swimming pool installed. Legolas once questioned this decision and the logic was that the last place any dragon, dwarf, or hobbit would look for treasure would be in the swimming pool area. Legolas was quite enlightened. If only his father had done this prior to the jewels being stolen.

Style, Clothing, and Armor

Legolas was one the best fashion models of Middle Earth, rivaling Elrond, Galadriel, and Arwen. His style for keeping clean and dry was uncanny. When the members of the Fellowship were asked about his apparel and how he managed to get through everything without a scratch, they all agreed that he wasn't always there. Swearing that it was a stunt double. The rest had stunt doubles too, but much of the time they had to run through wooded areas, wade through rivers, jump into piles of debris from demolished buildings, swing from a harness over angry, snapping sharks and having tons of marsh flies attack them. But Legolas was there only after such events, showing up only as a reference that he had somehow gone through all the same things when clearly he didn't. He was fresh and none of his clothes were wet or stained. Not one hair was out of place. Which clashed with the others when they looked like they stepped out of a disaster zone and he looked like he was coming out of the beauty salon. With new clothes ready for battle and half a dozen knives, daggers, and short swords. Bearing a quiver full of arrows and a massive bow. Stepping into the limelight to smash orc heads and tear down enemies with his magic boots. This was how Legolas rolled.

Colors

No matter which way he faces, it's his best side.

Shades of green, gray, and silver were the best colors for Legolas. Bringing out his eyes and allowing his hair to really pop. When he stood in the sunlight, he was like the sunlight. As if he were the very sun itself. Glowing and radiant. With a face to die for. Shoulders broad and strong. And on down, just nevermind. All other features would leave the sun in the dust. The sun, in its Sun god revenge has been creating dust for thousands of years. It's Legolas' fault. But look at him. How can anyone be mad at him? That face. That hair. Those legs. I could go on, but I digress. Just shut up.

Anyway, as it is, the colors of Legolas and his choice of fashion are of natural earthen tones and vibrant spring forest hues. Hard and lean wood and branch. Vines of a nice sturdy willow bark and caressing moss in shades of leaf and soft skies. A robust flash of deep pale golden beige and shadowy bronze-layered granite. Up the sides of rocks and down into a soft mulch and liquid teal and faded purples. A long stroke of emerald tint and another of some other forest colors. Those are his colors. He wears them well. I have to stop now. It's all about Legolas after all. He's a good lad. Nice guy.

Sturdy Fabrics

Oh yeah. Definitely.

As a general rule, suede is never to be worn except for formal occasions. And never to be stepped on. The elves like to dress in silks, velvet, linens, knits, cottons, and sometimes polyester. But in the usual traditions, when out on high adventures and other potentially dangerous missions, it's leather. Always the leather. Sometimes crafted metals and golden helmets. This was the sturdiest resources they had. However they fashioned their gear to appear pleasing and fanciful. It was just a thing with them. In case anyone would forget, Legolas still holds the #1 spot for wearing leather the best.

Concealed Weapons

Elves always had a flair for being dashing and fast on their feet, and generally this gave any opponent the false sense of security that since they were light on their feet, and so nimble, agile, and fast they must not be very heavily armed. But nothing could have been further from the truth. Oh lordy of the rings was it totally the contrary. Elves could hide daggers, swords, and an ax within the folds of their cloaks. They could hide hand grenades in the overflaps of their boots. They could hide a collapsible nunchucks in the braids of their hair, and don't ask where they would hide pipe bombs. Should the need ever come up for a concealed weapon to get the upper hand, they were deadly with their hidden taser-activated hair. Static electricity that delivered at the very least, 20,000 volts.

Footwear

Most elves wore either forest sandals or boots. Being in the woods most of the time, boots were their preferred choice. Where most elves had the standard soft green style boots, Legolas had the same style only he had the dark green, the light green, and the boots that featured anti-gravity components. Most elves wore light, comfortably-fitting sandals that enabled them to move around freely when at home, or stretching out at the Inn of Rivendell, playing soft music matching the ambience of the peace and serenity surrounding them. But Legolas, naturally wore a pair of striking, glow-in-the-dark deep purple and bright yellow sandals that enabled him to float a couple of feet off the floor, surfing around the place. Freaking out the other elves. He was known to put on the ant-gravity boots from time to time and base jump off any of the dangerous drops and waterfalls that Rivendell was well-known to have. After a while the novelty wore off and elves learned to ignore him. But they really couldn't just flat out ignore him. He was dashing, after all.

Elf Abilities

The one thing about elves was that they possessed abilities that made them the best of all things. They were excellent at outliving everyone else. They were masters of the road, and king of the dance. They could out-fight, outrun, outlast, and out-drink any other race in Middle Earth. The one thing they couldn't do was get into Mount Doom and fight with Gollum, and follow him over the edge into a pool of molten lava. Legolas could technically do such a thing with his special boots, but he would have called far too much attention to himself and being around an active volcano would have messed up that pretty hair he got. So that was crossed off the list.

Seeing For Miles

You look weird.

When an elf can zoom lens into the next mountain range from another mountain, it was impressive and useful. When an elf can see through vales into the far countryside beyond, and tell of any lurking dangers, that was incredible and extremely useful. When an elf can see over the tops of mountains into the next sunset from a patch of land below sea level, that was downright supernatural. But very few elves offered their acute abilities to stare down the Eye. The Eye of the One Ring. The flaming, irritated eye mounted on a tower than anyone could see with a cheap telescope or a Palantir. For some reason, the lidless eye of an ancient serial killing psychopath was kind of out of the question.

Hearing Pins & Rings Drop

In the dark, if even a word is whispered, the elf will hear it. Don't go sneaking up on this one, it won't end well. There was a time when Legolas overheard Elrond and Gandalf talking in a secret meeting. He had just happened to walk by, when he heard quiet mumbling behind velvet leafy drapes. While he didn't catch what they were supposedly talking about, he caught enough of the conversation to realize that Elrond had planned to call everyone to a meeting the next day to decide what was to be done with the blasted Ring that was causing so much trouble. He had been listening so intently to the conversation that he didn't realize that a couple of hobbits were eavesdropping on him. What's more is the hobbits would eavesdrop their way into the very secret council that Legolas had to bribe Elrond to get front row seats. He could still hear everyone else breathing loud enough to shoot them in the dark. If only it had been dark at that time.

He developed a twitch.

Running Great Distances

Through the snow. Through the rocky landscapes of the Moldy Mountains. Through wild lands of the horse kingdom. Through underground lairs of God-knows-what all, elves could run and sprint and jump and leap through anything. Through anyone. Anywhere. Anytime. Anyplace. Running is what elves do. If you wanted something delivered, these were your guys. When Frodo and his companions got back to the Shire, and told the story of how they traveled with an elf, naturally there was a lot of confusion. How on Middle Earth could hobbits have traveled with an elf, surely he would outrun them. Frodo explained that his friend Legolas (or as the Shirelings called him Legolad) was helping him go to Mordor to get rid of the evil ring. It still didn't click. Hobbits logically concluded that Legolad could have run the ring to Mordor without bothering to bring any hobbits with him. Sam told them that almost happened but they had to catch the elf who had taken the ring and ran to Mordor with it. And that Frodo and Sam were determined to be the ones to destroy the ring because Legolad had already defeated an army of orcs at Helm's Deep, shot everyone breathing in the dark and zipped past night watchmen just to steal their palantirs. And other dangling trinkets. They weren't about to let an elf toss them around. The hobbits accepted that as true history. And they ran with it.

Extreme Sportsmanship

There's just nothing half-assed about any sport the elves get into and excel at, including drinking games. Swordplay on moving objects, such as barrels rapidly being carried away down a river to an eventual waterfall. Naturally the waterfall will kill You. Shield-surfing that requires the use of a bow and arrows to kill an onslaught of orcs, because why else would you shield-surf? Silly. Elves have also perfected the sport of using large moving creatures through a battle zone, to kill even more orcs, and then take down the actual beast they rode in on. Elves do cross-country Skiing, Skydiving, and Weird Ass Tennis. And for all the adrenaline junkies among the most notable elves, it was Legolas who beat all records in tossing. He also held several other records that even Glorfindel would envy. He managed to encounter a Balrog without having to slay it. He went through the Paths of the Dead without having to show any ID. He came face to mouth with the Mouth of Sauron without losing his lunch, and he came very close to being able to toss Gimli. Impressive for an elf of only a few thousand years old.

Hunting Orcs and Other Hobbies

Traveling was always a blast.

On his résumé, Legolas would always write in that hunting orcs was his best skill. It was dangerous, and demanded time and patience to achieve any goal where hunting orcs would come into play. He was always hired for the task. He always delivered. He was perfect. He never disappointed. But neither did Gimli or Aragorn. He worked together with them as a team when they hunted orcs. But secretly Legolas felt that he was better than the other two. While the war raged on, he didn't really focus too much on being a third of the hunting party. But when all was said and done, he began obsessing over the fact that Aragorn was the one to initiate the hunting of orcs. He began realizing that he wasn't even part of the situation when Gandalf single-handedly hunted a Balrog down a chasm and smacked it around some, throwing down that monster to a mere puddle of mud and sludge. He stressed over the fact that an army of dead guys wasted a massive army of chunky orcs, easy targets all crowded together, leaving him with a pathetic number of kills. To compensate for the anxiety he was feeling, he found hobbies that helped him to express his talents, keeping his self-doubting and setbacks in check. He got into speed racing, joined a band, and tried out for the Olympic Games. But he would hit up his homies for adventure through Middle Earth and test drive monster trucks through Moria and other relatively dangerous places. He once rented a Honda Civic and got Aragorn, Gimli, Gandalf, and Tom Bombadil to ride with him through the Paths of the Dead. After having a lot of fun with that, they decided they should try driving through Shelob's lair. But those plans were scrapped when they couldn't figure out how to get a vehicle up the side of a mountain with a long stair. As far as anyone knows, Legolas is still trying to come up with a solution

His Hair

He's a Breck guy.

The hair of an elf is glorious and miraculous. It was bound to be that elves were the finest examples of having the longest, shiniest, and most powerful hair of all the races. It started with the legend of Galadriel, whose hair was the one thing the Dark Lord wanted. Three strands of it was all he wanted. He planned to make something with those strands, but being a very practical, suspicious and sarcastic elf lady, she refused to give him any of her hair. It had gold and silver highlighting and reminded him of the Two Trees of the North and South Pole of Arda the Arcadia. A place that predated Atlantis. Being rejected, the Dark Lord shaved her head and took all her hair. It was cruel, but it also brought about a culture of hair-loving, hair-growing elves from everywhere and every elf had to grow their hair long and silky and shiny. After, of course, Galadriel grew her hair back. Legolas was no exception. He was going to keep with tradition and he did it with style and flair. As for the hair the Dark Lord stole from Galadriel, it was rumored that he got a little too close to the flames in Mount Doom and ended up only causing the place to smell like burnt hair. Well. That's what he gets.

Legolas has a hair regimen he follows all the time to keep his locks all shiny and manageable. Besides the regular shampoo and conditioner brand he uses, he also finds natural ingredients to maintain his wonderful glowing blondeness and braids. Mud packs found in the wild after a heavy rainstorm, with oxidants to provide enough bounce that he could look as if he's jumping around on a trampoline without really moving. Legolas takes it one step further and bathes in the mud. The next step is to rinse the mud all away. To rinse, he stands under a waterfall, in the moonlight, and lets the rushing water wash all the mud from his muscular skin and shapely form. Just wait a minute. Is it getting hot in here? Anyway, he follows up with a lengthy sun treatment. In which he waits for the sunrise. Laying out on a nice slab of stone over a beach towel, he sunbathes under the hot midday sun. Drying his hair by its rays and the warm breeze as his body glistens in the light. That is how Legolas keeps his hair so perfect. As well as the rest of him. I'm going now. I have to get back to cleaning the litterbox. Such is my life and Legolas can do whatever he wants. Fine. Whatever.

The Lord of the Rings