LotR, the Extended Edition...

[katikat]

... Is now mine! Mwahaha ;P Pretty, pretty box. I can't wait to see the movies and all the extras, 12 DVDs altogether!

Oh, my "friends in the know", how old is actually Legolas? I perused the net and found a wiki page about Legolas where it's said that:

* "Though neither Legolas' age nor his birthdate are directly given in Tolkien's writings, some passages indicate he is far older than Aragorn and Gimli," that he calls them "children" and that Gimli and Aragorn are "139 and 87 respectively" at the time of the War of the Ring.
* It also says that "in one of the official film guidebooks, a birthdate for Legolas is set to 87 of the Third Age" which would make him 2931 years old at the time of the War of the Ring and "coincidentally or not, the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings give Aragorn's year of birth as T.A. 2931."
* And then there's another figure, given in Top Trumps cards for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, "with the card for Legolas stating his age at 7000, making him older than Elrond."

So, is there a consensus of some sort in the fandom?

Comments

[keire_ke]

There's no consensus, far as I know, but in the books he states that something to the effect of "this forest makes me feel young again" and "I've known many oaks from acorn to death". I tend to assume that given the lifespan of oaks is ~1500, is that he's at the very least a couple of thousands.

The Aragorn's birthday thing is fanon, to the best of my knowledge.

[katikat]

It seems that the consesus for Legolas' age is between 2 and 3 thousand? Looks like it. So far, everybody was guessing something like that... Heh, what's one millenium here or there, right? ;P

Oh, and according to Wiki, Aragorn's B-day was taken from the Appendices to LotR... I don't know, I haven't read these books yet.

[keire_ke]

Appdendices provide birthdays for just about everyone else, plus a lengthy background on the Epic Love of Aragorn and Arwen.

There may be hints that he is older, if you take his panicked "Ai, it's a balrog" to be an indication. Balrogs were the creations of Morgoth, and apparently all were supposed to be destroyed by the end of the First Age, and yet it took Legolas some stomping and fieriness to conclude one is coming. That would however mean he would have to be around 7 thousand years old.

I used to study LotR like it was my business to know these things. :D