Hello everyone!
I remember seeing recently someone posted asking why Legolas and Gimli were chosen by Tolkien to be friends. I remember us discussing this in a class discussion briefly and I think the short answer was to show character growth.
This is because Legolas, being an elf, and Gimli, being a dwarf, should hate each other in Tolkien's world because that's just how their kind interact with the other. These two characters put aside their differences and ended up becoming good friends because they had decided that hating someone for what they are and not who they truly are is ridiculous. They also both decided to look at the bigger picture so they could actually succeed in their quest to help destroy the ring. Imagine if these two had been bickering the whole time, it would have been a major distraction to everyone and would have caused tensions to be high.
To me their friendship also just fits in with Tolkien's whole theme of the unlikely being the likely. Frodo was the unlikely hero and Legolas and Gimli were the unlikely friends. So to me their friendship just makes sense in the Lord of the Rings.
Thank you!
-Frodo
I like how you talked about this. Like you hit all the major points of the argument, rather than focus on one singular point, which I think is nice. And I think all your points were really good and made a lot of sense. If Legolas and Gimli were arguing the whole time, that would have sucked to read, as within group arguing is never fun. I think Tolkien did a really good job of showing the readers just how important unity is, both in how the characters react to each other and how their backgrounds affect their interactions.
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