Legolas' and Gimli's contest at Helm's Deep
 

I really love LOFTR, but there is one scene I find particularly annoying, and that is when Legolas and Gimli are playing a who-killed-the-most-orcs contest in helm's Deep.

It appears as if they are killing for sport, and that does not fit in with the philosophy underlying the story. Especially an elf as a wise and kind being should not participate in such a contest.
Although the orcs are generally mean and are actually attacking Helm's Deep, in other places there are described as abused creatures.
It is one thing to kill out of need, but quite antother to kill for pleasure or sport.

What do you think? [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] [/QUOTE]"In any case we did not kill him: he is very all and very wretched. The Wood elves have him in prison, but they treat him with such kindness as they can find in their wise hearts."

My opinion of this scene was that Gimli and Legolas were actually trying to create a diversion to the horribleness of what was taking place. They were not, I believe, "killing for sport", yet they were rather trying to "make the best out of a bad situation" by creating a game of it. I think that Tolkien put this scene in at this specific time of the book to lessen the gravity and seriousness of what was occurring, so that the reader would not get overwhelmed. Shakespeare used this same tactic many times during his own plays, including: Julius Caesar.

Actually, I enjoyed this part of the book, for it showed the great friendship between the dwarf and elf. Well, this is my personal opinion, and other people probally have many others. Namarie.

It is now long since I read that part (re-reading LotR at the moment, but am currently in Lothlórien), I don't think I ever thought of it when I last read it.

However, when you mentioned it I also started to think of it in the same way as Galadel did: they (/Tolkien) were trying to make the very grave and hopeless situation lighter (both for themselves and for the reader).

I think I would have to agree with Galadel. It didn't seem to me that they were killing for sport at all, and I too enjoyed this part of the book. That is all I have to say.

Fighting in a battle like the Battle at Helm's Deep, and constantly slaying Orcs for hours on end would get rather tiring after a while. Once you get bored of doing something, you stop "acting" to the best of your potential. In a battle, you just cannot afford that. One small misstep and you could be dead. It was imperative that Legolas and Gimli had to keep their full attention on "slaying," so, they turned it into a game. It is human nature to want to be the best at anything. If you see someone killing more Orcs than you, then you immediately want to start killing even more Orcs. That is exactly what Legolas and Gimli were doing.

Also, they are guys. Guys naturally want to beat other guys at something. So when Legolas is killing more guys than Gimli the testosorone gets flowing and thus starts a contest. It is also a bonding moment for elves and dwarves. If Legolas and Gimli werent friends they probably wouldnt have that contest.

Pre-modern warriors actually had quite a thing about counting kills.

Medieaval warriors counted how many they killed, and compared; Native AMericans scalped people to keep score and prove their braveness; Celts colected HEADS...(or, in Asterix, helmets (since nobody gets killed in war in Asterix [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ) ) it seems to have been a bravery competition in older time, a way of "proving" your manhood.

Gimli and Legolas aren;t so stupid as to try to "prove they're brave/manly" by killing, but I guess they're just trying to see who can kill the most in a light-hearted competition - isnce they know they could die in the battle, I suppose this "game" as Legolas called it after, was a way of staving off despair - note that when Legolas hears that Gimli's whereabouts are unknown, and that they hope he made it to the caves, Legolas responds that it's a shame as he wanted to tell Gimli his score! [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

I think of it this way...

If i was at Helm's Deep and the scum of the world was trying to kill me, wouldnt i try and kill as many of the buggers as i could? Sure! And what better way than to have a contest with my friends. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

It was one of my fave. parts of TTT [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

My guess is they harbored just a bit of a grudge against the orcs, since the orcs were attacking without provocation with orders to kill anyone in their paths. Why not make a game or a competition of it, to, as Finwe said, stay focused?

I wonder...did they only kill Orks, or were there men too? Orks are living things, but they're that much easier to hate. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

It's not just a pre-modern thing either. In WW1 and WW2 (and in more recent wars too) fighter pilots and tank crews have chalked up the number of "kills" on their respective machines.

It's not really "killing for sport" though. The battles fought in the War of the Ring were visited upon the free peoples. Like WW2, it was a war that had to be fought, for the sake of freedom from oppression. Legolas and Gimli at Helm's Deep, in common with all the Free Peoples during the War of the Ring, had no choice but to kill those who were attacking them. In a spirit of comradeship, and (as others have said) as a way of trying to divert their attention from the seeming hopelessness of their situation, they made a competition out of it. I am sure that Tolkien witnessed similar acts of comradeship and bonding in the trenches during WW1.

Perhaps Tolkien was using this as a way for Elves and Dwarves to lessen the tension that existed between them.

Perhaps so. It could have been another step in the developing Legolas-Gimli friendship, where we see the two really warming up to each other.

Not at all, they were killing out of necessity.

Their enemies were trying to kill them leaving Legolas and Gimli with no choice but to kill their enemies. It was kill or be killed, and the fact that they kept score does not change the situation in any way (it just keeps their minds occupied and makes the story more interesting for us).

I always saw it as a way of whistling in the dark. It's not as if Legolas and Gimli are filled with insatiable bloodlust and just happened upon the Orcs when they felt like having a head-counting party. They have to kill or be killed - I'd say that the contest was a way to keep their minds occupied and yet keep concentrating at the same time.

I don't think that a lighthearted contest somehow detracts from the fundamental morality or immorality of their killing Orcs - as C.S. Lewis once pointed out, a long face is not a moral disinfectant. If they were soberly murdering men of Rohan, they'd be wrong to do it. If they were giggling like schoolgirls while killing invading Orcs (as disturbing an image as that is) they'd still be right. Everything else is gravy.

I would not say they were killing for pleasure, but maybe they were actually having even a little bit of fun during the "game". It must feel rather exhilarating to kill many of your opponents, and to think that the chances of you being killed are decreasing as the Orcs decrease.

Matrix 3: If it is our time to die, we give them hell before they do. Or something like that... :rolleyes:

Since Orcs were never convertible to the cause of good(which is good for bad guys who use them, for they never defect), Psyops never had use in the wars characterised in the WotR. Think about this.

Lot less action, don't you think?

->Elenrod, aka Nilpaurion aka Alatar aka Mouth of Sauron(whew!)

[ 7:21 AM January 02, 2004: Message edited by: Nilpaurion Felagund ]

I see that you perceived the scene quite differently. It occured to me that the contest was meant to make the dread of the battle endurable, but it just did not have that effect on me.

[QUOTE]: It is perhaps not possible in a long tale to please every body at all points, nor to displease everybody at the same points,..." (foreword to 2nd edition)

You know how modern soldiers leave playing cards on enemy corpses?

What if they start leaving Gimli quotes around...stuff like "That still counts as one!" on tanks, etc. [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

Now that would definitely be amusing. But somehow, I don't think that Tolkien would quite like the idea of people writing Gimli quotes on tanks. After all, they're tanks. I, for one, think Gimli can do MUCH better! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

When death is such a stark reality people often joke about it or approach it with a sort of lightheartedness in an attempt to make it less frightening. Dark humor, but humor none the less; it's been pretty much beaten to death in any standard war film.

I think in Tolkien's case it was a way to inject some humor into the plot as well as to show the progressing friendship between the pair without sacrificing the competitiveness between them.

On a side note my friend supposedly had a buddy in Iraq who had "Durin's Bane" & a balrog painted onto his crew's tank. So maybe the ace of spades is out.

Now that's cool. [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

Angband, even pilots have an innocuous name for the most catastrophic way for them to die: They call a mid-air collision fox-four.

I wonder if they'll invent a funny turn for someone's death. Like pulled a Túrin(suicide) or Théodened(killed by your own horse).

->Elenrod