[mark12_30]

‘If Gandalf would go before us with a bright flame, he might melt a path for you,’ said Legolas. The storm had troubled him little, and he alone of the Company remained still light of heart.

‘If Elves could fly over mountains, they might fetch the Sun to save us,’ answered Gandalf. ‘But I must have something to work on. I cannot burn snow.’

Legolas watched them for a while with a smile upon his lips, and then he turned to the others. ‘The strongest must seek a way, say you? But I say: let a ploughman plough, but choose an otter for swimming, and for running light over grass and leaf or over snow-an Elf.’

I thihnnk I'll agree with Ibrîniðilpathânezel (gesundheit) on this one. Legolas isn't in personal danger, and he's having a hard time realizing that the rest of them are, and having an even harder time taking it personally. Nobody has died yet, so to speak. What's the worry?

An hour, maybe, went by, though it seemed far longer, and then at last they saw Legolas coming back. At the same time Boromir and Aragorn reappeared round the bend far behind him and came labouring up the slope.

‘Well,’ cried Legolas as he ran up, ‘I have not brought the Sun. She is walking in the blue fields of the South, and a little wreath of snow on this Redhorn hillock troubles her not at all. But I have brought back a gleam of good hope for those who are doomed to go on feet. There is the greatest wind-drift of all just beyond the turn, and there our Strong Men were almost buried. They despaired, until I returned and told them that the drift was little wider than a wall. And on the other side the snow suddenly grows less, while further down it is no more than a white coverlet to cool a hobbit’s toes.’

Still a rather happy-go-lucky attitude. Does he care? It would seem as though he does not. Apparently it is something he will learn.

Shortly thereafter, they have a fight with wolves, and it is a close call; Gandalf's flames carry the day. THen the march through Moria, quibbling with Gimli as he goes. The fight at Balin's tomb ends thus:

Now!’ shouted Gandalf. ‘Now is the last chance. Run for it!’

Aragorn picked up Frodo where he lay by the wall and made for the stair, pushing Merry and Pippin in front of him. The others followed; but Gimli had to be dragged away by Legolas: in spite of the peril he lingered by Balin’s tomb with his head bowed.

Suddenly Legolas gets his fingernails dirty. What motivated him there? Two fights and a long dark march? DId his bickering with the dwarf awaken something brotherly or familial? Why is it that Legolas is the one to drag Gimli away?

Next time Legolas is mentioned:

Legolas turned and set an arrow to the string, though it was a long shot for his small bow. He drew, but his hand fell, and the arrow slipped to the ground. He gave a cry of dismay and fear. Two great trolls appeared; they bore great slabs of stone, and flung them down to serve as gangways over the fire. But it was not the trolls that had filled the Elf with terror.

‘Ai! ai!’ wailed Legolas. ‘A Balrog! A Balrog is come!’

Is this the first time Legolas has truly looked death in the face? Or is this just the first time it has "sunken in?"

After Gandalf fell, Legolas, along with the others, "wept long: some standing and silent, some cast upon the ground."

On the way to Lorien, it is Legolas who notices that Frodo and Sam have fallen behind.

In Lothlorien, Legolas is bubbly with elf-lore, and quibbles with Gimli; after they meet with Galadriel and Celeborn,

Legolas was away much among the Galadhrim, and after the first night he did not sleep with the other companions, though he returned to eat and talk with them. Often he took Gimli with him when he went abroad in the land, and the others wondered at this change.

Now as the companions sat or walked together they spoke of Gandalf, and all that each had known and seen of him came clear before their minds. As they were healed of hurt and weariness of body the grief of their loss grew more keen. Often they heard nearby Elvish voices singing, and knew that they were making songs of lamentation for his fall, for they caught his name among the sweet sad words that they could not understand.

Mithrandir, Mithrandir sang the Elves, O Pilgrim Grey! For so they loved to call him. But if Legolas was with the Company, he would not interpret the songs for them, saying that he had not the skill, and that for him the grief was still too near, a matter for tears and not yet for song.

Quite a change.