Is there a character you're obsessed with?

[Urwen]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Another possibility is that Mrs. Thranduil is really uncomfortable in large crowds. I say this because there's exactly one named character who could even possibly be Legolas' mother, and that description fits her perfectly: Nellas, Turin's childhood friend, who was socially awkward enough that she began her defence of Turin on capital charges with "My king, I was sitting in a tree. [Silence]"

We know that Thranduil's people didn't so much live in the Halls as centre on them (per The Hobbit), so it could well be that she left Faux-Menegroth to her husband, and spent her time outside in the wider Northern Mirkwood.

(She'd be Thranduil's wife rather than Oropher's on the basis that Thranduil seems to remember the death of Thingol as something he was around for, and I don't think there's enough time between Turin's departure and Thingol's death for Nellas to have plausibly gotten married.)

All pure fanon, but if you want a canon character to marry Thranduil, I'm pretty sure she's it.*

hS

*Okay, okay, one of two... "Meleth, nurse of Earendil, was a Sinda of Nevrast who escaped with Idril's party and met Thranduil in the Havens of Sirion". It could work, just about, but would require her to completely throw out her time in Gondolin and be happy living in a knock-off of Menegroth.

Nah, Meleth loved Morleg. You will rip this headcanon from my cold dead hands.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Urwen

Nah, Meleth loved Morleg. You will rip this headcanon from my cold dead hands.

I don't think she's a great fit either, but I felt obligated to mention her for completeness' sake.

hS

[Urwen]

Also, I doubt that Nellas got over big brother that quickly.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Urwen

Also, I doubt that Nellas got over big brother that quickly.

Ah, but that's the beauty of it: she doesn't have to get over him for millennia. All she has to do is be together-enough to escape from Doriath (my in-progress fanfic of this has Thranduil leading her out); after that, she would naturally fall in with the party that wants to go live in forests again (rather than hanging out in Lindon or Eregion). She could of course sail West - but the West is full of Noldor, and who was it that actually burned Doriath? Yeah. I can't see her going that way, not when 'more forests' is an option.

hS

[mindil]

I'm fine with Nellas, especially if she's a Nandor.

If not, if his parentage is pure Sindar, how does it fit the puzzle I thought of - why Legolas is not treated as royalty in Lorien, and why he acts so uneducated?

[mindil]

Also, who was Nellas's big brother?

[Urwen]

Originally Posted by mindil

Also, who was Nellas's big brother?

Not hers. Mine. ^_^

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by mindil

I'm fine with Nellas, especially if she's a Nandor.

If not, if his parentage is pure Sindar, how does it fit the puzzle I thought of - why Legolas is not treated as royalty in Lorien, and why he acts so uneducated?

Depends what your instincts are on Oropher's parentage, I guess--the theory that he is a distaff Elwëan isn't definitive (I've never been inclined toward it, though I see its merits). So, if you are looking at Lórien as a place that recognises the kin of Elu Thingol as preeminent, why would take the grandson of some upstart kingdom-founder as a lord when you have Celeborn, who is presumably the eldest male-line Elwëan left in Middle-earth (I'm making some assumptions about his father and brother here...) who is wedded to the granddaugther of Olwë?

But I'm not entirely convinced that we should take the denizens of Lórien--and Mirkwood, for that matter--as necessarily revering all things Sindar. It's clear enough that the founders of those realms did (Oropher and Amdír) and they probably had a nucleus of followers around them, and obviously they presented something by their presence to the Silvan Elves that allowed kingdoms to collalesce around them, but the realms that resulted are still fundamentally Sylvan more than Sindar.

Granted, I've already given away my bias in thinking that Oropher and Amdír were probably not relatives of Thingol, so for the sake of consistency, I'm imagining that the argument of "I'm kin to the King of the Sindar" wasn't part of the founding myths of those realms, even if "I will be a new Thingol" was clearly a personal motivation--in Mirkwood, definitely. Amdír is a harder case to make any solid guesses on, not least because the history of Lórien between the Fall of Thangorodrim and the loss of Amroth is better described as written in pencil than indelible ink. It's not hard, in the LotR, anyway, to squint and say that the conception where he's the son of Celeborn and Galadriel still holds.

[mindil]

I wasn't thinking Lorien should treat Legolas as equal to Celeborn. But still, visiting royalty should get some fancy attention, and he gets none. Aragorn gets more respect from the Lord and Lady than Legolas - which seems appropriately earned. Even Boromir seems to get more. Yet Legolas has had at least a few hundred years to do something to justify his royal upbringing - and still we don't see anything, not in his behavior, not in how Lorien treats him. (They welcome him better than the rest of the fellowship, but that's for being an elf.)

I wonder why Legolas is such a washout among relatives of his own people.