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In The Fellowship of the Ring, Glóin and Gimli attend the Council of Elrond to discuss the One Ring. Legolas is also in attendance.

In the movies at least, Legolas is a major part of the story and is a major factor in allowing the Dwarves to reach Erebor. Plus it's only about 60 years between the end of the events of The Hobbit and the creation of the Fellowship of the ring and those events aren't something either a dwarf or an elf would forget very easily.

So, my question is actually a two parter. Why is Glóin so hostile towards Legolas and the elves during the Council of Elrond? And why do the two not even acknowledge each other? I don't remember exactly, but I'm fairly certain that Legolas wasn't a part of the events of The Hobbit in the book. Should I just chalk this up to movie inconsistency?

2 Answers 2

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Movie inconsistency. Legolas was not written into the Hobbit.

If you want a canon answer, they only interact once, and Legolas is an elf and also insults his son, might make you ignore him.

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It's part of the nature of Tolkien's Dwarves that they are slow to forget grievances; for example from The Silmarillion ("Of Aulë and Yavanna"):

Therefore they are stone-hard, stubborn, fast in friendship and in enmity...

Legolas and Glóin actually do have some (brief) interaction in the books, at "The Council of Elrond", where Glóin shows in no uncertain terms that he still bears some resentment over his imprisonment:

'You were less tender to me,' said Glóin with a flash of his eyes as old memories were stirred of his imprisonment in the deep places of the Elven-king's halls.

As you said, "those events aren't something either a dwarf or an elf would forget very easily", and this Dwarf certainly didn't.

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    But note Glóin means "you" generically, ie "you Wood-Elves", not "you, Legolas" specifically. Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 14:57
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    @DanielRoseman - true that, but he's addressing Legolas while he's saying it. So while it is expressing it as a grievance against the wood-elves collectively, it's Legolas he's expressing the grievance to.
    – user8719
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 15:38
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    +1. And @DanielRoseman, as the (as far as we know) eldest son of Thranduil the Elvenking, it's not unreasonable to think Legolas might have encountered Gloin during his imprisonment. It isn't mentioned in the book (because Legolas hadn't been conceived of yet), but the comment quoted above could have been about an unseen encounter between Gloin and Legolas, even in the novels. They were certainly in the same place at the same time, and a prince would likely have known about the arrival of traveling royalty (i.e. Thorin).
    – Nerrolken
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 17:35
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    @Nerrolken - it's reasonably certain that the comment wasn't about such an encounter; the context of it is as a follow-up to Legolas saying (as part of his story about Gollum): "we had not the heart to keep him ever in dungeons under the earth, where he would fall back into his old black thoughts". Despite that, it needn't actually refer to any such encounter, as referring to the wood-elves collectively is still sufficient to answer the question "Why is Gloin so hostile towards Legolas and the elves during the Council of Elrond?"
    – user8719
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 18:22

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