Thranduil – Elven King

Thranduil, also known as the Elvenking, was a Sindarin elf, King of the Woodland Realm, and father of Legolas. Because of Bilbo’s exploits and tales, Thranduil is perhaps the most well-known of the Elvenkings among non-elves. He was the leader of the wood-elves ofNorthern Mirkwood for more than three thousand years in Middle-earth, seeing his realm through attacks by the great spiders and the orcs. Thranduil was known for disliking the dwarves, a trait common among many of his kind.

First and Second Ages

Thranduil was the only son of Oropher. He was born sometime during the end of the First Age and lived in Doriath with Thingol and Melian. At the beginning of the Second Age, Thranduil lived in Lindon with Gil-galad while his father lived in Greenwood. After Oropher died in the war of Last Alliance, Thranduil went east to claim his inheritance and sometime before TA 1000 he established a kingdom in Greenwood the Great.

Third Age

 When Thorin Oakenshield and his party of Dwarvesentered northernMirkwood, they were captured by Thranduil’s guards and locked up when they refused to divulge their intentions. It was revealed that Thranduil had a quarrel with Dwarves over some jewels, possibly referring to the First Age murder in Doriath of the Elf kingThingol and the theft of his Silmaril.

After the death of the dragon Smaug, Thranduil supported Bard the Bowman’s claim of a share of the treasure the Dwarves recovered from the Lonely Mountain (Erebor), since Bard was a descendent of LordGirion of Dale, and the treasure of that town had been taken by Smaug to Erebor.

Thranduil led the elven forces in the Battle of the Five Armies, and during the War of the Ring he repulsed an attack from Dol Guldur. His actions were in concert with the Dwarves and the Men of Dale against the Easterlingswho attacked from the East.

Thranduil sent his son Legolas in Rivendell, along with other Elves to report Gollum’s escape in Mirkwood. The gradually-established friendship between the Dwarf Gimli and Legolas later helped to reconcile Thranduil’s people with the Dwarves.

Fourth Age

After the fall of Sauron, Thranduil fixed the southern boundary of his realm as theMountains of Mirkwood, and the Woodland Realm flourished well into the Fourth Age. He may have stayed on as the king of the Great Forest or left Middle-earth.

Lurtz – The Uruk-Hai Leader

Lurtz was the first of Saruman’s Uruks to be bred, choking the first orc he sees to death within seconds of his birth. Attempting to intervene, other orcs (Snagae) move towards the newly born Uruk-Hai warrior, but Saruman halts their advance, intrigued by the malice and violence present in the Uruk’s blood, leaving the unfortunate orc to its fate. He became Saruman’s second-in-command, and led them into battle against the Fellowship of the Ring at Amon Hen. Lurtz was born from the first batch of Uruk-hai in Isengard’s pits, and so was much smarter and stronger than the later breeds which were bred more quickly, presumably so Saruman could amass an army more quickly; they likely developed to their fullest potential. Given that he gave orders to the other Uruks at the Amon Hen and given that he was given private audience with Saruman, he could presumably be called the strongest, smartest and most loyal of all of Saruman’s Uruk-hai warriors.

In the book-series, Boromir was slain by orc archers, described as having been “pierced by many arrows”. In the movie he was killed by Lurtz, who shoots him three times in the chest. Aragorn intervenes, tackling Lurtz to the ground before he could fire a close-range finishing shot at the Gondorian captain, and after a brief but intense fight, cuts off Lurtz’s right arm, stabs him in the stomach, and finally decapitates the Uruk leader. Boromir dies a few seconds later.  In the book, Uglúk was the leader of the orc-band from the beginning, with no mention of Lurtz at all.

The only notable personality trait he displays is a high tolerance to pain, shrugging off Aragorn stabbing him through the leg with a knife and slicing off his arm, and when stabbed through the stomach he actually pulls himself up to Aragorn in a last ditched effort to kill him – this shows that Lurtz, as the most powerful of all Uruk-hai, will never give up on killing his enemies.

The name “Lurtz” may have been derived by Jackson and his co-writers from the style ofTolkien’s Orkish language, specifically the name Lugburz, but it also sounds similar to Lurch from The Addams Family.

Lurtz’s name is never spoken aloud in the original film; it is only known from the franchise and credits.

However, in the extended edition of the film, Lurtz’s name is spoken by Saruman. Despite some initial fears that he was an entirely new character, he really wasn’t much different from other ‘generic Orc leaders’ already present in the book.

The character of Lurtz is one of the playable “heroes” for the Isengard faction in the computer game The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, and the sequel The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, as well as a boss in the console game adaptions of The Two Towers, and ironically doesn’t appear in any of The Fellowship of the Ring video games. He also appears as a playable character in the video game The Lord of the Rings: Conquest and Lego: Lord of the Rings after he is unlocked.