Q: Why Was Thranduil So Hostile to Thorin?
ANSWER: People have asked this question in several different ways across the years. The strange relationship between Thranduil and Dwarves is difficult to explain because there are so many inconsistencies in his story. And people cannot agree on what Tolkien was referring to when describing the ancient disagreement between Elves and Dwarves in a notable passage in The Hobbit.
The problem, in my opinion, is that three stories became intertwined in The Hobbit. The oldest story is the tale of Thingol and the Nauglamir. When you read The Silmarillion you discover the story of how the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost befriended Thingol’s people in Beleriand thousands of years before Melkor flees Valinor and returns to Middle-earth. This ancient friendship between Elves and Dwarves, we only learned in The Peoples of Middle-earth, was darkened because the Sindar hunted the Petty-Dwarves until they learned they were merely outcasts from the larger Dwarven societies. Thingol’s people remained allied and friendly with the Dwarves, but ultimately Thingol quarreled with them over possession of the Silmaril recovered by Beren and Luthien, which the Valar had cursed. After the Dwarves of Nogrod murdered Thingol they fought their way out of Doriath, destroying the kingdom in the process.
It was that story to which J.R.R. Tolkien briefly alluded in The Hobbit when describing the Elvenking (revealed to be Thranduil in The Lord of the Rings) and his halls via the narrative.
In July 2017 I received the following question:
When Gimli describes the Glittering Caves to Legolas, he mentions that Dwarves had helped the Elves digging out Thranduil’s Halls. I find this remarkable; why then was Thranduil so unfriendly to Thorin’s company in the Hobbit, and why would Orodreth (who moved his people from Amon Lanc to Emyn Duir before the Last Alliance) have asked Dwarves to help him? Would he not have remembered the death of his lord Thingol?
First, let me say that Thranduil’s father and predecessor was Oropher, not Orodreth. Orodreth succeeded his uncle Finrod was King of Nargothrond. Nargothrond had originally been inhabited by Dwarves, and when Finrod settled there Thingol secured the aid of the Dwarves in enlarging the halls.
As for the Elvenking’s attitude toward Thorin, he wasn’t belligerent at first. The Elves tolerated the Dwarves’ presence in the forest, even ignoring their first two intrusions into their feast. It was only after the third intrusion that the Elves took Thorin prisoner. Once Thorin was brought before the Elvenking on his throne, he became uncooperative and refused to explain why he and his companions were traveling through the forest.
This is one of the best moments in the written Hobbit, in my opinion. Tolkien sets up the conflict very well. The reader is shown that the Elvenking is not intrinsically hostile to Dwarves, even if he is not warm and welcoming. Thorin could have handled the situation better. I think Tolkien showed that Thorin, exhausted and hungry, was not on his best behavior. But he was also traveling in secret and I’ve always understood that his goal was not to draw attention to his plan until he absolutely had to.
One can imagine how Thorin could have been more diplomatic, or how the Elvenking could have tried again to speak with Thorin, but I think that would weaken the narrative structure of the story. The narrative needed a conflict that would serve as the motivation for Bilbo’s next adventure, which was to rescue the Dwarves and help them get underway again. Bilbo’s role in the story would have been diminished if Thorin and the Elvenking had worked out their differences via quiet, diplomatic discussion.
As for Oropher seeking help from the Dwarves in digging his halls, Tolkien simply doesn’t explain anything. In one passage he says Oropher moved away from Amon Lanc in part because of the proximity of the Dwarves of Khazad-dum. So his motivations are very confusing. One must “fill in the gaps” by assuming that Tolkien meant for something extraordinary to happen, perhaps something worthy of at least a short anecdote some day, but he never found time or inspiration to tell that story. At the very least, I think it unlikely Oropher would have befriended Dwarves from Nogrod without some very special amelioration, but to assume anything like that happened is to go well beyond the implications of any of J.R.R. Tolkien’s published notes and stories.
My advice to people writing fan fiction or running games around Oropher’s realm is to assume that he found common ground with non-Nogrodian Dwarves. They could have allied with each other against evil creatures long before the War of the Last Alliance.
See Also …
- How Is Thranduil Different from the Book?
- Why Did Thranduil Refuse to Help the Dwarves of Erebor?
- What Was the Cause of Strife between Elves and Dwarves?
- What Didn’t the Elves Help the Dwarves in The Hobbit?
- Are there Other Elf-Dwarf Friendships besides Legolas and Gimli?
- Was the Elvenking of The Hobbit Supposed to be Thingol Greycloak?
# # #
Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
The reference to dwarven help in delving the halls of Elvenking comes from Gimli in Lotr, but in The Unfinished Tales, it is said that he had no help of dwarves (probably an omission by Tolkien)
“‘You have not seen, so I forgive your jest,’ said Gimli. ‘But you speak like a fool. Do you think those halls are fair, where your King dwells under the hill in Mirkwood, and Dwarves helped in their making long ago? They are but hovels compared with the caverns I have seen here: immeasurable halls, filled with an everlasting music of water that tinkles into pools, as fair as Kheled-zâram in the starlight.”
“In another passage written at the same time as the foregoing it is said that when a thousand years of the Third Age had passed and the Shadow fell upon Greenwood the Great, the Silvan Elves ruled by Thranduil
retreated before it as it spread ever northward, until at last Thranduil established his realm in the north-east of the forest and delved there a fortress and great halls underground. Oropher was of Sindarin origin, and no doubt Thranduil his son was following the example of King Thingol long before, in Doriath; though his halls were not to be compared with Menegroth. He had not the arts nor wealth nor the aid of the Dwarves; and compared with the Elves of Doriath his Silvan folk were rude and rustic. Oropher had come among them with only a handful of Sindar, and they were soon merged with the Silvan Elves, adopting their language and taking names of Silvan form and style.”
Though since Thranduil did have considerable wealth in The Hobbit (“his hoard was rich”, though certainly and the Hobbit book also acknowledges this, his wealth wasn’t as great as the legendary riches of other elf lords) and opportunity to have the Dwarves help (both because of proximity of the Lonely Mountain and Ered Mithrin where many Dwarves lived after fall of Moria, and since the Gimli’s line is in all published versions then I guess it can be said that Dwarves did help in carving those halls).
I’ve been struggling with a bad cold this week and didn’t do as thorough a job on that article as I wanted to. Thanks for the comment. I ,may come back and edit the article later when I’m feeling better.