Elvenking of the Woodland Realm

OOC Information:
Name: Miri
Are you over 15? Sure am.
Contact: Plurk (pondicusrex) or AIM (kitchnnsync)

IC Information:
Name: Thranduil Oropherion > Teagan D. O’Reynne
Canon and medium: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium, featured most heavily in The Hobbit | Literature & also a movie series to supplement.
Age: a little over 6000 > 45
Preincarnation Species: Sindarin Elf

Preincarnation Appearance:


Any differences: As a human, he looks pretty much the same except for a few things. His ears are not pointed as they were before, and his hair is a more common yellow-blond rather than a white-blond. He has it cut shortish, never letting it get past his chin. He also doesn’t have a massively deforming burn scar on his face so that’s nice.

Preincarnated History:
Despite Tolkien’s apparent inability to be brief, Thranduil isn’t particularly well described in his books. His history can be assumed and inferred based on certain things, so I will do my best to explain certain inferences. There are a few little details that are subject to change, in case I find a direct Tolkien source that tells me specifics.

Thranduil was likely born in the Sindarin capital of Menegroth in Doriath, before the haven’s destruction, which would have planted the seed for his loathing of dwarves as the city being sacked by them would be one of his earliest memories. We also know that he is of noble Sindarin blood, but not how he is related to the Sindar nobility, only that is he not of the highest noble blood of Thingol and Melian. It was very early in his life that his mother perished, from the same grief and exhaustion that came from giving all their strength and energy to their child that took many other other elven mothers, such as Miriel, mother of Feanor. He would have been very young when the city was destroyed, and he and his father Oropher left with many of their kin to the city of Lindon under the rule of Gil-Galad. Oropher soon after left to claim the Greenwood, leaving his son in Lindon until he was old enough to join his father in a newly established kingdom. Thranduil remained in Lindon for two hundred of his younger years, causing Lindon to be, in his mind, his real home, rather than the forest he would live a longer life in. This can also be seen as the start of his developing bitterness, as Lindon was full of Sindarin elves, and most of the elves in the Greenwood were lesser Silvan wood elves. He would come to the Greenwood to be prince of what he believed to be a lower class of elf.

And so young Thranduil ruled with his father in the south of the Greenwood, in a castle on Amon Lanc that would later be called Dol Guldur. Thranduil lived in the south of the Greenwood for quite a long time, through most of the second age in fact, in relative peace. No one bothered the elves of the Greenwood and the elves of the Greenwood in turn didn't bother anyone either, except for the occasional conflict with Lorien elves and Moria Dwarves. It wasn't until the last alliance of men and elves against Sauron at the end of the second age that there was a major, notable disruption. Oropher joined the fight against Sauron under Gil-Galad, and Thranduil, along with a great majority of his people, faught in the war. Thranduil was deeply mentally, emotionally and physically damaged by this conflict. He was, from that moment, haunted by fear and paranoia of what the evils of the world can do. As supplemented by the Hobbit films, his face was burned by one of the Serpents of the North ( more commonly referred to as dragons ) under the power of Sauron during the battle, a wound which he hides with the help of the natural elven gift of glamour. Only during the first light of morning and under the bright Silmaril star can the shadow of the wound be seen without his active permission. After this war Thranduil Oropherion became a king and a recluse.

His father died on the battlefield, and a sizeable percentage of his people perished. Upon returning to the Greenwood he moved his people north, away from Amon Lanc and their Lorien and Moria neighbors. They built up the woodland halls and within them Thranduil reigned, continuing the production of wine and other goods and opening trade markets with the men who would come to inhabit the city of Dale. He was, despite his growing bitterness and general unpleasant demeanor, a good king. He cared for his people and put their safety, as well as his own, above everything else. In his eyes that meant keeping the elves of the greenwood isolated.

Two very important developments occurred between this point in his life and where we meet him in the Hobbit. The first is the encroaching darkness from the south. When Sauron (under the guise of the necromancer) took up residence in Dol Guldur (where Amon Lanc used to be), darkness began spreading from the south of the forest up. The forest became so infested with spiders and other dark creatures that the forest was colloquially renamed Mirkwood. The name, much to Thranduil’s chagrin, stuck. The peace of the the Greenwood was over, and the Sindarin and Silvan elves of Mirkwood spent a great deal of their time after that defending themselves and their wares from whatever creatures could find their hidden home. Most notably, spiders.

The second development is a much more major one for his personal history, and that being his marriage and the birth of his son, Legolas. Thranduil had known Linnaluin for some time, but did not fall in love with her until some centuries after the war. She was seen by their people, once she had become queen, as the right foil for their sour king, and with her he was happier than he had been since before the war. She bore him one son before her death, where she was killed by a spider who had crossed the threshold of their kingdom without being noticed by the guard. Legolas was still a child when she died, and Thranduil was burdened with the grief of Linnaluin’s death and the burden of caring for a child. After this he increased the strength of the watch and increased the patrols to destroy spider nests. It is debatable whether or not Thranduil was a good father to Legolas, but he did try. He’s simply not the fatherly type.

And now we come to the Hobbit, and the events mentioned therein. While they are the greatest amount of actual facts we get about Thranduil in the entire Tolkien Legendarium, its also a mildly unimportant part of his long life. Thranduil could have sent help to the dwarves of Erebor when Smaug attacked, but instead chose to keep his people safe in the face of dragon-fire instead. Why sacrifice the lives of his people for them, when the memory of dwarves attacking Doriath was amongst one of his first memories? The gain wasn’t worth the sacrifice. He continued his rule as it was, and we next see him when the dwarves and Bilbo are lost as all hell in the forest and, as far as Thranduil is concerned, crash their solstice festival. He did offer Thorin help from the elves in exchange for jewels and gold that had been previously stolen from his people by the dwarves over the years, though it was merely a formality, and one to give him good reason to restrain the company of dwarves. Thranduil, with all his expectations of the dwarves, would never have expected Thorin to actually agree. Of course, Thorin did disagree and they were kept in the dungeons of Mirkwood. The dwarves then escaped his captivity and did exactly the thing he didn’t want them to do: wake up the damn dragon.

It was not until the dragon was killed, though, that he deemed those jewels long since stolen worth attempting to recover. A dragon wasn't worth it, but a couple of dwarves absolutely were. And so he joined forced with the men of Laketown to get from Thorin what they were owed. This ended up being a far more intense battle than expected, with the arrival of orcs. The Battle of Five Armies ended awfully for the dwarves but relatively well for Thranduil. They got what they wanted, some reparations, and went back home to live in seclusion.

During the War of the Ring, Thranduil played little part. His people captured Gollum and tortured him for information, and when Gollum escaped he sent his son Legolas to Rivendell to let the council know. Little did he know that his only son and heir would volunteer for a suicide mission.

Well, Legolas didn’t die but he did go into the west eventually. Thranduil did not, and remained king of the Greenwood after splitting it with Celeborn in the fourth age (again, much to his chagrin). We don’t know how he died or if he ever did go into the west.  He likely did eventually go west, only when the majority of his people had decided they wanted to go as well.

Reincarnated History:
Teagan Dale O’Reynne was born in the New York Presbyterian Hospital 45 years ago, to Graham and Caroline O’Reynne, two years into their marriage. Both were from well to do families, Caroline’s being political and Graham’s being old money invested in business ventures. They had just begun to pool their resources towards Rain Enterprises, an environmental urban planning and investment firm, and would continue to live their lives creating a multi-million dollar company. This was the environment that Teagan grew up with, a combination of highly business oriented professionalism and a love of nature. His parents were, as he would be, highly environmentally conscious, and had an estate built in the woods surrounding Locke City, where their business headquarters were located. This was the house that Teagan and his two younger sisters, Lisa and Gwyn, grew up in. They were taught to live an environmentally sustainable life, and in doing so learned to respect nature, to hunt, to fish, and the value of a little hard work for the greater good.

He spent his youth shuttling between to a private school in the nicest part of Locke City, and various international private schools across the globe. His parents could keep him behind with a nanny but they would rather he be aware, be involved. He grew accustom to never knowing anyone and he liked it that way. He would rather be left alone with nature than the poisonous influence that he had been taught comes from the world humans have built.

He followed in his fathers footsteps, taking the necessary road to earn his position as CEO of the company once his father retired. He went to Yale for Environmental Law and supplemented his degree with the study of business. He worked his way up the chain of command with some ease, working for Rain Enterprises first on a legal capacity and then becoming directly involved in environmental protection and charity projects. Still, despite his work requiring him to be social, he never made many friends, never kept a relationship for longer than a few weeks. No men or women ever seemed to him particularly worth his time, when he had all the love he needed from his dogs and cats, as well as more love than he needed from his niece, Keira.

And so we come to Teagan in his late thirties, when his father and mother retired from controlling the company and passed the torch on to their oldest son. They took their early retirement with them abroad, moving to France and giving him the house in the woods as well, which he always had taken to. Now, at forty-five, he lives in relative comfort by himself, running the company from their headquarters in Locke City and leaving travel to his sisters, also in high positions within the company and living in New York City and Tokyo. He splits his time between his condo in the city and the house in the woods, with his two greyhounds (Freya and Rhys), and his four cats (Naya, Cassandra, Marcelline and Khan). He’s been trying to get the permits to turn the dead district into a park for ages, and it’s been irrationally difficult. Now that Thundercorp’s gotten the permits and has started, he’s particularly suspicious.

First Echo:

His first echo occurred when he was in the rain, hiding under a tree to avoid getting even more soaked than he already was. He was under the tree with Julien and, when hearing him speaking in Sindarin to a pigeon, found that he understood the words. His first echo, then, was the understanding of Sindarin Elvish as well as the numbers. This was played out in the test drive meme though I’ve changed it slightly from what was there simply based on now understanding the game a little better.

Preincarnation Personality:

“ But there was in Thranduil’s heart a still deeper shadow. He had seen the horror of Mordor and could not forget it. If ever he looked south its memory dimmed the light of the Sun, and though he knew that it was now broken and deserted and under the vigilance of the Kings of Men, fear spoke in his heart that it was not conquered for ever: it would arise again. ” - The Unfinished Tales, J. R. R. Tolkien

Thranduil Oropherion is, to say the least, a difficult person, and a far less pleasant presence than many of his kin. Most of his personality traits can be traced back to his post-traumatic stress regarding the Alliance of Elves and Men, and the terror of the fight. Before the war, we can say this: Thranduil was likely a more sociable elf, though perhaps not entirely extroverted. After the war, after his father and half of his people were killed, after seeing death and destruction all around him by the hands of those who would wish evil upon the war, Thranduil receded into his forest kingdom both physically and emotionally. He is and has been since then purposefully isolated, feeling safer and more comfortable when he and his people can be left alone. Thranduil is a more isolated, introverted elf than many others, but not by cause of any shyness. He is incredibly straight forward, in fact, with a belief that his words hold power strictly based on the fact that he is old, and he is king, which aren’t exactly bad reasons to believe that. This can be seen by many as haughty and arrogant, and in some sense he is indeed that. He does have a temper when challenged, which can really be seen in comparison to other elves rather than in comparison to men or dwarves. His anger is a seething hiss rather than a raucous shout, a quiet anger that will not hesitate to inflict justice. It is for this reason that some elves who are not of his kingdom believe him to be mad. His terribly changeable behavior is, for an elf, erratic. Those in his kingdom, should they believe so, say nothing of the sort. He has grown bitter, over the years, suspicious of others as encroaching evils, thieves, or disrespectful behavior. The war had taken from him any trust he might have had in the intentions of others. His bitterness is not tempered by his kin, as he believes the other elf lords do not respect him as a king, by his Sindar rather than Noldor blood and by the fact that his kingdom was claimed later in their history by his father directly. To make it all worse, they have rings of power, and the ring of power that should be his is instead in the hands of Gandalf. So, while he will be as respectful as need be to Elrond, Galadriel and Gandalf, it is not without distaste.

That is not to say, though, that Thranduil is not a good king. He strives to be just that, for as much contempt as he may have for his less than ideal subjects, and to his subjects he is giving. He understands his duty as king, having been raised as noble sindarin blood, though not necessarily as a prince. Everything that he does he claims is for the sake of his people, being isolationist in practice for the sake of protecting his kingdom. Many may claim that he is a coward, which he would object to, but it is not without reason. He is scared, by the possibility of evil returning to their lands and the memory of what he’s lived through, but fear tempers him rather than petrifies him. It is fear that enforces his logic and his belief that they are best off being isolated, rather than, say, poking the belly of the beast. It is notable, though, that once the worst danger has passed, he would not hesitate to interact with the outside world. He takes his troops, for example, to Erebor to regain their stolen gold only after the dragon had been killed, because dwarves he knows they can handle, whereas a dragon is a different evil entirely. He is not a coward as some like Thorin might say, simply an elf burned.

To say that Thranduil is without a heart though would be silly, despite that we only ever see Thranduil in the books during times of war and encroaching evil. He is not incapable of kindness, he simply does not hold it as a necessity nor see much value in it as a formality. He does enjoy a good festive occasion and fine drink among his people, but does not, like his son, partake in merrymaking. He would rather sit, watch, and think, alone in his head and comfortable in it. He has responsibility to represent his Sindar blood, when most of his subjects are Silvan. He is happy when his people are happy and, primarily, safe. If his people are safe, he is safe, and they can live their lives in peace with nature. With a mother who died when he was young and a father focused on creating and ruling a kingdom, Thranduil did not really have much experience in his early life to learn how to love properly. Loving was, in his experience, being a good king. Being fair but firm. Love, for him, must come from an outside source before it is returned slowly, quietly, but fully. Loving Thranduil Oropherion takes patience, as his wife and son both know.

Any differences:

Teagan has no PTSD. He has no reason to have any PTSD. His isolation is more along the lines of introversion and preferring animals and plants to people. He also, while proud, doesn’t see any reason to be particularly bitter to those with more power than him. He simply acknowledges them and moves on. That temper is still there though, should someone blatantly offend him in any way.

Abilities:

There are, in the case of elves, physical as well as “magical” abilities. Let’s start with the physical. Thranduil, by nature of being an elf, has heightened sense beyond those of a normal human, primarily though in keen eyesight and a sharp sense of hearing. They are incredibly light, making them quick and agile. Elves, Thranduil included, are a bit like cats in this way. If they want to sneak up on you, you won’t hear them coming. They do not physically age and are immortal lest they be killed or waste away from grief. They also have a keen sense of otherworldliness, being able to see creatures of shadow where others might not without say, the One Ring or some other magical items. They are also capable of some degree of telepathy, which isn’t made particularly clear by Tolkien. I choose to approach the telepathy as something more along the lines of exaggerated empathy, the ability to ‘know someone’s mind’ in a way that, with age, can develop into the ability to speak to others minds when they are most open to it. Being 6000 years old, Thranduil is no master at communicating with the minds of others but has achieved it before on certain occasions. They are less easily inebriated as well (though have created their own wine that does the trick).

Oh yes, and Elves don’t need to sleep either. They can, it’s pleasant enough, but its not necessary for survival. They can rest their minds while doing other activities.

Then there is “magic” in relation to the elves that Tolkien put very well into the words of Galadriel:

”For this is what you folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem to use the same word for the deceits of the Enemy.”

The trick with understanding elf magic is, I believe, in understanding their communion with the earth itself. Each thing that they have shown to be able to do is not magic so much as an intrinsic ability to be one with the natural world and therefore exert certain amounts of energy over it. These ‘magics’ include the ability to be skilled healers, the use of the power of words to aid in healing as well as motivate (or manipulate ). Thranduil is himself not as skilled at healing magic as other elves, but is entirely capable of performing it. While he is in theory entirely capable of verbal ‘incanting’ for lack of a better word, it requires a level of interpersonal empathy that his personality inhibits. Many higher and older elves, Thranduil included, are able to exert their power over an extended area, in ways that could be understood as something like a protection or a hiding spell. This is likely how the kingdom of Mirkwood remained hidden, on top of Sauron’s own influence from the south.

There is another element to Elven magic that Tolkien never really explains, and which I have taken to calling Elven Glamour. We know that the Elves are seen as pure and beautiful, like the glowing light of the sun and stars on many occasions. They can also be dirty (something more common when they have been under the ground and not exposed to the sunlight). This is Elven Glamour. It is the innate ability to create soothing, ideal illusion presenting the image of themselves onto the perception of another. This is how, in the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, Thranduil is able to hide what we are allowed to see as terrible burn scars under the guise of ideal, untarnished beauty. This is how, I believe, most elves hide their scars and blemishes (because immortal or not, life comes with scars and blemishes). Thranduil is particularly good at this.

So as for magic, lets sum up: healing, communion with nature, the use of words to ‘enchant’ or enhance the natural beyond current limitations, exerting energy over a large area (to protect for example) or a person (to inflict peace or terror), and glamour.

Roleplay Sample - Third Person:

Canon:

It was for the best that the discussion of Menegroth between Legolas and his friends was kept out of earshot of their king, with his goblet of wine nearing empty. He remembers it but vaguely, having been quite small indeed when the city fell. He did his best to replicate its cavernous halls in his own, but it fell somewhat short. There could be nothing again like the splendor of Menegroth, try all that he might to be king of someplace glorious.

Perhaps age had soured him, but the wine did its best to soften the edges. Music filled the halls and from his chair he could watch the dancing rather than listen to the chatter of children. The jovial nature of his people, Silvan and Sindarin alike, brings glimmers of joy to the shadows that rest in his heart and a warmth of home unassailed by the outside world. Let there always be merry-making in his halls, if it kept the shadows of the south at bay.

At the sudden attention of his son the wine did its part to make his lips curl into a small smile, though not without judgement from eyebrows above. He leans in towards Legolas, looking down at the growing elf who was once a child tugging on his robes with as much excitement without the help of wine. He leans his chin against his knuckles, his other hand rather occupied with his goblet.

“You know very well that I will not, Legolas, not with the winter upon us. You seem in a ready enough state to entertain yourself in some other manner.”

Game:

The leaves were changing color in the park, from green to red and falling down from the branches.  Rhys loves the fall, and he hugged on his leash to play with the leaves. Teagan considers his dogs well trained, despite the tugging, and Freya remained calm even while her brother flounced and dragged them along.  It's only when the tugging got too annoying and the embarrassment of being seen with an uncontrollable pet set into Teagan's chestthat he undid Rhys' leash and let him run around, sniffing away at leaves and bouncing into piles of them.  Freya stayed calmly beside him and he lead her to a bench, where they could watch Rhys play.  They sat in peace, for the moment, and he was content.  The day had been unnecessarily busy, filled with phone calls and messes he needed to clean up.  Too much running around, too many people making mistakes and insisting on being heard.  All day he longed for the comfort of being away from all that, until he could loosen his tie and take his dear dogs for a walk. 

Greyhounds were better than most people, certainly. 

It was a whine from Freya that pulled him out of his reverie of peace, and when he looks back down at her with a raised eyebrow she quirks her head, waiting, talking to him in her own way. 

"Alright, you want to play too, I get it." 

Unhooking her leash as well, she licked his hand in thanks before walking off to join her brother in the leaves.  Birds whistled in the trees and the headache that had been building behind his eyes slowly faded, a small smile curling on his lips. 

Roleplay Sample - Network:

[ With numbers pinned into an internet search engine he has found himself on the network once again, as he had before, and the time before that. It’s a video, the recording light glowing red in the corner of his eye as he watches his screen, thinking. There had been a thought on the tip of his tongue to say but now, now it doesn’t seem prudent.

He sighs quietly through his nose as he pours himself another glass of wine. He swirls the glass and sips before actually speaking. ]

If anyone needs me, I’ll be spending the weekend at my estate. My cellphone will be off. God forbid it be so urgent that you need to harass me in person.