#elves lotr
thinking about my elf OC today that I’ve been developing since I was six years old and now I’m taking a college level course and studying elvish language to further validate him
I’ve always liked to imagine that the “more dangerous and less wise” reputation of Mirkwood was created entirely on purpose by the Elves themselves to ward off people who didn’t know better.
It would fit with the canon fact that the Rohirrim believed a strange sorceress lived in the Golden Wood (“few escape her nets, they say”). And Treebeard, when asked by Merry why they were warned against Fangorn Forest by Celeborn, said that had Merry and Pippin been going the other way, he would’ve warned them against Lothlórien, since “I am surprised that you ever got out, but much more surprised that you ever got in”.
Mirkwood and Lothlórien both have a reputation of being “dangerous and strange places” and I like to think Galadriel and Thranduil encouraged that reputation as an extra layer of protection for their people.
but also because it’s mysterious and sexy to be a pretty blond powerful ruler of big pretty powerful forest
