but I'm a nice elf
Upon re-watching the third Hobbit movie, I started thinking some thoughts about That Love Triangle. Now, I know that love triangles are the quick and lazy go-to of fiction looking for conflict (true) and that they're usually perpetuated without any idea as to why at least two of the characters might have a thing for one another (also true) and that THREESOME! is the only real and proper way to solve them (so very true).
And I'm not saying I liked this love triangle, because I didn't -- I thought it was a lazy go-to in terms of creating conflict where none had been before, and I was pretty unconvinced by the assertion that Tauriel had a thing for Legolas, especially by contrast to how she obviously is over the moon for Kili. But I actually really liked how part of it was handled, and that part was mostly what they did with Legolas.
Spoilers for, uh, everything behind the cut, though there's also a paragraph for people who don't care about Hobbit movie canon but want to know what on earth could make me like anything about a love triangle.
Okay, here's the what's all this, then? paragraph: Legolas (a boy elf-prince) and Tauriel (a girl elf-guard) live in the same woods; he's got a thing for her, and she's got at least something of a thing for him, but their mismatched statuses and Legolas' racist, classist party dad mean that's a no-go. They meet a bunch of dwarves, though, and despite how these elves hate dwarves and vice versa, she and the prettiest boy-dwarf, Kili, fall for one another. The dwarves go fleeing off into peril and she learns Kili is hurt a lot worse than he thinks he is, so she goes after him to save his dumb ass, and Legolas tags along. The dumb-ass-saving is successful, but other bad things happen, and at the end, Kili gets killed by an orc who's kicking the tar out of Tauriel, an orc which Legolas then kills. Final body count, the elves live and the dwarf dies.
With that kind of setup, you can imagine a lot of HIGH DRAMAZ about WHICH ONE WILL SHE CHOOZ and all that. But nope, she and the pretty dwarf basically fall in love at first giant spider fight -- and it's pretty obvious love, too, as Legolas is standing here side-eyeing the whole arrangement. (Note: We know from the start, because we've seen/read the Lord of the Rings, that Tauriel and Legolas won't end up Together Forever, because we see him galavanting through the whole ring thing without her, so any WHICH ONE drama would never have culminated in the standoff between Team Kiliel and Team Taurolas [Legoliel?], but still.) So with all that in mind, here are the things I'm please as punch don't happen with Legolas:
- He never throws a temper tantrum about it. This may have something to do with how he is being all Stoic Beautiful Elf throughout (just like his ada!), but really, he could have pitched such a shitfit, or had some manpain (elfpain?). Nope! He's being affected by it, sure, and you get that at points, but he also has so very many other, larger problems, and he's not going to let even a fairly serious crush on the pretty girl distract him.
- He never disapproves selfishly. Oh, he disapproves, sure, but that's more along the lines of, do you know how fucked-up it is to go all gooey-eyed over a dwarf in general, much less a dwarf who's on some ridiculous quest with his asshole uncle? And he's got a very valid point there, considering that her mere disobedience in running off after the dwarves is enough to get her banished. She may not be royalty, but she's got a pretty good status among her people, one which it would not be wise to jeopardize. The only time Legolas really steps in and cockblocks (rockblocks!) is when Kili is about to go with the rest of the dwarves to hole up in the newly retaken dwarven kingdom, and Legolas is like, going with those idiots is literally the worst idea anyone has ever had, and anyway, I need you to help me do a thing. He has legitimate, valid reasons to frown on letting any elf of his kind go with any non-elf in general, and a dwarf from Thorin "That Dickhead" Oakenshield's company in particular. At no point is there any hint of 'don't go with him because then you won't be with meeeee'.
- He doesn't throw her under the bus after it's clear she's not interested. In fact, he keeps helping her with no evidence that he considers this something for which she owes him romantically. When Tauriel takes off against his dad's orders, Legolas follows to try and convince her back, and when it's clear she's not turning back, he goes with her to help. When the messenger tells Legolas that Tauriel is banished, Legolas says, well, if Dad banishes her, I'm not going back either. He takes her all the way to Gundabad with him and plots their next move together. When Tauriel stands up to his dad and goes up Ravenhill to help the dwarves, Legolas backs both plays. There were countless opportunities for him to be spiteful, ranging in severity from the petty to the lethal, and he never so much as pauses to take any of them.
- He never shit-talks the opposition. Side-eyes, sure, but never outright casts aspersions on, behind Kili's back or to his face. Maybe this relationship is a bad decision (ha, no, he's certain it's a bad decision), but he doesn't question Tauriel's competency for it. He may not know what she sees in that dwarf, but she definitely sees it, and it's plain as day that the dwarf feels it right back. At no point does he try to undermine the sincerity of the relationship to his own ends. (That's his dad's special dick move!)
- He never brings this up at a bad time. There aren't any battles where, as elf-swords lop off orc-heads, Legolas tries to talk about their relationship. There are no painful 'comic relief' scenes where they're crouching and being quiet because some enemy is nearby, yet Legolas treats it like the best moment ever to lay guilt on Tauriel about her liking a dwarf. Amazingly, he can concentrate on things other than his bruised feelings.
- He doesn't end up with her. See earlier note, but I think it's worth mentioning again. He doesn't even go to her and try to console her. After Kili's death, she is grieving and in a lot of pain -- and this is a world where elves can basically die of being too sad, mind you, so this is not a condition to be trifled with -- and he not only leaves her be, he fucks off entirely. A lot of things have really messed with his head, the least being a realization that they're never going to end up together. Her emotionally vulnerable state is not his opportunity to move in.
Now, the fact that he doesn't do these things isn't so remarkable in and of itself; great, he's not a complete asshole, people do that every day. Instead, what's sort of stunning to me is how notable it is that he doesn't do these things -- that these tropes are common enough not only in movies but also in real life that when a dude does not completely lose his shit over the girl he likes not liking him back, it's remarkable. When he doesn't accuse her of friendzoning him, or sabotage what she's doing as some kind of petty revenge, or emotionally batter her for that decision, it stands out.
Reflecting on this, one of my problems with fictional love triangles (and I should specify I'm mostly speaking of MFM arrangements here) is that most of the time, the way they're written robs some or all the participants of their brains. Perfectly reasonable characters suddenly make asshole spiteful decisions when they're spurned, and though the text rarely ever approves of said asshole spiteful decisions, they're presented as at least a bit understandable: Of course it's not okay that he screams obscenities at her/sabotages her boyfriend/murders them both with an axe, but you have to understand, he is upset that she turns him down.
It's one thing if these love triangles are Good Boy/Good Girl/Obviously Evil Boy, because then when the Obviously Evil Boy goes batshit crazy, well, you saw it coming. This is more of the trope that's Superhero/Superhero's Girl/Supervillain, where of course the Superhero's Girl isn't into the Supervillain (or she'd be the Supervillain's Girl), but the Supervillain is into her, so he gets to trump her refusals by abducting her and working on the premise that once the Superhero is dead, she'll not only be free to date, she'll be excited about it. Again, this is disturbing because it presents this kind of male entitlement as an unquestioned constant of the universe, but at least it presents it as an evil one, and it pretty much never suggests that this is a workable plan.
It's another, though, when they happen among regular folk who are presented as generally decent people with normal emotional responses. Since these triangles often come into play as a gimmick to ratchet up drama, they have to a) create a situation where one girl must be with exactly one boy, no more or less; b) put the girl in a situation where she's got to make a choice, then somehow compromise/cast aspersions on her judgment so that choice isn't easy; c) harden the hearts of the boys in question so there's no chance of talking this out like rational adults; d) identify a definite favorite boy, no matter how temporary, and have him rub that favoriteness in the face of the other boy; and e) do all this while making the boy who does not get chosen enough of an asshole that the audience understands when the girl picks the other one (though if he's still okay enough, he either gets presented with another chance at love or dies nobly). The amount of character assassination necessary can be staggering.
(And it's a third entirely when the love triangle isn't even there in the text, but fans write it in -- Aang/Katara/Zuko and Ron/Hermione/Harry are two that come to mind -- but sidebar that for a different discussion.)
Maybe elves aren't strictly regular folk with normal emotional responses, but they're human enough, and I think all three points of this triangle make it out of said arrangement with their respective characters intact. (It's easier for Kili; I don't think he knows Legolas has the hots for his elf-lady friend, since he'd probably be a little shit if he did.*) Tauriel has a reason to like the elf boy, but she has even more reason to like the dwarf boy, and Legolas respects that decision. And then they go kill orcs, because seriously, orcs. Lots and lots of orcs.
*Sidebar: Okay, Kili would totally be a little shit if he knew Legolas liked Tauriel. That is because Kili is a little shit very often, at the slightest provocation, from long before he meets any elves. That is his character note: this dude is a little shit. (He's the equivalent of eighteen years old by dwarf reckoning, which is a prime little shit age.) Peter Jackson is right; dwarves are little bastards. But he would not magically become a little bastard just because he liked a girl. In fact, I can't imagine Kili giving Legolas much more shit for liking Tauriel than he would already give Legolas just for being a sylvan elf.
The disturbing part of fictional love triangles, of course, is how much isn't fictional. The awful jealousy and entitlement men get over women is a real thing, not an imaginary one -- but fiction creates a feedback loop, especially when it's presented uncritically. It doesn't matter how much of an asshole the chosen boy is to the unchosen boy; we know the chosen boy is right because he gets chosen! And it doesn't matter how awful the unchosen boy's response is; we can disapprove of what he does, but we understand why he feels angry enough to do it.
Fiction normalizes reality, so presenting these kind of stories again and again justifies these kinds of male reactions. Nothing on that Legolas Doesn't list above seems particularly notable in isolation, but it's kind of creepy to reflect on the last time I encountered two straight men interested in the same woman -- in fiction or real life -- where most of them didn't happen. These are normative patterns of behavior, which is awful, because the patterns themselves are awful.
Thus, I'm really happy to see a love triangle where nothing devolves into adolescent sniping or petty revenge. Instead, a guy likes a girl, it doesn't work out, and he keeps liking her and respecting her at the same time. What a novel concept.
And then, of course, many years from now, Legolas can meet his true red-headed bride, and if Tauriel is still around (and I hope she is), he can go to her and apologize for ever, ever doubting what she saw in dwarves.
And I'm not saying I liked this love triangle, because I didn't -- I thought it was a lazy go-to in terms of creating conflict where none had been before, and I was pretty unconvinced by the assertion that Tauriel had a thing for Legolas, especially by contrast to how she obviously is over the moon for Kili. But I actually really liked how part of it was handled, and that part was mostly what they did with Legolas.
Spoilers for, uh, everything behind the cut, though there's also a paragraph for people who don't care about Hobbit movie canon but want to know what on earth could make me like anything about a love triangle.
Okay, here's the what's all this, then? paragraph: Legolas (a boy elf-prince) and Tauriel (a girl elf-guard) live in the same woods; he's got a thing for her, and she's got at least something of a thing for him, but their mismatched statuses and Legolas' racist, classist party dad mean that's a no-go. They meet a bunch of dwarves, though, and despite how these elves hate dwarves and vice versa, she and the prettiest boy-dwarf, Kili, fall for one another. The dwarves go fleeing off into peril and she learns Kili is hurt a lot worse than he thinks he is, so she goes after him to save his dumb ass, and Legolas tags along. The dumb-ass-saving is successful, but other bad things happen, and at the end, Kili gets killed by an orc who's kicking the tar out of Tauriel, an orc which Legolas then kills. Final body count, the elves live and the dwarf dies.
With that kind of setup, you can imagine a lot of HIGH DRAMAZ about WHICH ONE WILL SHE CHOOZ and all that. But nope, she and the pretty dwarf basically fall in love at first giant spider fight -- and it's pretty obvious love, too, as Legolas is standing here side-eyeing the whole arrangement. (Note: We know from the start, because we've seen/read the Lord of the Rings, that Tauriel and Legolas won't end up Together Forever, because we see him galavanting through the whole ring thing without her, so any WHICH ONE drama would never have culminated in the standoff between Team Kiliel and Team Taurolas [Legoliel?], but still.) So with all that in mind, here are the things I'm please as punch don't happen with Legolas:
- He never throws a temper tantrum about it. This may have something to do with how he is being all Stoic Beautiful Elf throughout (just like his ada!), but really, he could have pitched such a shitfit, or had some manpain (elfpain?). Nope! He's being affected by it, sure, and you get that at points, but he also has so very many other, larger problems, and he's not going to let even a fairly serious crush on the pretty girl distract him.
- He never disapproves selfishly. Oh, he disapproves, sure, but that's more along the lines of, do you know how fucked-up it is to go all gooey-eyed over a dwarf in general, much less a dwarf who's on some ridiculous quest with his asshole uncle? And he's got a very valid point there, considering that her mere disobedience in running off after the dwarves is enough to get her banished. She may not be royalty, but she's got a pretty good status among her people, one which it would not be wise to jeopardize. The only time Legolas really steps in and cockblocks (rockblocks!) is when Kili is about to go with the rest of the dwarves to hole up in the newly retaken dwarven kingdom, and Legolas is like, going with those idiots is literally the worst idea anyone has ever had, and anyway, I need you to help me do a thing. He has legitimate, valid reasons to frown on letting any elf of his kind go with any non-elf in general, and a dwarf from Thorin "That Dickhead" Oakenshield's company in particular. At no point is there any hint of 'don't go with him because then you won't be with meeeee'.
- He doesn't throw her under the bus after it's clear she's not interested. In fact, he keeps helping her with no evidence that he considers this something for which she owes him romantically. When Tauriel takes off against his dad's orders, Legolas follows to try and convince her back, and when it's clear she's not turning back, he goes with her to help. When the messenger tells Legolas that Tauriel is banished, Legolas says, well, if Dad banishes her, I'm not going back either. He takes her all the way to Gundabad with him and plots their next move together. When Tauriel stands up to his dad and goes up Ravenhill to help the dwarves, Legolas backs both plays. There were countless opportunities for him to be spiteful, ranging in severity from the petty to the lethal, and he never so much as pauses to take any of them.
- He never shit-talks the opposition. Side-eyes, sure, but never outright casts aspersions on, behind Kili's back or to his face. Maybe this relationship is a bad decision (ha, no, he's certain it's a bad decision), but he doesn't question Tauriel's competency for it. He may not know what she sees in that dwarf, but she definitely sees it, and it's plain as day that the dwarf feels it right back. At no point does he try to undermine the sincerity of the relationship to his own ends. (That's his dad's special dick move!)
- He never brings this up at a bad time. There aren't any battles where, as elf-swords lop off orc-heads, Legolas tries to talk about their relationship. There are no painful 'comic relief' scenes where they're crouching and being quiet because some enemy is nearby, yet Legolas treats it like the best moment ever to lay guilt on Tauriel about her liking a dwarf. Amazingly, he can concentrate on things other than his bruised feelings.
- He doesn't end up with her. See earlier note, but I think it's worth mentioning again. He doesn't even go to her and try to console her. After Kili's death, she is grieving and in a lot of pain -- and this is a world where elves can basically die of being too sad, mind you, so this is not a condition to be trifled with -- and he not only leaves her be, he fucks off entirely. A lot of things have really messed with his head, the least being a realization that they're never going to end up together. Her emotionally vulnerable state is not his opportunity to move in.
Now, the fact that he doesn't do these things isn't so remarkable in and of itself; great, he's not a complete asshole, people do that every day. Instead, what's sort of stunning to me is how notable it is that he doesn't do these things -- that these tropes are common enough not only in movies but also in real life that when a dude does not completely lose his shit over the girl he likes not liking him back, it's remarkable. When he doesn't accuse her of friendzoning him, or sabotage what she's doing as some kind of petty revenge, or emotionally batter her for that decision, it stands out.
Reflecting on this, one of my problems with fictional love triangles (and I should specify I'm mostly speaking of MFM arrangements here) is that most of the time, the way they're written robs some or all the participants of their brains. Perfectly reasonable characters suddenly make asshole spiteful decisions when they're spurned, and though the text rarely ever approves of said asshole spiteful decisions, they're presented as at least a bit understandable: Of course it's not okay that he screams obscenities at her/sabotages her boyfriend/murders them both with an axe, but you have to understand, he is upset that she turns him down.
It's one thing if these love triangles are Good Boy/Good Girl/Obviously Evil Boy, because then when the Obviously Evil Boy goes batshit crazy, well, you saw it coming. This is more of the trope that's Superhero/Superhero's Girl/Supervillain, where of course the Superhero's Girl isn't into the Supervillain (or she'd be the Supervillain's Girl), but the Supervillain is into her, so he gets to trump her refusals by abducting her and working on the premise that once the Superhero is dead, she'll not only be free to date, she'll be excited about it. Again, this is disturbing because it presents this kind of male entitlement as an unquestioned constant of the universe, but at least it presents it as an evil one, and it pretty much never suggests that this is a workable plan.
It's another, though, when they happen among regular folk who are presented as generally decent people with normal emotional responses. Since these triangles often come into play as a gimmick to ratchet up drama, they have to a) create a situation where one girl must be with exactly one boy, no more or less; b) put the girl in a situation where she's got to make a choice, then somehow compromise/cast aspersions on her judgment so that choice isn't easy; c) harden the hearts of the boys in question so there's no chance of talking this out like rational adults; d) identify a definite favorite boy, no matter how temporary, and have him rub that favoriteness in the face of the other boy; and e) do all this while making the boy who does not get chosen enough of an asshole that the audience understands when the girl picks the other one (though if he's still okay enough, he either gets presented with another chance at love or dies nobly). The amount of character assassination necessary can be staggering.
(And it's a third entirely when the love triangle isn't even there in the text, but fans write it in -- Aang/Katara/Zuko and Ron/Hermione/Harry are two that come to mind -- but sidebar that for a different discussion.)
Maybe elves aren't strictly regular folk with normal emotional responses, but they're human enough, and I think all three points of this triangle make it out of said arrangement with their respective characters intact. (It's easier for Kili; I don't think he knows Legolas has the hots for his elf-lady friend, since he'd probably be a little shit if he did.*) Tauriel has a reason to like the elf boy, but she has even more reason to like the dwarf boy, and Legolas respects that decision. And then they go kill orcs, because seriously, orcs. Lots and lots of orcs.
*Sidebar: Okay, Kili would totally be a little shit if he knew Legolas liked Tauriel. That is because Kili is a little shit very often, at the slightest provocation, from long before he meets any elves. That is his character note: this dude is a little shit. (He's the equivalent of eighteen years old by dwarf reckoning, which is a prime little shit age.) Peter Jackson is right; dwarves are little bastards. But he would not magically become a little bastard just because he liked a girl. In fact, I can't imagine Kili giving Legolas much more shit for liking Tauriel than he would already give Legolas just for being a sylvan elf.
The disturbing part of fictional love triangles, of course, is how much isn't fictional. The awful jealousy and entitlement men get over women is a real thing, not an imaginary one -- but fiction creates a feedback loop, especially when it's presented uncritically. It doesn't matter how much of an asshole the chosen boy is to the unchosen boy; we know the chosen boy is right because he gets chosen! And it doesn't matter how awful the unchosen boy's response is; we can disapprove of what he does, but we understand why he feels angry enough to do it.
Fiction normalizes reality, so presenting these kind of stories again and again justifies these kinds of male reactions. Nothing on that Legolas Doesn't list above seems particularly notable in isolation, but it's kind of creepy to reflect on the last time I encountered two straight men interested in the same woman -- in fiction or real life -- where most of them didn't happen. These are normative patterns of behavior, which is awful, because the patterns themselves are awful.
Thus, I'm really happy to see a love triangle where nothing devolves into adolescent sniping or petty revenge. Instead, a guy likes a girl, it doesn't work out, and he keeps liking her and respecting her at the same time. What a novel concept.
And then, of course, many years from now, Legolas can meet his true red-headed bride, and if Tauriel is still around (and I hope she is), he can go to her and apologize for ever, ever doubting what she saw in dwarves.