Quote:
Originally Posted by Victariongreyjoy
I know Gondor and the Eotheod was the main protaginists of the war, but in the movieverse, do you think Thranduil may perhaps assisted Men by sending a small squad lead by Legolas and Tauriel during the war? Because surely Thranduil did see the threat from the easterlings as very significant to his Woodland realm.
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The key to this question has to be when Movie!Thranduil became an isolationist xenophobe. We know he was still paying homage to Thror in ?2770 (or at least, the year the Kingdom under the Mountain fell - I'm not sure if the timeline is attested on-screen), because there's that scene of him arriving, seeing Smaug, and going 'welp, I'm out, MOOSE AWAY!'. Said scene also tells us that he didn't
like interacting with Thror's people - though that might be the sheer indignity of it.
The invasion of Calenardhon by the Balchoth took place in 2510, actually before Erebor was reoccupied in 2590. Does that mean Thranduil would be less grumpy about foreigners? Or more, because he hadn't yet had the (forced) contact with Dale and Erebor. We'd probably need to know whether he also paid homage to Thrain I and Thorin I to figure this out.
I only saw the Hobbit movies when they came out, so I find this one difficult to divine: is Thranduil a recent xenophobe, or is it a long-standing trait? We know he has bad experience with dragons, but that doesn't really answer the question. So, so - at least we can say that if he hates foreigners, he probably wouldn't lift a finger to help Gondor.
Things are a bit more interesting if he was less of a grump back in the days of the Balchoth. The Greenwood wasn't darkened then (we saw very clearly that Sauron, the Nazgul, and the Spiders all arrived simultaneously right at the start of the movies, brutally traumatising poor Sebastian), so the Elvenking's domain (at least in his head) probably extended right to the southern eaves - right on the border with the lands the Balchoth emerged from to attack Calenardhon
But... did Thranduil even have reason to hate them? We know that in the books, the Balchoth attacked with Orcish reinforcements, doing so only 50 years after Sauron's return to Dol Guldur; it seems reasonable to suppose a connection. But in the movies, Dol Guldur was still abandoned at the time of the attack. Might the Balchoth
not have allied with the Orcs?
In fact, might they have been at peace with Thranduil? Oh, yes, they invaded Rhovanion as the Wainriders, were driven back, then invaded again as the Balchoth (this is the Movieverse, ambiguity can go to Pot, they're clearly the same people) - but so what? Some Men squabbled with some other Men - what is that to the King of Greenwood the Great? As long as the wine keeps flowing from Dorwinion (down in what's definitely Balchoth territory), they can do what they like.
So there's my answer, as overwrought and ludicrous as the situation demands: Thranduil would not aid Gondor (whose peasants scoff at the elves of Lorien) or the Eotheod (who keep intruding on the western parts of his domain) against the Balchoth (who sell him very lovely wine); he'd just sit tight and wait a few decades for it all to blow over.
hS