8. King Thranduil of Mirkwood
There's no shortage of royalty and nobility in Middle-earth, but have you realized that we've seen precisely
two monarchs in all of Jackson's Tolkien adaptations thus far? And both were human. Galadriel, Elrond, Celeborn, they're no kings or queens. But the Fellowship of the Ring did include an elven Prince Legolas of Mirkwood. And sometime during
The Hobbit we'll get to meet his dad. The elves of Mirkwood are a good bit different than their kin in Lothlorien and Rivendell. They were created before Tolkien had combined the worlds of his bedtime story of
The Hobbit with the long-gestating mythic history involving the Silmarils that he'd been creating since World War I. So these elves are a little fiercer, and far more concerned with making merry and making war than moping about lamenting the loss of things and sailing away on fancy ships. These are elves that draw more from the wilder and more dangerous stories of the fae. Also, it'll be interesting to see the genetic contributers who gave Legolas that interesting combination of flaxen blond hair and dark eyebrows.