People are always hating on Hugo Weaving’s Elrond for not being atractive enough or looking too old for an elf but
He pulled off playing a younger, dashing, more physically active version of his character really well in the Hobbit while he was actually like 20 years older LMAO
People can hate on my man Hugo but he was the only one who genuinely looked younger and more handsome somehow, all the others looked visibly older, even Cate who is so beautiful and aged extremely will did look older than in LOTR but he didn’t. I need some respect for him
I also think his actual portrayal of Elrond is fantastic — Weaving generally plays campy franchise villains (or Priscilla Queen of the Desert lmao) and I genuinely maintain that the melodramatic mannerisms carried over from those roles very much enhances his portrayal of Elrond as an intruiging and individual character and not Baby Gandalf, which was what the character could so easily have been!
Man is theatrical as FUCK, makes unhinged faces every five seconds, and aland it very much works — Elrond being a weird little freak (affectionately) is imo an absolutely perfect portrayal: Also, canon Elrond is clearly quite eccentric, just in a different way to Gandalf! Aka Gandalf is the “take your meds, grandpa” brand of eccentric, while Elrond is the “the king of england likes to walk around with a rubber duck on his head but nobody says anything because he’s the king of england” kind of eccentric.
And lest everyone forget, he fucking BODIED the Arwen storyline — that narrative could have so easily turned into a cliche “overprotective dad shows his daughter’s prom date his gun collection” deal but the total mastery of microexpressions (to the point that to this day idk whether he’s meant to be laughing or crying at the coronation) made it such a deeper, richer storyline, because you could see the slow war of attrition against his heart!
Basically, I wouldn’t find Elrond as compelling a character as I do had he been played as an archetypal sage, instead of a guy who rightly looks fucking miserable 24/7 because he spent 6000 years saying “I told you so”.
Also, I’m not going to contribute to elrond hairline discourse but imo if any elf was to develop male pattern baldness as a result of stress, it would be Elrond “Murphy’s Law in action” Peredhel.
I’m so sorry for the essay this truly is my roman empire
amhrancas 