The Elves of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings had keen eyesight, which made them some of Middle-earth’s best archers, and of all Elven archers, the most famous was undoubtedly Legolas. His bow gave him a major advantage in combat; while other members of the Fellowship such as Aragorn, Boromir, and Gimli needed to get close to their enemies to fight with their swords and axes, Legolas could maintain a safe distance and hit targets that were out of the reach of his companions. In Peter Jackson’s trilogy of film adaptations, Legolas was arguably the Fellowship’s most effective warrior, much to Gimli’s chagrin.

However, Legolas’ weapon of choice came with a significant downside. The others could keep fighting until their blades broke, but Legolas required a constant supply of arrows. Legolas was unfazed by this, felling countless enemies with ease. It often seemed that he had more than enough for whatever situation arose, but his access to arrows was indeed limited, especially since the Fellowship spent so much time trekking through the wilderness. Both the novel and film versions of The Lord of the Rings provided explanations for how Legolas overcame this struggle. Sometimes these explanations were direct, and other times they took the form of obscure details.

Other Elves Provided Legolas With More Arrows

At times, Legolas simply acquired new arrows. In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring film, he ran low on arrows after fighting the Orcs and Cave-troll in the Mines of Moria. By the time the Fellowship reached Lothlórien, only three arrows were remaining in his quiver. The extended edition showed Galadriel handing out gifts to the members of the Fellowship, and Legolas’ was a Galadhrim bow. But that was not the only equipment he obtained in Lothlórien; he left with a new, ornately decorated quiver and several arrows. These arrows were visually distinct, as they were fletched with greenish-yellow feathers instead of brown feathers like his original arrows. In the later films, Legolas could have similarly resupplied at other safe locations, such as Edoras, Helm’s Deep, and Minas Tirith.

Despite this, Legolas ran out of arrows twice in Jackson’s films. The first instance was subtle and entirely possible to miss. It occurred during the Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, just after Legolas slid down the stairs on an Uruk-hai’s shield. He shot his last few arrows on the way down, so when he reached the ground, he drew his twin knives and began fighting with them. Later in the battle, his quiver was full again, so he must have refilled it off-screen. There were many other Elven archers in Jackson’s version of the Battle of Helm’s Deep, so there may have been spare arrows along the wall — or, more grimly, he might have needed to take some arrows from the quivers of his fallen allies.

Legolas Needed To Be Resourceful on the Battlefield

The second time Legolas ran out of arrows was more obvious. In The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, he saw Bolg about to kill Tauriel in the distance. He reached behind his back for an arrow, but he found that his quiver was empty. He instead forced a Troll to knock over a nearby tower, creating a bridge that Legolas could cross to reach Bolg and fight him face-to-face. In addition to his knives, he used the sword Orcrist, which he had taken from Thorin Oakenshield in the previous film. Unlike at Helm’s Deep, Legolas seemed surprised and upset by his lack of arrows. The Hobbit trilogy took place before The Lord of the Rings, so perhaps this was the first time he had encountered such an issue. Having learned from this incident, he was more prepared to fight without his bow in The Lord of the Rings.

J. R. R. Tolkien addressed the issue of Legolas needing to replenish his arrows in the novel version of The Lord of the Rings. Legolas always did his best to recover his arrows from the battlefield after using them. His arrows sometimes broke when they struck their targets, but they often remained intact. On occasion, he also collected some arrows from his slain enemies. Though ordinary Orc arrows were incompatible with his bow, he was able to make use of Uruk-hai arrows; in the chapter “The Departure of Boromir” from The Fellowship of the Ring, Legolas “searched in the pile and on the ground about and found not a few that were undamaged and longer in the shaft than such arrows as the Orcs were accustomed to use.” But even in the novel, his arrows sometimes run out. During the skirmish at Amon Hen, he needed to switch to using his knife, and in the chapter “Helm’s Deep” from The Two Towers, he needed to “grope for spent arrows” after he emptied his quiver. This was the reason Gimli was able to surpass Legolas’ kill count despite the disadvantages of using an axe.

Legolas Was Middle-earth’s Greatest Action Hero

Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films were fantasy action movies, and Legolas’ amazing feats of archery were meant to be entertaining spectacles. Much of what he did throughout the two trilogies would be impractical or impossible in real life, but such scenes served to highlight the superhuman skill of the Elves. Legolas refilling his quiver before every major battle and recovering his arrows afterward would have been realistic but not very exciting; for the same reason, guns in action movies rarely run out of ammunition. Jackson did not waste time drawing attention to the contents of Legolas’ quiver unless it facilitated a compelling moment, such as his fight with Bolg.

Some fantasy settings have sought to solve the problem of archers running out of arrows through magic. Across the many editions of Dungeons and Dragons, for instance, there have been various types of enchanted quivers that can hold infinite arrows or create new arrows from thin air. But that would not suit the kind of magic that existed in The Lord of the Rings. Though The Hobbit novel included some simple enchanted items along these lines, such as William the Troll’s talking purse, Tolkien took a different approach to magic in the rest of his legendarium. It tended to be vaguer and more powerful, like a force of nature. Legolas’ reliance on a limited supply of arrows made his efficiency in combat all the more impressive.