Figwit

Figwit is an unnamed Elf extra in The Lord of the Rings trilogy movies by Peter Jackson. The name “Figwit” was created by a fan who started the first Figwit fansite. Figwit is also known as Aegnor, Melpomaen, and the Elf escort. He is a non-canon character, meaning that he is not part of the original story by JRR Tolkien.

Figwit is portrayed by Bret McKenzie, [1] an actor, musician, producer, and comedian from New Zealand. He is popularly known as half of the musical duo, Flight of the Conchords. McKenzie is credited merely as “Elf Escort” in The Return of the King. As a non-canon character, there is little information on Figwit’s character. In the first movie, Fellowship of the Ring, Figwit can be seen seated next to Aragorn during the council of Elrond. When everyone stands up to argue, Frodo shouts that he will take the ring. In this scene, Figwil can be seen standing on the far right corner. In the third movie, The Return of the King, Figwit can be seen in the scene where Arwen leaves Rivendell to go to Grey Havens. This is the scene where she sees a vision of Eldarion, her future son with Aragorn. During this scene, Figwit is the elf that prods her to continue on the journey, telling her that they cannot delay. When Arwen turns around to return to Rivendell, Figwit calls out to her.

The name “Figwit” was dubbed by Iris Hadad, a Tolkien fan whose reaction upon seeing the character was “Frodo is great... who is THAT?” She then corresponded with her friend, Sherry de Andres, about the elf extra. Together, they created the first Figwit fan site [2] and called the elf the “Legolas for the thinking woman.” Figwit appeared less than 5 seconds in the first film. Still, the fan site started receiving a lot of mail from people (mostly ladies) who thought they were the only ones who noticed the good looking dark-haired elf. Peter Jackson mentioned in the DVD commentary of Return of the King that he gave Figwit a few lines in the third movie because he was aware of the attention the extra was getting. Jackson shared that Figwit was called back and given a short dialogue just for fun since so much fuss has been made about him after the first movie came out. You can find Figwit being mentioned in chapter 9 - Arwen’s vision. Aside from Peter Jackson referring to the character as “Figwit” in the commentary documentary, the only official place where the name appears is on a Return of the King series card, “Return to Rivendell” Topps #38. The front of the card shows a profile of Figwit.

• In the Lord of the Rings collectible card game, Figwit’s card uses the name “Aegnor” which is the name of one of Galadriel’s brothers.
• In 2002, an online petition was made asking for a Figwit action figure. It took 6 years for the people at The Lord of The Rings Collector’s Models to create one for Figwit fans.
• In 2004, a 50-minute documentary on Figwit entitled “Frodo is great... Who is that?!!” was created by Wellington filmmakers Hannah Clarke, Nich Booth, and Stan Alley.

All three have worked on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The documentary follows Bret McKenzie. He attends the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Fringe), where he performed as one half of the musical duo, the Flight of the Conchords. You will be seeing a performance of the duo playing “Frodo’s Song” in the documentary. In the festival, McKenzie meets fans who admire his handsome elvish look and trademark pout. The documentary includes interviews with the fans behind the Figwit fan sites. The documentary also has the bonus of having discussions with Peter Jackson, Ian McKellen, Mark Ordesky, Barry Osbourne, and other cast members of The Lord of the Rings. The documentary premiered at the Auckland International Film Festival. McKenzie has stated once that the obsession with his character was weird, but he felt flattered. He finds it funny that the fandom was propelled by just a few seconds of screen time. It was as if he got famous for doing nothing.

The name “Figwit” is an acronym for “Frodo is great... Who is that?!!” and was dubbed by Iris Hadad. A lot of fan fiction was created based on the character. However, a lot of authors find that “Figwit” is not an elvish name. So they translated the name into an elvish language by splitting the name. Fig in Quenyan is “melpo” and wit in Noldorin is “maen” - this resulted in “Melpomaen” and thus became the elvish name of his character. The name Aegnor comes from The Silmarillion.

In The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, McKenzie is seen playing an elf named Lindir, who was listening to Bilbo Baggins’ version of the Song of Eärendil. Both elf characters had the same looks, and they are both dark-haired Elves and courtiers of Elrond in Rivendell. It is unclear if the characters are the same. Still, McKenzie believed that they are different elves due to the difference in hairstyles and clothing.

1. ^Figwit portrayed by Bret McKenzie.
2. ^Figwit fansite.