Minifigs: The Elf

When the Elf minifig was discovered to be included in the 3rd series of collectible minifigs, Castle LEGO fans rejoiced. It probably comes as no surprise, given my previous posts about The Lord of the Rings that I, too, was excited about the Elf's appearance. However, ever when I acquired him (as documented in this post), my inner Tolkien fan would not allow him to enter my collection unchanged. This post examines where his disparate parts ended up.

The problem with the Elf was his hairpiece. If I were to cast him as an Elf from Tolkien's canon, I would say from his possession of armour, long-bow, and colour-scheme that he is a probably a Sindarin Elf (Grey-elf), Nandorin Elf (Green-elf), or Sylvan Elf (Wood-elf). However, all those aforementioned Elves are members of the broader category of Telerin Elves... and as a general rule, Teleri have dark hair or silver hair. Golden hair is generally an indication of having Vanyarin blood... and the High Elves of the Vanyar never came back to Middle-earth and mingled with the Sindarin Elves et al (though some mixed Vanya-Noldorin Elves did bring back the golden-haired gene, and the King of the Elves of Mirkwood in The Hobbit is proof that gold hair is not exclusive to the Vanyar). In any case, movie-Legolas aside, my Elf wasn't likely to be permitted blond hair in my collection.

Besides, I subscribe to the "normal ears" party in the "what do Elven ears look like?" debate, and the Elf minifig has highly-prominent ears.

So what became of the Elf?



Well, if we consider a minifig's head to "be" the minifig (and the rest of the minifig to be his/her accoutrements), then my Elf became the warrior in the picture above. In so doing, he replaced a Han Solo lookalike as my golden-armoured Elf-prince. As you can see, he also acquired the steed from the Prince of Persia set I acquired the same time as the Elf.

Not that his armour went unused in my Elven army. Indeed, most of the Elf turned up as a part of my Elven fighting force.



This picture shows the three Elves who acquired pieces of "the Elf." You will recognise the already-portrayed Elf Prince, and notice that the armour and shield were inherited by the warrior with the Little Armory sword to his right, while his longbow (and Bricklink-bought quiver) arm the soldier to his left. One will note my prevalent preference for dragon-helms in equipping Elves.

Meanwhile, what happened to that blond-hairpiece-with-elf-ears, you ask? Did it end up in the minifig parts pile, never to be used with those extra top hats, blue caps, and Islander horns? Not so!



The hairpiece actually ended up on this custom version of the Brickster by chance. I wasn't intending him to be "finished" as such. I was actually planning on reconstructing him using his black tuque ("beanie" to non-Canadians), grey pants, and single blue glove. The spare Jayko pants and jestingly-grabbed elf-hair were mere placeholders, but I have become quite fond of the combination, and think that the elf-ears complement the impish facial expressions. How exactly a Puck of a Brickster ended up in my LEGO universe, I'm not sure yet... but he's definitely there.