The Lord of the Rings Fandom Is So Powerful, It Invented a Beloved Movie Character

You’re unlikely to ever find people as devoted and invested in their own fandom as fans of The Lord of the Rings. Unlike most franchises in pop culture, these fans have fully embraced all the strange and quirky things that make both the books and the movies special, choosing to have fun with them instead of complaining or judging (for the most part). That’s why there are so many Middle-earth memes around, from simple lines that take on a life of their own to random facts about the making of the movies. The weirdest and funniest of them, however, has to be the tale of Figwit (Bret McKenzie), a character who was fully born from one such memes — and one of the first ones at that!

Figwit First Appears as a Background Character in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’

To bring Middle-earth fully to life, the Peter Jackson trilogy had to cast a lot of background characters. After all, if J.R.R. Tolkien created such a complex and vivid land, the movies had to do justice to it, right? What probably neither of them expected, however, was that one such character would actually attract the fans’ attention more than the saga’s own protagonist, especially at a key moment in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

In the Council of Elrond (Hugo Weaving) scene, there’s a heated debate about what should be done with the One Ring. Frodo (Elijah Wood) then stands up to tell everyone that he will take it to Mordor and destroy it, with the camera cutting to a wider shot of everyone present staring at him. When fandom powerhouse Iris Hadad watched that scene, she began to praise Frodo, but was surprised by the handsome Elf on the far right, and, thus, Figwit came into being.

This isn’t the character’s official name, and actor Bret McKenzie himself isn’t even credited in the movie, but, once Hadad’s eyes landed on him, Figwit suddenly belonged to the entire fandom. His name is the acronym of her reaction: “Frodo is great… Who is THAT?” She went even further, setting up a whole website (linked above) dedicated to Figwit after The Fellowship of the Ring came out, so everyone could obsess over him.

Peter Jackson Summoned Figwit Back in ‘The Return of the King’

In the Council of Elrond, Figwit can also be seen sitting beside Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), but he doesn’t even have a line. Still, his sheer presence and looks were enough to cause a fuss amongst the fandom. So much fuss, in fact, that Peter Jackson himself noted it and called McKenzie back for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, since, unfortunately, he wasn’t available for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, according to a USA Today story about it.

In the third movie, though, Figwit is back in all his glory and has actual lines! This happens in the scene where Arwen (Liv Tyler) has a vision of her future with Aragorn and decides to stay in Middle-earth. When she turns around and rides back to Rivendell, Figwit is there, telling her, “Lady Arwen, we cannot delay,” and calling out for her once she departs. Unfortunately, the character is credited only as “Elf Escort,” not Figwit, but, by then, everyone already knew him by his true name.

In The Return of the King DVD extras, Jackson himself admits that he called McKenzie back to play Figwit to please the fans, because “so much fuss has been made about him over the last couple of years.” Later, in 2004, Figwit got his own documentary, too, appropriately called Frodo Is Great… Who Is THAT?, following McKenzie’s relationship with the meme and featuring interviews from his cast mates, including Jackson and even Ian McKellen.

Bret McKenzie Returned in ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,’ but as a Different Elf

Image via Warner Bros.

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The Return of the King wasn’t the last Middle-earth has seen of Figwit, thankfully — or of Bret McKenzie, at least. In The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, when Gandalf and the Company of Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) arrive in Rivendell, they are greeted by a familiar face, but it isn’t really Figwit. In The Hobbit, McKenzie plays Lindir, one of Elrond’s aides, whom the actor jokingly described as having “slightly different ears.”

Contrary to Figwit, Lindir does have a few lines, and much more complex ones. Instead of simply calling out or staring at the main characters, this time McKenzie had to learn his lines in Elvish, which proved quite a challenge. Of course, many people know him as half of Flight of the Conchords, too, but, as it turns out, memorizing lines in Elvish is a touch beyond memorizing lyrics in English. In Middle-earth, though, he’ll always be Figwit.

As silly as all this may seem, Figwit is a perfect example of how the fans themselves can make something like The Lord of the Rings their own, regardless of how big and important the franchise is. We love our memes and inside jokes, from Viggo Mortensen breaking his toe in The Two Towers to Hugo Weaving speaking to himself as both Elrond and Isildur in The Fellowship of the Ring. With The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum on the way, we’re now excited to see what memes will come out of that one, too.