Which member of the fellowship made the most onscreen kills?

Question

Of the nine members of the fellowship, who had the highest onscreen kills?

Rules:

• Only the three LotR trilogy films count
• Any individual creature counts as 1 (eg. when Legolas kills enemies on top of and including the oliphant, each of those are individually counted)
• Accidental deaths do not count (eg. in the extended RotK, Gimli 'bumps' Legolas' bow to slay Peter Jackson)
• The Helm's Deep contest is ignored
• The member has to have personally killed the enemy, not getting others to do it for the member himself.

Answer 1

Assuming that the death was on screen and clear (ie not from being knocked down):

Character FoTR   TT RotK Total
Aragorn     23    3    1  27+?
Legolas     20    8    1  29+?
Gimli        6    3    0   9+?

These breakdowns for FoTR and TT are detailed.

Currently lacking a detailed breakdown for Return of the King. Using the above numbers for the first two movies (note that most of the fellowship kills in Two Towers are at Helms Deep, which you are ignoring) my assumption would be Legolas given the lead he has after the first two movies. Much more of the combat scenes in RoTK follow him than Aragorn.

Sources:

• The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Two Towers
• The Return of the King

Answer 2

Frodo. Gollum was pushed by Frodo. We do not perfectly know if it was his intention to push him or he just wanted to take the ring back. If it was intentional he killed way more than anyone else.

Legolas, if Frodo caused Gollum to fall by accident. I do not know what Helm's Deep contest is ignored means. If it means we shouldn't take Legolas claiming he killed 17 without being shown or if it means that we should not directly take the 43-42 score in the book, Legolas killed about 50 or more by making the ladder fall in Helm's Deep. Aragon kicked a ladder as well, but there was only one orc on top of it.

Answer 3

I am not certain but I think it was Legolas. It was none of the hobbits. Frodo killed practically no one. Sam killed a few including Shelob but no where near as many as the rest of the Fellowship. Merry and Pippin both killed a few in the last 2 films but not as many as the fighting members. Gandalf missed half a film and since he rarely fights low level enemies he doesn't rack up a high kill count. Boromoir got the most kills in the first film but the others overtook after he died. This leaves the three main fighters. Gimli kills a lot but loses the counting contest and is unlikely to have caught up at other times. Aragon killed a lot of enemies but Legolas I think killed roughly the same during battles and overtakes by occasionally sniping enemies at a distance.

Answer 4

Legolas is the only logical answer. By Two Towers he was at seventeen already, while Gimli is only at two by then. The ladder, the shield-surf, Legolas is always in action, shooting arrows while retreating, he's got his two elvish blades and a sword and uses all of his weaponry and even is riding out in the end when Gimli is blowing the Horn.

The numbers in the book make no sense and for what we see in the movie, these numbers also don't make sense. Way too small in general and Gimli definitely didn't catch up to Legolas to win by just one. Just doesn't make sense for what we see. I don't know the exact final tallies, but 113 for Legolas and 87 for Gimli or something like that would be more plausible.

Answer 5

Gollum did. When he fell into the fires of Mount Doom with the ring legions of the enemy were decimated. The OP said accidents don't count however was this an accident? Gandalf knew from the beginning that Gollum had a role to play, he just didn't know what it was. Now he knows.