Figwit

About

Figwit, also known as “Frodo Is Great… Who Is That?”, is a nickname given to the actor/musician Bret McKenzie, who appeared as an extra in the 2001 film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The unnamed elf character received widespread popularity and fandom online, mainly due to his short amount of screen time and apparent good looks.

Origin

The name Figwit was created in 2002, when an Israeli girl named Iris Hadad noticed the extra sitting in the background during the Council of Elrond scene, who she described as “perfect, pouty and gorgeous”. She dubbed him Figwit, an acronym for “Frodo Is Grea… Who Is THAT?!” and created a website for him with a British friend and fellow fan Sherry de Andres. The site, Figwit Lives! featured fanart and songs about the mysterious elf. The term “Frodo Is Grea… Who Is THAT?!” (purposely missing a t) is meant to describe the reaction that female viewers have when watching the scene.

When Frodo says “I will take it!”, we are so impressed we start to think “Frodo is great!" But before we finish, the camera pans and we see Figwit, smoldering enigmatically in the background. All other thoughts are whisked away by that elf – who is THAT?! He’s gorgeous!

Spread and Popularity

Within the year 2002, Figwit has been the subject of a TV news report, following newspaper articles :

The sites popularity grew as more and more fans began to take notice of the “handsome, dark-haired elf”. A similar site, Fans of Figwit started up later that year. In 2003, Figwit reappeared in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, this time credited as “Elven Escort”. He has two lines and only a few more seconds of screen time.

His brief but slightly longer on-screen appearance caused his popularity to soar, as more fans began to wonder if anyone else had the same strange attraction to the elf that they did, and realized they were not alone. According to Figwit’s Wikipedia article:

Director Peter Jackson stated in the DVD commentary for The Return of the King that Figwit was called back and given dialogue in the third film “just for fun for the fans” because “so much fuss has been made about him over the last couple of years”.

Identity Revealed

After looking up his names in the credits, fans discovered Figwit’s true identity, Bret Mckenzie. Mckenzie is more widely known as one half of the comedic folk-rap duo from New Zealand, Flight of the Conchords, who had their own self-titled series on HBO. Mckenzie, who was only now aware of his Lord of the Rings fandom, said it was “pretty weird, but I’m flattered.”

Figwit was also the subject of various Lord of the Rings related merchandise, including trading cards, action figures, and a lego figurine, though the fan-given name Figwit was never actually used. In 2004, a documentary entitled Frodo Is Great… Who Is That?!! was released, following Bret Mckenzie as he met with his fans at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, along with interviews from the Lord of The Rings trilogy director Peter Jackson and other cast members from the films. “Frodo is Great… Who Is That?!!” can be viewed on Vimeo.

In addition to the Figwit nickname, people have also called him “Melpomaen”, the Elvish word-to-word and very loose translation from Fig (Melpo) and Wit (Maen). This variation of his name is widely used in slash fan fictions.

The Frodo’s Song

Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, from Flight of the Conchords as a band, created a tribute song to The Lord of the Ring movie, as shown by the TV report, during the time Figwit’s popularity was exploding.

Several years later, Fligh of the Conchords became a TV comedy series which premiered on HBO in June 2007, incidentally bringing back to life the Figwit phenomenon as shown by Google Insights.
The Frodo’s song, Frodo Don’t Wear The Ring, was also reused in a bit of episode 11, season 1 from that show :

As a joke, among other characters played by Bret can be seen Legolas, an elvish reminiscent of his Figwit fame.

Reprisal Role in The Hobbit

On March 31st, 2011, various movie blogs and news sites reported that Sir Peter Jackson, the fillm director best known for his work in The Lord of the Rings saga, was in the process of recruiting Bret McKenzie to reprise his role as an elf in his upcoming prequel to the LOTR films, The Hobbit.

The news was initially picked up by Australian and New Zealand news sites like Stuff, ABC Australia and Sydney Morning Herald, quickly spreading across cinema blogs like IndieWire and Slash Film as well as LOTR fansites like TheOneRing in early April 2011. On April 4th, it was formally announced that McKenzie has joined the cast of The Hobbit as Lindir, the elf from Rivendell. As you can see in Google Insights, there is a notable spike in search interest of the keyword “Figwit”:

Jemaine Clement as Figwit

Sources

• Figwit Lives!
• Lord of the Rings Wiki
• Tolkien Gateway
• Papa’s World blog
• Urban Dictionary
• Moria.co.nz
• Byte Me Festival