Wulf is not a cookie-cutter villain. Neither is he like Sauron or Morgoth, sitting off on the sting of the story like a brooding cloud or all-seeing highlight. Philippa Boyens and director Kenji Kamiyama have had an empathetic antagonist handed to them on a silver platter.
Within the restricted supply materials that we’ve, Wulf begins the story as a sufferer of an influence battle. Tolkien tells us that Wulf’s father, Freca, asks Rohan’s king, Helm Hammerhand, to rearrange a wedding between Wulf and Helm’s daughter (who’s anonymous within the supply materials — extra on that in a minute). Helm is insulted by the provide and hits Freca so exhausting, he kills him. The appendices of “The Return of the King” e-book, the place Tolkien recounts the story, provides, “Helm then proclaimed Freca’s son and close to kin the king’s enemies; and so they fled.”
The traumatic scene of Freca’s demise has an ethnic aspect too. Freca claims descent from a Rohirric king, however Tolkien emphasizes that the noble household seems to have married into the neighboring Dunlendish tribes (the wild-looking males who swear allegiance to Saruman throughout “The Lord of the Rings”). It is a no-no for Rohan’s royal lineage, who’re already at odds with these northeastern neighbors at this level. Of specific word, Freca’s combined bloodline is described as manifesting by means of darkish hair, a novel characteristic amongst the light-haired folks of Rohan, and one thing that Wulf in “The Conflict of the Rohirrim” additionally clearly sports activities.