Ok since you said ‘Mirkwood’ I’ll keep it specific to the Mirkwood era as opposed to the earlier Greenwood era (bc then it would get too long). I know that there’s a lot of reported ‘Sindarization’ of Greenwood, also seen with its Menegroth-lite cave system and all that stuff, but I hc that this actually reversed itself a lot once Thranduil took over – Legolas identifies as a Silvan elf, and I hc that Thranduil is half-Silvan and Legolas ¾ths Silvan. IN Mirkwood….I think of Mirkwood as a study in contrasts due to the day-in day-out danger and patrol and fighting back the encroachment of the shadow and all its associated giant spiders etc. Very very VERY strict and elaborate and formalized and serious in protocol and very low-tolerance for deviations from The Way Things Should Be, very unfriendly to strangers they don’t have a formal trade relationship with (which all put together generates a culture that has a tendency to flow into general intolerance for unconventional stuff or eccentric behavior). You know, like extremely far removed from Rivendell with its heavy gearing towards ensuring its guests have everything they could need, including a varied, homey, friendly, atmosphere amenable to all different types of people, especially weird and foreign and broken ones – because if Mirkwood had the sort of rules and norms conducive to that sort of society, everyone in Mirkwood would be dead.

BUT THEN, the most outrageous of feasts, the most riotous of celebrations, the drunken-est of revelries, Thranduil spares absolutely no expense in food, wine, entertainment, music, etc, to joyfully and explosively let loose from the necessary constraints of day to day life and to refresh and rejuvenate their morale – see this excellent post here – and that this whole process is a sort of blend of Sindarin and Silvan customs, modified from hyper-vigilant Doriath patrol + wide-ranging forest-hunting stop-camp-and-feast practices of the Silvans. And a tendency to let their guard down very hard in relief when they’re safe in privacy, which leads to stuff like the passing-out drunk in the wine cellar episode that happens in the Hobbit.

I’m not much into the fandom attempts to fanwank her falling in love with Beren at first sight thing into actually being some kind of reasonable realistic gradual process that came after getting to know him properly etc like normal people in the real world or whatever. I mean, not that I don’t like that stuff to be added to the weird fairy tale love thing! that part is great. but for me undermining the weird ‘unrealistic’ aspect of luthien’s behavior just kind of, ruins the whole point? I mean, generally speaking I’m always vaguely confused about how concerned people in fandom are about making things or characters “relatable” because I just don’t…understand…why everything needs to be relatable to be interesting or affecting or good. But Beren/Luthien is one of the strangest choices of them all. I mean, psychology I get, ish, because I am blinkered by it too. But why try to drop any of our societies’ real world expectations onto these characters, of all characters. Like, does it improve the story itself in any way….i dunno, just have 2 cents.