Recommended music: Evanescence – Afterlife
It’s #TolkienThursday! Today, we’re back to sharing action figures from Return of the King. Let’s look at the ToyBiz Lord of the Rings King of the Dead!
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the King of the Dead, also known as the King of the Mountains, leads the Oathbreakers. This cursed army of ghosts haunts the White Mountains.
In the Second Age, the King and his people promised Isildur, the High King of Gondor, that they would fight against Sauron. But when the time came, they broke their oath out of fear and chose to worship Sauron instead. As punishment, Isildur cursed them to wander as restless spirits until they fulfilled their promise.
Thousands of years later, during the War of the Ring, Aragorn travels the dangerous Paths of the Dead to call on the ghosts. As Isildur’s heir, he brings the reforged sword Andúril to prove his right to lead. The King of the Dead recognizes this and agrees to help.
In the book, rather than fighting at Minas Tirith as in Peter Jackson’s Return of the King film, the King of the Dead follows Aragorn to Pelargir. There, he leads his ghostly army to ambush the Corsairs of Umbar. The ghosts scare Sauron’s allies, which allows Aragorn to take the Black Ships and bring important reinforcements to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
Once the oath is fulfilled and Gondor is safe, Aragorn tells the ghosts that their debt is paid. The King of the Dead bows, breaks his spear, and disappears with his army, finally at peace.
Initially released in 2004 for the second wave of carded figures from The Return of the King, ToyBiz’s King of the Dead remains a decent figure for the 6” scale. The figure was later repacked for the ‘Kings of Middle-Earth’ gift set. It’s not as detailed as the Wētā Workshop’s King of the Dead miniature statue I reviewed last week, but the sculpt does capture the king’s withered, skeletal face and detailed chainmail armor. Since the figure is molded in milky, glow-in-the-dark plastic, Toy Biz added a dark paint wash to help the details stand out. The glow feature isn’t very bright, but maybe it just needs to be charged with a UV light.
The figure has over twenty points of articulation, so it can be posed in many ways. However, the rubber skirt and fabric cloak can make some leg poses a bit difficult. It also comes with a removable crown helmet, scabbard, and a sword (which I seem to have misplaced for the photo).😛
The figure looks impressive on the shelf, especially in the dark, but I wish it had more detail and film-accurate colors like some of the other statue releases of the character.
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