*sigh*
Yes. Sort of.
Tauriel is the captain of the guard. Right? And Legolas is the son of Thranduil? Right? And we know Legolas isn’t only 100 years old in The Lord of the Rings, which takes place (the main storyline, I mean) about 80 or so years after the events of The Hobbit. So we know that Legolas was alive during the events of The Hobbit. So…
1 - Thranduil had a captain of the guard during The Hobbit book.
2 - Tauriel is the captain of the guard in The Hobbit films.
3 - There is no gender bias in Elven society, so a woman could be anything.
4 - The guard captain in The Hobbit isn’t described at all - gender, age, name. There is no information to go on. Just that there is a guard captain.
2 - Tauriel is the captain of the guard in The Hobbit films.
3 - There is no gender bias in Elven society, so a woman could be anything.
4 - The guard captain in The Hobbit isn’t described at all - gender, age, name. There is no information to go on. Just that there is a guard captain.
Which means that the guard captain in The Hobbit novel could very well be a Sylvan Elf woman with red hair named Tauriel, without in any way breaking the canon rules. Tauriel herself may not be specifically by name in the book, but the captain of the guard was, and that is who she is.
As for Legolas, they mention Thranduil’s kinsmen in The Hobbit, just (again) not by name. So there’s no reason to assume that Legolas wasn’t there when we know he’s Thranduil’s kinsman and was alive and patrolling/defending Mirkwood during the events of The Hobbit.
So yeah, just because they weren’t mentioned by name doesn’t mean their characters weren’t in the events of The Hobbit.
