The line comes from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, released in 2002, when Legolas tells Aragorn and Gimli that the captured Hobbits are being taken to Isengard by Saruman's Uruk-hai. In the story, Merry and Pippin have been seized during the attack on the Fellowship, and the line marks the moment the remaining companions choose to pursue them. Online, the urgent delivery made it an instantly quotable moment, and it spread through meme edits, reaction videos and remixes that reuse Legolas's warning as a punchline for sudden danger.