Session 3.11 - S3 Ep 6 Green Elves

We also will want to portray his fear - fear of Ungoliant coming back, fear of retaliation from Valinor. I do like the 'putting down roots' idea.
 
Haakon said:
That’s a fascinating idea. I’m not sure how to depict that, though. I kind of connect it with him leaving Angband less and less often. But then it would not really begin until later, after the death of Fingolfin.
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Well i guess morgoth leaving angband to fight fingolfin would at last be a serious break from that activity. He would have to literally cut his connection . Luthien bewitching morgoth into sleep could be the second great break...

If morgoth is somehow literally linked by something to the heart of arda/ arda's substance both events would seriously stop that process of melting with arda. Morgoth is literally trying to make the world his" ring of power". He does work on " morgoth's ring"...
 
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Ah, I get it. We want to have Morgoth physically tied to his throne in some way, and for that throne to be rooted in the ground. If so, now in the beginning he should still get up and leave, so the throne should...change in some way when he sits on it. Maybe a brief flash of lightning runs into the ground or something. This could prefigure the chair Huron will be forced to sit on unblinkingly for 20 years. And it will get the audience used to the idea that the throne is not just a chair, but a connection to Arda and a tool for Morgoth to wield his power.

I am thinking more Dark Crystal Skekses' palace and less plug-yourself-into-the-Matrix.
 
This could work. It has to have some visible effects, though. And those effects have to be reasonable and mustn’t feel awkward. We could see a poisoning of wells? I honestly don’t know.

Also, it’s important that he’s not stuck on his throne. He leaves Angband a few times. Do I remember incorrectly or does he spy on both Men and Elves?
 
Haakon said:
This could work. It has to have some visible effects, though. And those effects have to be reasonable and mustn’t feel awkward. We could see a poisoning of wells? I honestly don’t know.
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What I want us to avoid is some kind of high speed deterioration or decay or something like what PJ did in the Hobbit movies when depicting the Evil of the Mirkwood Dol Guldur area effect.
 
Haakon said:
What I want us to avoid is some kind of high speed deterioration or decay or something like what PJ did in the Hobbit movies when depicting the Evil of the Mirkwood Dol Guldur area effect.
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Maybe lots of poison ivy vines as well?
 
I think the oily mushrooms in PJ's film could have worked, it the rest of the imagery had been equally subtle. Also, bare patches in a forest, without explanation, can be eerie. Adding thorns to things that don't normally have thorns, or increasing their size/sharpness, is also an option.
 
Well desertion, barenness, vilcanic activity, vermin and thorns are also characteristical of mordor..
 
Nicholas Palazzo said:
I don't know what this would convey visually, as poison ivy doesn't look particularly threatening.
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I beg to differ - a wasp crawling on poison ivy vines is one of the most evil looking things in nature. (Okay, so maybe I'm slightly terrified of wasps. But still.) Poison ivy has both a shiny and reddish tinge to it, and grows where other plants won't. Like blackberry brambles, but less fun.

poison-ivy.jpg

Innocent enough looking in a forest setting, but still the shine on the leaves is a mild warning that all is not right here.

poison-ivy-climbing-04-18-06-36.jpg

But when it climbs up a tree, it looks a bit creepier, with the rhizoids coming off the root-like vines that cling to the surface tenaciously.

img-9162-poison-ivy_orig.jpg

Everything is dead and dying, and yet the poison ivy still has color and grows on the rocks.

(The only images I could find with both Wasp and Poison Ivy were comic book characters, so...but I've seen it in real life, and it's definitely disturbing.)
 
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We could tie this process (Morgoth pouring his hate into Arda and killing life) to the idea of the Ents lifting the Sleep of Yavanna. That would make the arrival of the Green Elves pretty important.
 
MithLuin said:
We also will want to portray his fear - fear of Ungoliant coming back, fear of retaliation from Valinor. I do like the 'putting down roots' idea.
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Yes so how does he feel about Mairon's deal with Shelob? Deos he get to know about it or does Mairon keep it from him? Or does he find out and get mad? Or does he just call Mairon 'Sauron'?
 
Haakon said:
Does he get to know about it or does Mairon keep it from him? Or does he find out and get mad?
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I think we leave it a secret for now. Shows that 1) Morgoth trusts (if that's the right word) Mairon enough not to micro-manage him and know everything he's doing and 2) Mairon's means and ends are starting, subtly, to shift away from Morgoth's. Also, not revealing it to Morgoth right away leaves open the possibility of conflict later, or Mairon playing dumb when Morgoth learns the spiders are in the forest later.

We do need to explain how Mairon gets banished to Minas Tirith, after all, and we probably should show betrayal/breakup in Mairon's posse at some point. We can't have perfectly loyal bad guys, after all.
 
The ents lifting yavannas sleep might be a problem. The plants need light...
I suppose remains of the old light waveri g like glowing bubbles above awakened plants such as in doriath... Nut not sure if that works well
 
Haakon said:
That’s a fascinating idea. I’m not sure how to depict that, though. I kind of connect it with him leaving Angband less and less often. But then it would not really begin until later, after the death of Fingolfin.
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(I'm posting this mostly because I'm still trying to figure out the details of how the forum works: gonna try annotating a quote from The Silmarillion...)

After Morgoth returns to Angband with the Silmarils, he pretty much hunkers right down:

Silmarillion said:
Never but once only did he depart for a while secretly from his domain in the North; seldom indeed did he leave the deep places of his fortress, but governed his armies from his northern throne.
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That one time he left the North was on the awakening of Men. But he seems to have left Angband very few times at all after he returned with the Jewels.
 
Haerangil said:
The ents lifting yavannas sleep might be a problem. The plants need light...
I suppose remains of the old light waveri g like glowing bubbles above awakened plants such as in doriath... Nut not sure if that works well
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I see your point. I agree, maybe it's not possible. I don't think we want to do bubbles of light, no.
Still, the Ents should do something with the trees of Beleriand (and of Ossiriand in particular).
 
we've fudged the light thing before -- the Northern Lights -- so we probably could get away with something like "there is good earth here, and good water. These trees can grow", only for them to grow larger, more beautiful, more impressive in the light of the Sun. I'm not sure how we'd portray the later, though. We'd have to physically distinguish the trees, in a way more than just getting bigger. Maybe leaves are all silver-grey before the Sun? Or no trees flower before the Sun rises?

Or we can just leave the idea to one side.
 
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