Session 3.04 - S3 Ep 1: The Rebellion of the Noldor

Yes. I was thinking about the funeral boat for Boromir and thought we could see the origin of this practice.
Well you could be onto something. But let's stick to the issue of Finwë and the first funeral. The body should be taken to Mandos, right?

Do elven bodies even rot? I always imagined Finduilas' corpse, for example, being in pretty good shape when Turin finds her: maybe because his life is crappy enough without adding body horror to it.
I think they rot. At least in Middle-earth. But maybe not in Valinor...inside of the Pélori...but I think we should...just make things easy for ourselves and cover him.
 
I think in Laws and Customs it is stated that elven bodies decay faster outside Aman, but i'm, not sure anymore...
most of the time the Eldar seem to have buried their dead and built either a cairn or a mound, or a pyramid like in Fingolfin's case. For Nobles i'd prefer Pyramids, Glorfindelss mound seems to have been an emergency solution, not sure about Turins Mound, but it seems he was treated at least a bit like an outlaw. Legolas also mentions burials and cairns... possibly as the usual make-shift burials for those fallen in battle, but not what elves would do at home.

I'm against ship burials for the Noldor... they are at unease with the Valar and Mandos, but it could work for the Falmari and Falathrim. I also believe Lost Tales mentions a ship of the dead that brings the dead to the Haven of Mandos at Hanstovanen... so if we wish to recycle the idea, we could use it for Vanyar and Falmari if we like.

Another Idea: we don#t need to show Finwes disfigured Body to the audience, but it could be shown that the Noldor can see it and their reaction could be visible for the audience - this way we would avoid the problem of TV Corpse/Wax work but still get a suggestion of what the Noldor might see..
 
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Another Idea: we don#t need to show Finwes disfigured Body to the audience, but it could be shown that the Noldor can see it and their reaction could be visible for the audience - this way we would avoid the problem of TV Corpse/Wax work but still get a suggestion of what the Noldor might see..

Don't we see Finwë's body in the Season 2 finale, though? I can't remember the exact description but I believe it was a pretty sad sight...


I like cairns and pyramids as burial options. I think a pyramid for Finwë offers better design options, depending on what the Noldor do with it.
 
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I think in Laws and Customs it is stated that elven bodies decay faster outside Aman, but i'm, not sure anymore...
most of the time the Eldar seem to have buried their dead and built either a cairn or a mound, or a pyramid like in Fingolfin's case. For Nobles i'd prefer Pyramids, Glorfindelss mound seems to have been an emergency solution, not sure about Turins Mound, but it seems he was treated at least a bit like an outlaw. Legolas also mentions burials and cairns... possibly as the usual make-shift burials for those fallen in battle, but not what elves would do at home.

I'm against ship burials for the Noldor... they are at unease with the Valar and Mandos, but it could work for the Falmari and Falathrim. I also believe Lost Tales mentions a ship of the dead that brings the dead to the Haven of Mandos at Hanstovanen... so if we wish to recycle the idea, we could use it for Vanyar and Falmari if we like.

I favor a simple burial ritual for Finwe, if there is anything that can be called ritual at all. As pointed out earlier, the elves have little or no experience of death and little occasion to develop customs for burial. It just doesn't happen in Valinor, and even in Cuivienen their experience was mostly of people being taken, not finding and burying bodies. Burial traditions will develop among the elves as they start to die in large numbers in Beleriand, but those could start among the Sindar, who will begin to die in war earlier. I see cairns and burial mounds as more suited to the Sindar/Green elves, with a stronger connection to the land, rather than the Noldor. The Noldor would, over time, perhaps develop traditions more along the lines of pyramids or burial monuments, but in fact most of them (at least their leaders and rulers) will die in battle or in other circumstances that don't lend themselves to elaborate burials. In any case I think we start simple. Maybe Finwe's descendants decide to march with his body to Tirion (or Mandos, or wherever we decide) almost spontaneously, without a firm plan. They just decide the body needs to be taken there, and they come up with a simple ceremony to honor him. The emotional resonance will come from the procession and the visible grief.

Don't know the textual basis for this, but I had always imagined funeral boats in Gondor deriving from Numenorean tradition. Especially in the later years, I can see the Numenoreans sending a funeral boat out into the western sea in hope of reaching aman. We could show a ship burial tradition among the elves too, but probably not among the Noldor, but instead those elves closely associated with the sea (Teleri, Falathrim). (Maybe we show the Teeleri making some simple funeral boats for the victims of the Kinslaying?
 
So, my case for maintaining the story set forth in the text:

Yes, having the sons repeat the Oath for the first time at Fëanor's death is more tragic, and gives us more pathos. But it also almost makes it looks like they were under duress, fulfilling the dying wish of their father. No sane person would consider that the result of their own failings. Showing the sons saying the Oath along with Fëanor puts the responsibility for this on their own shoulders, along with Dad's.

I also vote for having the sons swear the Oath in Tirion. If we want to convey that the Kinslaying is the first fruit of the Oath, then having only Feanor swear it makes him seem solely responsible. I don't think we want the Kinslaying to be perceived as just a Feanor problem. Also, the Oath doesn't render the sons of Feanor mindless, and we can still show at least some of them struggling with the consequences and feeling some of the moral ambiguity as the season progresses. It's almost more tragic for them to see the slowly unfolding tragedy, and to begin to realize that they are fated to do what they have sworn to do even when they know it is wrong. We can show some of them regretting the Oath, until in their grief at Feanor 's death they choose to reaffirm it.

In a way, swearing the Oath at the beginning is more understandable than only swearing it at Feanor's death. In the square in Tirion, it is still possible to believe (despite the words of the oath) that its target is not the elves, that the only enemies, the only ones who would actually oppose recovering the Silmarils, are servants of Morgoth. The sons could (blindly) assume that all the other elves will get on board with fighting Morgoth to recover them, and foresee no opposition. It can be a self-serving and misguided belief, but still sincerely held int he emotions of the moment. After the Kinslaying and all that follows, saying the Oath for the first time can only be seen as a damning moral choice once you've seen what flows from it.

Having the sons all agree to swear the oath in Tirion also drives the wedge deeper between Feanor and Nerdanel.
 
The Season 2 finale specifies that Melkor damages Finwë in such a way that he broke the crown that he was wearing on his head. That does suggest a smashed-in head, but no one actually committed to showing anything so frighteningly gory on screen. It could simply be that he hit him hard in the head - hard enough to kill him, but not hard enough to...well. To necessitate a wax figure :p

Obviously, there are a lot of TV shows that feature dead bodies regularly - all the CSI and similar shows. In some of them, the bodies are in an advanced state of decay, not pretty-dead-person-who-doesn't-look-dead. I think people accept the extremes - so badly decomposed as to be unrecognizable, or the actor with some fake blood. Interestingly enough, you're allowed to wrap the body up so you can't see anything for funeral pyres, but maybe not for other methods of burial.

Murron's funeral (Braveheart) - body is wrapped, but you can still see the face.


That's a rather simple burial. For the opposite end of the spectrum, you get formal state funerals....

Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary
 
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I favor a simple burial ritual for Finwe, if there is anything that can be called ritual at all. As pointed out earlier, the elves have little or no experience of death and little occasion to develop customs for burial. It just doesn't happen in Valinor, and even in Cuivienen their experience was mostly of people being taken, not finding and burying bodies. Burial traditions will develop among the elves as they start to die in large numbers in Beleriand, but those could start among the Sindar, who will begin to die in war earlier. I see cairns and burial mounds as more suited to the Sindar/Green elves, with a stronger connection to the land, rather than the Noldor. The Noldor would, over time, perhaps develop traditions more along the lines of pyramids or burial monuments, but in fact most of them (at least their leaders and rulers) will die in battle or in other circumstances that don't lend themselves to elaborate burials. In any case I think we start simple. Maybe Finwe's descendants decide to march with his body to Tirion (or Mandos, or wherever we decide) almost spontaneously, without a firm plan. They just decide the body needs to be taken there, and they come up with a simple ceremony to honor him. The emotional resonance will come from the procession and the visible grief.
This is my view exactly.

I also vote for having the sons swear the Oath in Tirion. If we want to convey that the Kinslaying is the first fruit of the Oath, then having only Feanor swear it makes him seem solely responsible. I don't think we want the Kinslaying to be perceived as just a Feanor problem. Also, the Oath doesn't render the sons of Feanor mindless, and we can still show at least some of them struggling with the consequences and feeling some of the moral ambiguity as the season progresses. It's almost more tragic for them to see the slowly unfolding tragedy, and to begin to realize that they are fated to do what they have sworn to do even when they know it is wrong. We can show some of them regretting the Oath, until in their grief at Feanor 's death they choose to reaffirm it.

In a way, swearing the Oath at the beginning is more understandable than only swearing it at Feanor's death. In the square in Tirion, it is still possible to believe (despite the words of the oath) that its target is not the elves, that the only enemies, the only ones who would actually oppose recovering the Silmarils, are servants of Morgoth. The sons could (blindly) assume that all the other elves will get on board with fighting Morgoth to recover them, and foresee no opposition. It can be a self-serving and misguided belief, but still sincerely held int he emotions of the moment. After the Kinslaying and all that follows, saying the Oath for the first time can only be seen as a damning moral choice once you've seen what flows from it.

Having the sons all agree to swear the oath in Tirion also drives the wedge deeper between Feanor and Nerdanel.
Yes! I agree with all of this.
 
They certainly had a procession and maybe a keening and certainly a memorial feast.

While it is true that elves usually don' t experience death in valinor it is not true that rhey never had any experience with dying and mourning . A few elves die in valinor too , but usually no violent deaths. Elves would remember the dangerous times at cuivienen and the great wandering and maybe return to half forgotten customs. We could think about a requiem and a deathwatch and a keening... If we want to show that in screen is anorher thing.
 
Another idea... Elves do have words for lament and memorial... The oldest elvish terms for grave also mean pit. Maybe the burial mound and cairn thing was more an umanya thing ?

Theres a noldorian word gontha, meaning pillar, stele, memorial...

I don't know if the noldor did that but it could make sense rationalised they returned to their archaic custom of having a deathwatch, a procession, laments, bury the dead in the earth, erect a memorial stele at tirion and then have a memorial feast. If we show that or how much of it is a matter of choice.. I'd like finwes corpse covered wirh a veil.
 
They certainly had a procession and maybe a keening and certainly a memorial feast.

While it is true that elves usually don' t experience death in valinor it is not true that rhey never had any experience with dying and mourning . A few elves die in valinor too , but usually no violent deaths. Elves would remember the dangerous times at cuivienen and the great wandering and maybe return to half forgotten customs. We could think about a requiem and a deathwatch and a keening... If we want to show that in screen is anorher thing.
The only deaths we have so far in our story before Finwë are the ones of those who are taken by the Hunter, and then there's the story about Míriel - but that is a really special case. The victims of the Hunter are killed in Middle-earth. So, in our story, Finwë is the first one to die. Not only that, but he is the first to leave a corpse behind. Again, Míriel is a special case.
So there simply is no reason for the Noldor or any of the other Valinorean Elves to have ideas about funerals or rituals after someone's death. This is the first occasion.
The Noldor know that the dead go to the Halls of Mandos. So, it would be a natural thing to hand the body over to Mandos - or to Lorien. There's simply no reason to put the body into the earth, or inclose it in stone. That could be a later development, when Noldor die in ME. If they built pyramids, then it's perhaps as a memory of the first ritual: maybe they carry Finwë on a stretcher with some kind of construction covering the body, like a pyramid shaped tent? I don't know.
 
In our story yes! But rationalised there no doubt would have been a small number of elves who died of accidents or attacks from wild animals. Even in valinor they do things like mountain climbing, dangerous sports like boat races or martial arts, hunting and heavy dangerous work. They no doubt would have invented a tradition of mourning and memorial and possibly bringing the dead bodies to mandos for repair. As i said we could use the ship of death, but not in a time where rhe leading noldo nobility was at odds with the valar and mandos.

I like the idea of the pyramid being derived from the tent they erected about dead at cuivienen or the great wandering. If fits to the noldor they would change from tent to something more elaborate over the time..
 
That sounds reasonable...but I'm not sure that it's necessarily true. Well...I guess I buy it. I can't come up with a great argument against it, but somehow it doesn't feel right. How many would have died in Valinor then? Why aren't we told?
 
Because its not part of the story :).

Maybe the little brother of glorfindels cousin fell into a well as a child. Certainly a sad story, but he didnt have to spend a long term in mandos and was quickly reimbodied.. So in the end everything ended well.
 
Because its not part of the story :).

Maybe the little brother of glorfindels cousin fell into a well as a child. Certainly a sad story, but he didnt have to spend a long term in mandos and was quickly reimbodied.. So in the end everything ended well.
Oh alright :)
 
Returning to Galadriel...

We have shown her being antagonistic to Fëanor in the past - we have the scene with young!Galadriel refusing to give him a lock of her hair, and then scenes where she is away from Tirion or talking with Aredhel about their cousins in a way that shows the tension there. We have shown her hanging out with her Teleri cousins, looking at the ships, and talking about going back to Middle Earth.

In other words, we made sure we had everything set up to be able to portray her viewpoint in a nuanced way here.

But what is she going to say? Is she going to try to argue her viewpoint, getting her brothers/people on board with her? Is she going to argue for returning to Middle Earth or not? Is she going to try for a counter-rebellion, where she wants to have a separate faction in opposition to Fëanor?
 
During the Darkening of Valinor, she was very independent and visionary. She swore no oaths but the words of Fëanor concerning Middle-earth kindled a desire in her heart, as she was eager to see those wide unguarded lands and rule a realm of her own. During the troubles that followed, even though she participated in the revolt of the Noldor,[5] she fought against Fëanor in defence of her mother's kin in the Kinslaying of Alqualondë.[4] Accounts suggest she travelled among the second group led by Fingolfin, which joined the battle atAlqualondë late and without knowing how it had started. Some of that group had not participated in the killing, although it is not clear who and how many. Dismayed by the prophecy of Mandos, her father Finarfin abandoned the march of the Noldor and returned to Valinor. But Galadriel and her brothers crossed the Helcaraxë in far north and arrived to the northern shores of Hither Lands[6].

Well thats how the article at tolkien gateway summarizes it. So what does galadriel think? She's not completely with feanor , she rejects to give him a lock of her hair thrice. On the other hand she is moved by his words and he seems to have his influence on her despite her opposition. Plus she wants freedom, adventure and - let's face this - power and a dominion on her own. She joins her brothers, but still has a vision and goal on her own apart from her brothers intentions... I also still like the short account in unfinished tales in which she and celeborn fought at alqualonde on behalf of the teleri. Of course celeborn is absent in our version, but we still can have galadriel be there and intervent, but fail to stop the noldor and teleri in all the chaos and confusion.

What was alqualonde like? The noldor agressively demanding ships, the teleri aggressively denying, the noldor trying to seize, the teleri stepping in the way, a brawl, guards mistaking the situation from afar, one arrow shot, a dead noldo, noldor grapping their blades, teleri grapping their spears, chaos, confusion, bloodshet, more moldor appearing seeing nothing but battle and joining the others, more teleri joining the fight...
 
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