Script Discussion S06E03

Haha...

Shelob being Beren's rescuer! That would be too funny!

But wouldn't that a bit undermine Beren's unnamed heroic deed? Like..overcoming his enslaver, breaking his chains? Not that it could't work...

Would we somehow use those dark idols Tolkien mentioned in the early version, in lost tales? I always imagined those must have depicted the spiderdemons with whom ungolianth had mated and whom she presumably ate... and the people who made them, possibly being Beorians themselves, folk from Ered Gorgoroth and Dor Dínen who sought to ward off the great spiders by superstitious rites and sacrifices.
At last that was what i wrote in MY fanon.

However:
From a storytelling pov that could be an interesting way to spare us time and a decision, by working Barahir's death, Berens revenge on Gorgol, INTO such a nightmarevision scenario that happens in Dungortheb in form of visions, nightmares and flashbacks... that COULD be interesting , i guess?
 
Haha...

Shelob being Beren's rescuer! That would be too funny!

Would explain why:
1. Beren never speaks of it
2. Shelob leaves Nan Dungortheb (before her "auntie" - older sister, really - comes home. presumably)

Seems fine to me.

Beren still has to manage to scare Shelob off and escape while incapacitated - works as a hero deed for me.
He has been begging fate for death for days, now he has to seize his only chance for life - it is a hero deed in my playbook.
Remeber, Beren only fear "capture" not death. And we have a "release from bondage" also. ;)
 
Last edited:
I don't know...

That could work, but could also turn out really bad. I feel some things must remain mysterious to be interesting, if we explain and rationalize too much it could get boring and predictable. Maybe it is better if we never fully get told what exactly happened in Nan Dungortheb and just supplant some powerful suggestive pictures so an audience would put it together for themselves using their own imagination?
 
I don't know...

That could work, but could also turn out really bad. I feel some things must remain mysterious to be interesting, if we explain and rationalize too much it could get boring and predictable. Maybe it is better if we never fully get told what exactly happened in Nan Dungortheb and just supplant some powerful suggestive pictures so an audience would put it together for themselves using their own imagination?

That also "could work, but could also turn out bad" - it could come out as "lazy". There are dangers in both approaches here.
I do think the danger is less if we see most of it from Beren's perspective. It surely is not funny for him.
 
I agree. I wouldn't wanna write it to be certain!

But in general... i am always sceptical to ways of telling a story which explains too much to the audience. I recently watched Cowboy Bebop, the original anime series, not the rt remake.

The Viewer is just thrown into it without any explanation, then the story unfolds, and just slowly, with every episode more is revealed about the origins and background of each main character and the entire worldbuilding of the background in which the stories are set. Astonishing how well that worked! That was some classy storytelling, wow! In contrast many to modern tv shows like Star Trek Discovery for example...
 
I agree. I wouldn't wanna write it to be certain!

But in general... i am always sceptical to ways of telling a story which explains too much to the audience. I recently watched Cowboy Bebop, the original anime series, not the rt remake.

The Viewer is just thrown into it without any explanation, then the story unfolds, and just slowly, with every episode more is revealed about the origins and background of each main character and the entire worldbuilding of the background in which the stories are set. Astonishing how well that worked! That was some classy storytelling, wow! In contrast many to modern tv shows like Star Trek Discovery for example...


Understood - but we do not return to Nan Dungortheb again in this story. Imagine if what happened in Moriah or in Shelob's Lair in TLOTR were left vague - would it have worked? - I really feared for the latter in the movies to come out funny or ridiculous - but it worked quite well in the end imho.
 
Oh, But Shelob's lair actually IS just a very brief episode with most of it remaining vague and told by a more-knowing narrator. It is neither a very long narrative, nor very complex or detailed... not at all!

Moria... hmm... that is a larger group, much of that chapter actually is description of place philosophical dialogue between several characters with a bit of action near the end, the movie adaption balanced that pretty well for an audience with adding a bit more action and reducing a bit the dialogue but keeping the important core.

How do you do that with just a single protagonist? Unless... of course you go the whitewaters sam way, by internal monologue or an animal companion.That can work quite well... and it might support the feeling of isolation and lonelyness too.
 
Oh, But Shelob's lair actually IS just a very brief episode with most of it remaining vague and told by a more-knowing narrator. It is neither a very ,ong narrative, nor very complex or detailed... not at all!

In the book, but in the movie we see more of it than I would have anticipated. Both Tolkien and Jackson "get" horror, while I myself not really.
 
For me, the most impactful sense of release from bondage for Beren is grief and trauma

I do have my issue with grief here. Beren has been to war, he is not afraid of death - he is ready for it and know he and any of his comrades might die at any moment of their mission in Dothonion. His grief might be more for the loss of beloved Dothonion itself actually which they wanted to protect with their lives than for the mortal warriors he is part of and who "eat death for breakfeast".


@Haerangil It is "sligtly less then 10 minutes" according to this article:
 
Last edited:
@Odola

Ah allright, that must be then torech ungol + Sam fight = 9 min+x

Grief...
I know hardened soldiers teach themselves to be tough and emotionless but... does that really prevent grief?
They might trick themselves into thinking so, so they may continue to function but... deep inside?

There are warriors rituals for fallen comrades, or family members... i believevthese exist for a reason, most likely to cope with sorts of grief. I never personally was in the military, but all ex soldiers i know are more than a little weird.

@Rob Harding

Yeah i also think so.Beren almost certainly has ptsd.
 
@Odola

Ah allright, that must be then torech ungol + Sam fight = 9 min+x

Grief...
I know hardened soldiers teach themselves to be tough and emotionless but... does that really prevent grief?
They might trick themselves into thinking so, so they may continue to function but... deep inside?

There are warriors rituals for fallen comrades, or family members... i believevthese exist for a reason, most likely to cope with sorts of grief. I never personally was in the military, but all ex soldiers i know are more than a little weird.

@Rob Harding

Yeah i also think so.Beren almost certainly has ptsd.

True, but how acute is it? We all grieve our own mortality, and the death of our older relatives and are mostly fine after a while. Most problems humans do have is with death that comes unexpectedly or out of frames assigned to it. And both war and a dangerous mission are frames assigned to death. So I do not expect Beren being too surprised about Barahir and co dying. That it was by treason in their sanctuary, yes, still they knew orcs can find it and that they would not honour it. So I really do not see Beren's grief being in need of miraculous healing - he should be able to cope with it fine after a while imho. Mortals "are build" for that. Beren might be livid that the orcs exploited Gorlim's "unhealthy" grief like that, but why should Beren expect better of orcs? - So his anger will be limited - like one is not really angry with a dangerous animal even if one chooses to kill it for safety reasons.
 
Last edited:
This one big spiderqueen -i call her "lhingril"- has a particular knack for holding her prey like puppets, toying withnthem like with mice on a string or living marionettes.

This literally put the biggest grin on my face lol
Thats such a creepy visual concept. Especially if Through the mist Beren thinks they're actual people.

He keeps seeing his father die then waking up every time he's fed on. Only to have it replayed (in quicker succession each time). He eventually fights, not because he's got stronger but because he is so overcome by fear he needs to break from it.

It leaves us with a character who is still trying to outrun his past. But first he needs to live through it in a healing way to become better. That gives us a character status quo from the outset. He needs to stop running. He needs to find who he is now, not just as a victim. He needs Luthien to heal.

So, the thing I love about this concept, is how it plays on Berens emotions. The events tell us something about his character. My worry is that we won't have enough time to properly illustrate that. Also, I don't feel like it's fully necessary that Beren needs to leave, and come back, repeatedly in a physical sense. Watching Beren walking out, knowing that he's just going to go back might cause us to lose the momentum of the story.
Similarly, it would be hard to explain the effect of the "venom" on Beren in the way you described, seeing as we will have no other person there to dialogue with Beren.
Lastly, I am getting some Endless Sunshine of the Spotless Mind vibes from this concept. Except when Beren wakes from the dreams there's a nasty spider monster turning him into its own personal Capri-Sun, which is so metal, and I love that.
 
Well...

If we take it literally that there is no lofe in Dungortheb, no animals, no light, no air...
Then i fear he MUST physically leave it on and off to stay alive...
It also would explain the spiders tactic of feeding quite well, if they hate real light, and they themselves have to feed on something, so they use other living beings as traps, toys, tools, bait... it makes sense for them to keep their food alive as l8ng as possible so they can feed off them - vampyre-spiders if you want
 
He has been begging fate for death for days, now he has to seize his only chance for life

This is the key to Beren at this point in the story for me. I don't think he's afraid, I think he wants to die. But, in the same way that most Anglo/Nordic/Celtic traditions function, death is something that Beren feels he has to earn. He can't just throw himself off a cliff. He has to be worthy to follow his father. To fall fighting evil. So he goes to the darkest, most dangerous place he can think of, and throws himself at every monster he can find hoping that through all this blood, he will be worthy when one of these creatures eventually overcomes him.

This is the same Beren we get when he abandons Luthien in the woods. When he talks about needing to be worthy of her. This is the same Beren who goes after Carcharoth, with only one hand, when Thingol tells him to stay.

This Beren always made the scene with Mandos so cool for me. Cos this is what Beren wanted. He wanted to die. He wanted to be recieved in his father's hall. But now there's Luthien. He doesn't want to leave her yet.
He wants to die for his father. He wants to die for himself. He wants to live for Luthien.
 
This is the key to Beren at this point in the story for me. I don't think he's afraid, I think he wants to die. But, in the same way that most Anglo/Nordic/Celtic traditions function, death is something that Beren feels he has to earn. He can't just throw himself off a cliff. He has to be worthy to follow his father. To fall fighting evil. So he goes to the darkest, most dangerous place he can think of, and throws himself at every monster he can find hoping that through all this blood, he will be worthy when one of these creatures eventually overcomes him.

This is the same Beren we get when he abandons Luthien in the woods. When he talks about needing to be worthy of her. This is the same Beren who goes after Carcharoth, with only one hand, when Thingol tells him to stay.

This Beren always made the scene with Mandos so cool for me. Cos this is what Beren wanted. He wanted to die. He wanted to be recieved in his father's hall. But now there's Luthien. He doesn't want to leave her yet.
He wants to die for his father. He wants to die for himself. He wants to live for Luthien.

If Beren's dearest wish is to die a hero's death then returning to life with Luthien is a sacrifice indeed.
 
This literally put the biggest grin on my face lol
Thats such a creepy visual concept. Especially if Through the mist Beren thinks they're actual people.



So, the thing I love about this concept, is how it plays on Berens emotions. The events tell us something about his character. My worry is that we won't have enough time to properly illustrate that. Also, I don't feel like it's fully necessary that Beren needs to leave, and come back, repeatedly in a physical sense. Watching Beren walking out, knowing that he's just going to go back might cause us to lose the momentum of the story.
Similarly, it would be hard to explain the effect of the "venom" on Beren in the way you described, seeing as we will have no other person there to dialogue with Beren.
Lastly, I am getting some Endless Sunshine of the Spotless Mind vibes from this concept. Except when Beren wakes from the dreams there's a nasty spider monster turning him into its own personal Capri-Sun, which is so metal, and I love that.

For me, the personal draw of this is that you can do it in a compressed sense because it is something people have seen before in film. Someone else suggested even having the backstory as flashbacks be part of this sequence. In essence, we could meet Beren while trapped but not know it. We can see the history of him, intercut with these moments of lucidly waking in a cave and seeing a terrifying shape before his vision blurs and we get another piece of his backstory. And then at the end you speed-run through events we've seen already and him screaming and show visually what is happening emotionally - he is stuck in his past, repeatedly reliving the events he couldn't change.

It's Groundhog Day or a very brutal sequence from Preacher wherein a man relives losing his family again and again, getting faster each time. Once we've seen the backstory play out as we'd like to present it, all you need to do is a flickering montage of clips the audience has seen, losing a few key aspects each time until it just boils down to the central wound (likely, Barahir being slain). You keep repeating that one moment until Beren stumbles out of his stupor and gets away but PLAINLY NOT FREE internally.

It's a dramatic introduction, showing us his strengths and weakness and backstory in one setting.

Seeing fangs going into him and maybe them dripping with something is enough of a visual clue to imply why this is happening imo.

To say Beren wouldn't know grief because he's seen war is to say sailors can't drown. He might have some equipping to overcome immediate effects, but this is a man who has been defined by combat and death for a long period. Or at the very least, survival. Survival as a long term status quo is crippling. We see this through the metaphor of the spider attack. That Beren should be able to deal fine with the grief of losing his mother, watching his father and friends killed, having lived through bloody violent war, is, I think, deeply problematic at best.

For me, Beren has PTSD and survivor's guilt but a weird built-up idea of nobility. He wants to do his father proud by dying a hero's death like Barahir did while he survived and feels destroyed emotionally by that fact. CRUCIALLY I don't think we should give credence to the idea of a heroic death being Beren's resolution. It's his realising there are things worth living and fighting for. THAT HE IS WORTH living for. Not just Luthien. Not just the world, but that he has value beyond being a warrior. He can help heal the land as well as fighting. He is enough. That is part of the pain of being mortal. It's not only death and loss in that sense. It's the struggle to just be. Elves don't know that. Luthien sees it in Beren. 'I do not love the bright sword...'
 
Last edited:
For me, the personal draw of this is that you can do it in a compressed sense because it is something people have seen before in film. Someone else suggested even having the backstory as flashbacks be part of this sequence. In essence, we could meet Beren while trapped but not know it. We can see the history of him, intercut with these moments of lucidly waking in a cave and seeing a terrifying shape before his vision blurs and we get another piece of his backstory. And then at the end you speed-run through events we've seen already and him screaming and show visually what is happening emotionally - he is stuck in his past, repeatedly reliving the events he couldn't change.

It's Groundhog Day or a very brutal sequence from Preacher wherein a man relives losing his family again and again, getting faster each time. Once we've seen the backstory play out as we'd like to present it, all you need to do is a flickering montage of clips the audience has seen, losing a few key aspects each time until it just boils down to the central wound (likely, Barahir being slain). You keep repeating that one moment until Beren stumbles out of his stupor and gets away but PLAINLY NOT FREE internally.

It's a dramatic introduction, showing us his strengths and weakness and backstory in one setting.

Seeing fangs going into him and maybe them dripping with something is enough of a visual clue to imply why this is happening imo.

To say Beren wouldn't know grief because he's seen war is to say sailors can't drown. He might have some equipping to overcome immediate effects, but this is a man who has been defined by combat and death for a long period. Or at the very least, survival. Survival as a long term status quo is crippling. We see this through the metaphor of the spider attack. That Beren should be able to deal fine with the grief of losing his mother, watching his father and friends killed, having lived through bloody violent war, is, I think, deeply problematic at best.

For me, Beren has PTSD and survivor's guilt but a weird built-up idea of nobility. He wants to do his father proud by dying a hero's death like Barahir did while he survived and feels destroyed emotionally by that fact. CRUCIALLY I don't think we should give credence to the idea of a heroic death being Beren's resolution. It's his realising there are things worth living and fighting for. THAT HE IS WORTH living for. Not just Luthien. Not just the world, but that he has value beyond being a warrior. He can help heal the land as well as fighting. He is enough. That is part of the pain of being mortal. It's not only death and loss in that sense. It's the struggle to just be. Elves don't know that. Luthien sees it in Beren. 'I do not love the bright sword...'

Not 100% convinced but to 80% - will present my short scene proposition in a few hours - no time now. But I think with gathering ideas around we will figure this sequence out in the end.
 
Back
Top