Odola
Well-Known Member
Thought so too at first but actually not so very far from Beren himself - after some thinking about it:
Beren is about to start a semi-divine sacred bloodline himself - which will marry - maybe not very close but still - kin to keep the bloodline "pure". It is an ancient universal human idea for which we have traces starting with the Neolithic actually.
B&L is not a love story - it is a dynastic origin story at its very core - legitimizing a "divine right to rule".
Not really Neolithic. In Europe it was used long before, in other parts of the world it is in use still untill today. The Aztecs were not Neolithic nor are the Inuits or Aborigines. E.g. in Europe the "bow and arrow" is actually a Neolithic weapon. And the sword is a Bronze Age one. If one counts their historic appearance.
The issue is more that it is a weapon suitable for wooded areas in cases were bow and arrow are to weak to make a mark. And against spiders where also you would need something stronger than a mere arrow.
So fully armoured orcs. Then what can Beren and his band use? Firearms? Some technically advanced crossbows?
Neither sword nor even javelins will do much against full plate. (Atlatls do well against chainmail. And they do pierce metal plates too - here e.g. a car hood:
"One Spaniard was wounded by a weapon that the Castilians in the Indies call a tiradera (javelin), which we shall call more accurately a bohordo because it is shot with a stock (amiento) of wood or a cord. The Spaniards had not seen this weapon in all the places they had visited in Florida until that day. In Peru the Indians use it a great deal. It is a weapon a fathom long made of a firm rush, though spongy in the center, of which they also make arrows. They make heads for them of deer horn, fashioned in all perfection with four points or harpoons of palm or other wood that they have, as strong and heavy as iron. So that the part of the arrow or dart made of the rush will not be split by the barb when it hits its mark, they make a knot where the head or harpoon joins it and another one at the other end, which the cross-bowmen call batalla on their darts, where it receives the cord of the bow or the stock with which they shoot it. The stock is of wood two tercias long, and they shoot the dart with it with extreme force, so that it has been known to pass through a man armed with a coat of mail. The Spaniards in Peru feared this weapon more than any other the Indians had, for their arrows are not so terrible as those in Florida.
"The dart or arrow with which they wounded our Spaniard of whom we are speaking had three barbs in the place of one, similar to the three largest fingers of the hand. The barb in the center was a-hand-breadth longer that the two on the sides, and thus it went through the thigh from one side to the other. The two side barbs were lodged in the middle of the thigh and in order to get them out it was necessary to cut away a great deal of flesh from the Spaniard's leg, because they were harpoons and not smooth points. The butchery was such that he expired before they got his wound dressed, the poor fellow not knowing whether to complain more of the enemy who had wounded him or the friends who had hastened his death."
-Garcilaso de la Vega in the de Soto expedition
From; "Historic use of the Spear-Thrower in Southeastern North America", John R. Swanton, American Antiquity, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Apr., 1938), pp. 356-358. )
The reason I would like them in our story:
- they are very expressive and visually dynamic - convey brute force (and a basic understanding of physics + the core human ability to compensate for "innate weakness" by the strategic use of technology) and anger imho - but not yet used in movies much - so it would add some novelty to the fight sceenes for the viewers. Something they have not seen much as yet.
They are also used one handed, leaving the other hand free e.g. to hold a sword.
- it would be something not elf- or dwarf-derived - something distinctlty human. Elves have no need for it, they have streght enough in their own hands, dwarves fight more at very close range.
But if orcs are full plated then the best thing would be to drive the them into deep water and let them drown actually.
Still orcs running around in full plate in a forest - a bit cumbersome - even if orcs are much stronger than men.
Oh, really? That changes what the place is significantly. In the texts it is more "hell" than even Angband due to Ungoliant personally covering the place in her very own spinning. If she did not, then it can be a "Mirkwood', and not "hell" itself.
But that reduces Beren's deed a lot imho as a "Mirkwood" can be crossed - even by a band of silly dwarves and a hobbit - as we do know. Nan Dungortheb was only ever crossed by Beren himself in the original texts.
So this is no longer extraordinary in our story. I am no longer really sure what Beren's crossing it will give to our story then. - It does no longer establish him as a great hero.
Somehow our story seems to reduce him to a lover only? We keep reducing his greatness, personally gained fame and achievements.
He becomes the clueless next door guy, a "younker in distress" really.
What does he personally achieve? Only killing Gorgol and Beren's Leap remain. He even breaks his knive getting the Silmarils out and he is maimed and then killed by the wolf. Not a capable warrior.
But this makes our story very "modern": a capable female liking a far less capable guy. Quite a role reversal. The audience might think we are going "woke" on a Tolkien story - which might actually enrage it quite a lot nowadays - as we do know. 😀 Are we going to risk it? 😉
{Still better to make the Gorgol fight really spectacular if it is the only one Beren's really does and wins on his own in our story.]
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