Celeborn’s Family

Faelivrin

Well-Known Member
I’m continuing/moving the discussion here, which started on the Season 4 Frame thread.

I think Celeborn’s father Galadhon, his mother, and his brother Galathil should all still be alive in Season 4.I propose that both Celeborn’s parents should die in the Fall of Doriath at the hands of Dwarves, and that his (little?) brother Galathil should die in either Doriath or the Second Age. To be clear, I’m totally fine with him also having a sister who’s still alive in the Third Age.

I don’t see how it would help the story to retroactively kill off his family in Season 2. It would only cut off story and character options. Just because Celeborn’s family don’t have any obvious Season 4 roles besides his wedding doesn’t mean that they’ll never be useful later. This post is long -- that’s because there are several very good reasons to keep Celeborn’s parents and brother alive longer:

1. The Hosts may not let us kill them in a flashback.
2. It’s a very good idea to plan ahead for future seasons when most of our current cast will be dead.
3. In particular, it would be very good for more than just Thingol to die in the Fall of Doriath.
4. It would help explain why Celeborn’s racist against Dwarves for 6476 years.
5. We don’t know if Nimloth is from Doriath or Ossiriand. We can give her a potential parent in each place.
6. The Elves who died at Cuivienen don’t need to be Celeborn’s parents and sibling.


1. The Hosts may not let us kill them in a flashback.

If I understand correctly, it has been proposed that:
1. Celeborn should only have 1 sibling, a sister.
2. Nobody related to Celeborn should die in Doriath.
3. We should pick a scene in Season 2 Episode 1, in which Celeborn’s canonical parents were not mentioned, and retroactively declare they were the extras in that scene, using a flashback.

I doubt that the Execs, who so strongly dislike flashbacks, would allow Celeborn’s previously-unmentioned family to be inserted retroactively into Season 2 using a flashback. I think if we try that, the Hosts will likely veto it, and then we may end up with Celeborn having no parents in existence, with no explanation.

The alternative, simpler option is that they’re still alive. We can easily kill them later in the series without a flashback. And in the meantime they will exist as usable characters when we start to run out of people.


2. It’s a very good idea to plan ahead for future seasons when most of our current cast will be dead.

We will start running out of named characters in the later seasons, and we should plan ahead for it.

I don’t think we should avoid using canon characters, or avoid making new ones, just because several characters are alive for now. We’ve already had to make up new characters, and that’ll happen more often as most of our current characters die. It’s relatively easy to make up new Men and Dwarves on the fly with no backstory because they’re short-lived. But as soon as you invent a new Elf you need a reason why they were never mentioned before. That’s easy if they have no significant connection to any main character, or are introduced as a child with living parents. But it’s harder to introduce a new character with connections to main characters, without making them look like an afterthought we sort of tacked on at the last minute. Especially if we’ve already written a scene in which that new character should logically have been seen or mentioned, but we didn’t mention them.

For example, I think we have an awkward situation with a decision apparently made in Season 2 that Indis (then a main character) is an only child and Ingwë’s canon son Ingwion just doesn’t exist. AFAIK, he wasn’t at Indis’ wedding, or any other scene with his sister or parents in Season 2. I know he wasn’t cast. It’s going to be weird when we get to the War of Wrath, if we can’t introduce Ingwion as the Vanya general. That’s why I don’t agree with Amysrevenge that any canon character is “optional” just because they don’t have an immediate major role in the current season. I don’t think getting rid of canon characters is good planning with Elves. To extend a metaphor of the “Seeds” thread, I think we should plant seeds where they fit, even seeds that won’t be harvested for a while, instead of pre-emptively salting the earth.

We aren’t short of characters yet, but we will be short in the late 1st Age and especially in the 2nd Age. I’m more concerned about running low on named Elves too early, than I am about finding ways for Galadhon and Galathil to die in The Silmarillion’s perpetual warfare and multiple sackings. When we get to the Fall of Doriath, Galathil could even survive but go east with his brother and sister, and then he’d be available during the 2nd Age when we’re stuck inventing lots of new Elves. We don’t have to decide now how they die... but if we kill them off in a Season 4 flashback, we can’t change our minds and use them later when we need more characters.


3. In particular, it would be very good for more than just Thingol to die in the Fall of Doriath.

I think there is a lot of value in having some non-extras die during the Fall of Doriath, instead of Thingol being the only death that matters. Of the characters we have currently, only 5 will still be around when Doriath falls (Thingol, Melian, Mablung, Galadriel, Celeborn). Even if we add Oropher later, there is value in Doriath being inhabited by more than just 6 non-extras at the time it falls. Six characters are not much to tell a war story. Celeborn and Galadriel’s parts will have no tension because everyone already knows they both survive. Dwarves can’t hurt Melian. That will leave us with only 2-3 characters for whom we can create a tension about their survival or potential deaths: Thingol and Mablung, maybe Oropher. Just three characters. Try to imagine telling a story about warfare in which only 3 characters are actually killable and everyone else has plot invincibility. And if we use the story in the Silmarillion, Thingol gets assassinated before the battle even begins.

I also don’t want Thingol’s death to be the only one that matters in Doriath, and every other death to be a faceless extra. Saying ten or thirty thousand Sindar died is just a statistic. Killing Thingol will be very sad and significant, but one death won’t feel like a lost battle. It will feel like an assassination, followed by a video game fight.

MithLuin has suggested we could introduce a non-extra just shortly before the Fall of Doriath, like the little girl in Schindler’s List. We could, but I don’t think that’ll be enough. Which has more impact -- killing a character who has only been on screen for one episode, or killing a character who was on screen recently and several times in past episodes and seasons, who has relationships with other characters, a story, and a personality? And of course we can kill both kinds of characters in Doriath.


4. It would help explain why Celeborn’s racist against Dwarves for 6476 years.

Celeborn isn’t hateful, but he still hasn’t gotten over his grudge against Dwarves even in the Third Age. By the time Celeborn meets Gimli, he has relentlessly disliked Dwarves for 6546 years. Six thousand, five hundred, and forty-six years. That’s a mind-bogglingly long time to hold a grudge. It’s longer than all of recorded human history! Even after living for several years in Eregion where the Elves and Longbeards were close allies, he continues to dislike Dwarves. And not just the Firebeards who destroyed Doriath, not even just the Firebeard descendants in the Third Age. No, he dislikes all Dwarves, everywhere, including entire clans who never set foot in Doriath. He welcomes Gimli at first, but then lashes out with a racist insult.

Sure, we can explain his extremely long-lasting racism with only Thingol’s death. But I wish to try to do more than merely explain. We’ve worked to make Celeborn more than Galadriel’s sidekick, and I want to work on making him more sympathetic, too. His racism in the LotR is quite unsympathetic to me. So I want to give him an extremely compelling cause for his inability to get over his all-encompassing grudge. Killing his beloved King and sacking his home is big, but it isn’t big enough to still dislike all Dwarves everywhere 6546 years later. I want to show that he lost his father and mother as well, and maybe his brother too.


5. We don’t know if Nimloth is from Doriath or Ossiriand. We can give her a potential parent in each place.

We don’t know where Dior will meet Nimloth. Given how vague and un-detailed that part of the books are, we can’t yet be 100% certain that she’ll be from Ossiriand. When we get to that point in the story, we might find it’s easier for her to be from Doriath.

If Nimloth is from Ossiriand, then Celeborn’s sister is her mother. But if we end up wanting Nimloth to be from Doriath, that won’t work so well. Putting Galathil in Doriath would make him available to be Nimloth’s father.


6. The Elves who died at Cuivienen don’t need to be Celeborn’s parents and brother.

If the Hosts let us to retroactively name some lost Elves at Cuiviénen, they don’t have to be Celeborn’s parents. They can be his close friends, or a little sibling. I’m not convinced that Celeborn needs to have lost anyone in particular at Cuiviénen, just to make him sympathetic to Galadriel. He show sympathy just by being a kind person, without needing to be an orphan.
 
I disagree with several points here, but mildly, and not in a combative "SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET!!!" sort of way that multiquote line-by-line refutations would appear as. In general I can see where you're coming from, but I don't place the same level of importance on the same factors.

The gist of the disagreement is the following (my numbers don't line up with your numbers)

(ETA: in retrospect, at least one of these is an agreement rather than a disagreement. So I guess "response" is more appropriate than "disagreement"hahaha)

1) In S2 is was already established that "Celeborn's family" was victim to the Hunter. Exactly which family members were to my recollection unspecified, but this was our primary way to introduce the emotional impact of the Hunter's depredations so it ha to be significant.

2) I don't think it'll be all that weird if "Elf we've never heard of" or even "Elf we've heard of but isn't the same Elf as in the book" as the Vanyar general rather than "Elf we met for like 30 seconds in one scene 9 seasons ago" as the Vanyar general. If it becomes important who the Vanyar general is (which is a long way from a sure thing), no matter who it is we will have to concoct natural-seeming exposition to introduce them, whether we met them 9 seasons ago or they are brand new. In the land of TV, not seen for 9 seasons is functionally equivalent to brand new.

3) I agree that there should be more than just Thingol left in Doriath, even if he is the last one we care about to be killed, there should be others ahead of him with some investment. It's a major piece in the history.

4) I think I interpret Celeborn's feelings toward Dwarves a LOT more charitably than you do. Maybe I didn't read the Lothlorien chapters in LotR as deeply as we are currently going through in the Exploring class, but I always thought the animus was aimed squarely at the Khazad-dum Dwarves, and purely because of the evil they awoke under the mountain (which, even though they didn't know the nature of it exactly, cleared the way for Orcs to call Moria home and cause direct trouble for the Galadhrim). Any bleed-over to Dwarves in general still had its genesis with the Balrog, not necessarily anything earlier. Or at least it could reasonably have happened that way.

5) Tiny note, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't Oropher survive to the Last Alliance?

6) The primary thing to come out of all of this, for me, is that we need to craft some more Sindar characters - in the PubSil we have a surplus of Noldor who both have names and do things, and a dearth of Sindar who both have names and do things. There is no real need for them to be related to Celeborn, or to *anyone* really. They can just be interesting people. If they are relatives, we could make them related to Celeborn, but we might as well make them related to Beleg or Mablung or Daeron or whoever. Why can't they be Daeron's parents instead? They can react to him bugging out later.
 
Yes, Oropher lasts to the Last Alliance, where he impulsively charges before being given a signal by Gil-galad and a good portion of his Silvan Elves are killed. 20,000 would be KIA over those seven years.
 
I tried to number my response according to your post, at least that's my goal.

1.) MithLuin has said repeatedly that they weren't identified as specific people at all, that they were only vaguely implied to be related to Celeborn and/or Elwe. As far as any of us recall, there wasn't in any script an explicit statement that Celeborn's parents, specifically his actual mother and father, were killed. So, I don't agree that "somebody important to Celeborn" has to be his parents, that nobody else could have been important to him at all, or that nobody else could have died at Cuivienen. As I said, there is no reason they can't be his best friends or his little sibling, or just Elwe's relatives. Elwe and Olwe had parents in SilmFilm, and where are they now? That was probably them.

5) Yes, that's a good point. In any case IIRC he has to go east to settle in Greenwood. So we can't kill him in Doriath. Unless we somehow use the Second Age in the frame or refer to his death in the Last Aliance in the frame, we can suggest to the audience that he might die, as with Mablung. But no, so far nobody gets to die in the first fall of Doriath except the King, who doesn't even die during the battle itself. As the cast is currently, we will have a battle, a supposedly catastrophic defeat, in which not one character dies. And then that battle is supposed to account for the way so many Sindar and Nandor hate Dwarves ever afterwards, like Thranduil who is way meaner than Celeborn.

6) Maybe, but there's nothing wrong with using Celeborn's parents and brother for this. For one thing, they have canonical names. It isn't trivially easy to invent appropriate names for Elves without the aid of a really good linguist, which we don't have.

As for reacting to Daeron bugging out, how about Celeborn's family reacting to him marrying a Noldo after Thingol hands down his ban? That would relate directly to the theme of this season, as well as being a character moment for both Galadriel and Celeborn.

(I think of Beleg as a fatherless Elf of the first generation at Cuivienen, which would make him have no relatives.)


As a side note about running out of named Elves, we're going to kill Eol and 5 Noldorin royalty before we even get to the Nirnaeth. At that point we'll start losing characters faster.

P.S. I hope my post doesn't come across as SOMEBODY'S WRONG ON THE INTERNET!!! either. But I admit it's frustrating when everybody disagrees with me.
 
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Yes (I don't recall which sack of Doriath he died in) but that was from the Lost Tales. In Dirhaval and AElfwine, which was written in the 50s, Mablung survives and makes it to the Havens of Sirion. And the reason is, apparently, because somebody had to tell the composer of the Narn what happened in Doriath and at Nargothrond with Glaurung, and in Brethil, etc. in detail. Mablung was the witness to all of those sorry happenings ... or at least one of the few people in Turin's life who survived his entanglement with the curse of Hurin. :(

And we don't have a lot of people to die at the Third Kinslaying either. Egalmoth, Dirhaval, Nimloth, and potentially Mablung... I don't think there's anyone else unless we make some up. And we don't have many people to die at the Second Kinslaying. Nimloth could be killed there although she isn't in the post-LotR texts. The deaths of the little boys will be horrific, but that happens after the battle and maybe not even on screen. We could kill off Oropher's wife maybe, if Thranduil is already born, and they haven't gone east yet. We could kill Guilin at the Second or Third Kinslaying, if we don't kill him at Nargothrond, but then only Orodreth and Gwindor would die in that battle... We can kill off Nellas at some point -- she's no warrior so it would happen in a general sacking, rather than specifically a battle.

Basically, we don't have enough doomed Elves to go around. We could add Celeborn, Meril, Daeron, and Mablung's families, and still might not have enough left in the Second Age.
 
Oh, I remembered what I wanted to say about Celeborn's dislike for Dwarves.

Amysrevenge, the Balrog in Moria could be a plausible enough explanation if we only look at what the LotR says. It's not a bad argument, but it isn't complete/sufficient. In the Unfinished Tales there's more about Celeborn's attitudes. Tolkien straight-up stated that Celeborn's grudge against Dwarves was because of Doriath. When he lived in Eregion, even when Eregion was conquered and other Elves were fleeing into Khazad-Dum to survive, one version says he didn't want to go in there at all. It wouldn't be that he disliked being underground, since he dwelled in Menegroth.
 
The introduction of new elf characters was part of my reason for posting the unaligned thread. There of course would be a shift from members of the great families to lower class elves as secondary protagonists overbthe time, simply because a lot of our nobles will die at some point. I think celeborns father and brother should be alive but die in the sack of doriath, either in tje battle 8f thousand caves or in the second or third kinslaying. And i think Oropher should be made a close kinsman of Celeborn too (his cousin i think) and Amdir too (could be the son of Galadwen, Celeborns sister).
 
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Faelivrin, I will address my own personal replies to the points made in your first post, with the understanding that others have addressed some of those points as well. Sorry to be redundant.

1. The Hosts are likely under the impression that they killed off Celeborn's parents when the Hunter attacked Elwë and teen!Celeborn at the opening of Season 2. The elves who died were left unspecified in the script, giving us flexibility in dealing with this later, but the reason it keeps coming up is because at the time that attack was discussed, it was considered a great way to never have to mention Celeborn's (or Elwë's) family again. The only character the Hosts have *insisted* be obliterated from this project, though, is Elmo (so he doesn't exist at all). You are welcome to review what was said during the Season 2 podcasts, of course, and as I said, we DID leave it open-ended enough that there's wiggle room for discussion here. But no, the Hosts are not likely to object to Celeborn reminiscing about the attack and bringing up how he lost his parents when talking to Galadriel. It wasn't an 'off-screen' event - the Hunter is shown bagging elves on screen. This would be referring back to something the audience has already seen and reminding them of what happened, while adding more nuance/significance to it, not inventing a new scene the audience didn't know about yet.

Of course, no one has said that Celeborn's only surviving family is his sister, either. What was said is that he does have a surviving sister, who is with the Green Elves in Ossiriand. It's probably worth listening to how the idea for her inclusion in the project evolved during Session 3, so you can understand what they want from her. The rest of Celeborn's family was not really discussed at that time, one way or another.

2. Agreed, certainly. We will have to invent characters and storylines and pretty much everything for the Second Age, and only a handful of characters Tolkien named make that transition. There will be a lot of invention when we reach the late First Age as well. Planning ahead is a good idea. There is not usually any harm in introducing a character when they become significant, though.

Concerning Ingwion, we definitely considered him. We decided not to include him in Season 2. Thus far, the story of Ingwë's family is that he is the first elf to awaken, and that his wife was lost in an attack of the Hunter when their daughter Indis was very young. Ingwë's dead wife becomes our test case in learning about elvish death, immortality, and reincarnation. Ingwë finds out about the Halls of Mandos during his initial visit to Valinor, and his wife returns from the dead after the Vanyar have moved back to Valinor. Indis' decision to leave Tirion (and her good friend Míriel) when the Vanyar move away is mostly inspired by her mother's return from the dead at that time.

So, if we want Ingwion to lead the Host of the Vanyar in the War of Wrath, we will have to introduce him at that time. Likely, he would be a child born *after* his mother's return from the dead, so too young to have been alive during the events of the Darkening of Valinor. That is how we would explain his earlier absence. Alternately, we can have someone else (possibly even Ingwë himself) lead the army.

3. The death of Thingol, king of Doriath, will be very significant and likely a bit shocking. Under such circumstances you *don't* actually have to kill other people to get the audience's attention. Kingslaying is a big deal. Certainly, other elves can die. We will show the effect on Melian, though, and that will be more significant than another death on top of it. We tend to give preference to the version in the published Silmarillion, unless there is something from the History of Middle Earth that we want to include. Ideas from the Lost Tales are only excluded if they are too silly in execution to work. So, Mablung can also be killed by dwarves in Menegroth if we want. How many more named characters do we need to see the dwarves kill?

4. As for Celeborn, he has plenty of reason to feel personally betrayed by the dwarves. He was the (for lack of a better term) secretary of state of Doriath - he is the one who was personally responsible for maintaining foreign relations and representing his king abroad in some situations. To have such long term allies slay his king and sack his kingdom is not the kind of insult that an elf is likely to forget. Would he be upset if they killed his brother too? Sure. But would he *not* be upset if they *hadn't* killed his brother? No. They sacked Doriath. They killed Thingol (and Mablung?). He's upset.

Also...there's likely some survivor's guilt going on with Celeborn. He probably wasn't there for any of this, and thus everyone who died while he lived because he'd already struck out on his own....well, that's got to hurt. We haven't definitively decided *when* Celeborn and Galadriel take off over the Mountains and go east, but likely it was before the (first) sack of Doriath. And if he is there...then he failed to save anyone from it.

5. I see where you are going with this - keep the options open! That way, Dior can marry before or after he moves to Doriath, and his wife can play whatever role we need her to play (outsider or insider). But, honestly, we can do that with the sister in Ossiriand. At any time, she could move to Doriath (say her husband is killed or she wants to spend time with her brother). We're going to have to attach the sister to Oropher at some point anyway. So, I think I'm fine with committing to this sister we are introducing being Nimloth's mother. We can make that work.

6. He does not have to be an orphan, that's true. But he doesn't have to *not* be an orphan, either. Meaning, if his parents are dead, that doesn't harm the story in any way. If his parents are alive, we can have them appear at his wedding. But I'm not really seeing why we need them alive at this point? It's more like, yeah, sure, they could be there...but it's not really a big deal either way. Celeborn has experienced loss, and I think that is important for the themes of Season 4. We have a lot of focus on forgiveness and moving forward, working with people you have personal grudges against, etc. Celeborn having lived through the Hunter attack, the uncertainty of the War of the Powers, the acrimony of the Debate at Cuivienen and the hardships of the Journey through Middle Earth and the loss of Elwë are all significant to his backstory and will help to show how he has the wisdom to not get too caught up in blaming the Noldor and cutting all ties to them. Not all elves (even very old and experienced ones!) have experienced the death of a family member, though, and I think that Celeborn's ability to empathize with Galadriel ties in better if he has experienced that loss himself. It does not have to be his mother, but it should be someone close to him. Certainly, I would be fine with one of his parents being dead and the other alive and well in Doriath (for the moment).



I understand that you like the characters Galadhon and Galathil, and would like to include them in this project and have particular roles in mind for them. We all have our particular interests here - Karita's fascination with Ungoliant, Marielle's interest in dwarves, Haerangil's ideas about the culture of Angband...and of course my own obsession with the Fëanoreans. I am not at all opposed to letting the person who cares most about a particular niche develop it and determine how it will play out. The issue in this case is that no decision has been made to include these characters in this project (yet!) and so I'd feel bad telling you to run with it and come up with an entire side plot...that may or may not ever get adopted into the project. That's all my caution is. It's not that anyone disagrees that these characters could be part of this project...they can. If you can convince the Hosts to include them.
 
The introduction of new elf characters was part of my reason for posting the unaligned thread. There of course would be a shift from members of the great families to lower class elves as secondary protagonists overbthe time, simply because a lot of our nobles will die at some point. I think celeborns father and brother should be alive but die in the sack of doriath, either in tje battle 8f thousand caves or in the second or third kinslaying. And i think Oropher should be made a close kinsman of Celeborn too (his cousin i think) and Amdir too (could be the son of Galadwen, Celeborns sister).
I had an idea that somebody stays behind during the Second Kinslaying and makes a last stand trying to protect the survivors. There’s a lot of them in Tolkien: the band of 12 in Dorthonion (though they’re more la resistance), Hurin in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Glorfindel in the Fall of Gondolin, and of course, Gandalf in Moria.
 
Faelivrin, I will address my own personal replies to the points made in your first post, with the understanding that others have addressed some of those points as well. Sorry to be redundant
That's fine!

1. If you think the Hosts aren't likely to object, then I believe you. (Obviously, I object strongly.)
Sorry, I've been trying hard to find time to catch up on the podcasts. I thought I would have time to listen to Session 3 last weekend, but just couldn't manage it. My life is becoming increasingly a dreadful mess and I'm still sick as well. But I intend to watch it... when/if I can. (At this point it's probably impossible to ever find the time to watch the The Season 1 or 2 podcasts :( )


2. I agree that we can wait to include Oropher, Nellas, any family of Mablung and Daeron, etc. when they become important. But we can't wait any longer to mention Celeborn's family because they have to attend his wedding if they're at all alive.


3. Thingol's death is very significant, yes, but he does not die in the battle itself. He's assassinated, then Melian loses the Girdle, and then the Dwarves invade Doriath and kill zillions of faceless extras/toons nobody will ever care about or mourn. So yes, we do need some actual characters to die in the battle itself, or it will be nothing but a cartoon fight with no "real" casualties. I don't think any battle should ever occur without "real" deaths. If we kill Mablung, he's still only one death, and then he's not available to pass on the story of Turin to the composer of the Narn. And then we'll run out even faster of named Elves to kill in the Kinslayings. Seriously, unless we introduce a dozen or more named Elves to Doriath, there won't be enough to kill any in the Kinslayings and still have sufficient numbers left in the Second Age. And we don't just need to kill characters, we also need to put characters in danger so the audience feels like there are actual stakes in each battle. That's why I emphasized that we can't have a battle in which most of the participants have plot immunity.


4. I do not argue that Thingol's death isn't a plausible explanation for Celeborn to be so racist, not at all. I am saying that I want Celeborn to be sympathetic in spite of being so exceptionally racist, and if he dislikes and badmouths all Dwarves everywhere for eternity because one person died, even his king, that is very unsympathetic to me.

I really don't find racism sympathetic. That's why I want him to lose more people to the Dwarves. This is about characterizing Celeborn as a (partly) sympathetic character, not merely providing the absolute bare minimum of logical cause and effect. Frankly, he could be racist solely for the same non-reason Saeros despises Men; racists don't usually have any reasons for their behavior. I want to give him as many reasons as possible, so he doesn't come across as so bad of a jerkface.

And I think he and Galadriel should be present during the first fall of Doriath. Without them we'd have only 3 charaters present in Doriath at all.


6.
We have a lot of focus on forgiveness and moving forward, working with people you have personal grudges against, etc.
That's an excellent reason to include Celeborn's parents and their reaction to him marrying a Noldo!
I'm not claiming that the project would be ruined if Celeborn's parents and brother are eliminated, but I am saying that there are plenty of genuine valid reasons to keep them around a while longer, better reasons than any of the arguments for eliminating them. That they are more useful alive than dead.

For Celeborn being sympathetic to Galadriel, why is that not possible with him losing best friends or a little sibling? It would be perfectly sufficient.

I don't even have any obsession or particular attachment to Celeborn's parents in particular. I'm actually a lot more concerned about Corey's plans to rewrite Eol's story. I'm just frustrated to be shot down. Yes, I would like to try to convince the Hosts, but I can't say a word to them. I rely on you, Marie, and Nick, to decide if any of my ideas are worthy to mention to them. (That’s why I want to persuade you.)
 
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Ruin is a very strong word. But it would be off topic to get into it here. I discussed it on the Concerns About Season Four thread, if you’re interested.
 
As far as making Celeborn more relatable. Rather than giving more reasons why he becomes a racist jerkface, I'd prefer to make him less of a racist jerkface. There are a number of factors, for instance, why he might prefer not to cross through Khazad-dum in the 2nd Age. Rabid racial hatred of all Dwarves is not the only possible reason. Maybe, instead of developing an unreasoning hatred of all Dwarves as a result of the Sack of Doriath, he instead developed an unreasoning hatred of all holes in the ground. If we want to maintain the events of the broader sorta-canon (as we try to do wherever we can), we can try to find ways to still do it without making him villainous.

Maybe it's the time we live in, maybe it's just hippie/progressive me, but I can't imagine any way of Celeborn saying, out loud, "I hereby proclaim my eternal hatred for all Dwarves" and not coming across as villainous no matter how much the members of one specific clan of Dwarves has harmed the people and places in his life. I can understand him avoiding Dwarves, or being continually reminded of his sorrows by Dwarves, in a way that still leads to the same handful of events as reported in the broader sorta-canon. I can even understand him taking a harder than is reasonable line against Durin's folk as a result of the troubles coming out of Moria. He can do these things and we will be disappointed because a character we like is making a bad choice. But Mr. I-Hate-All-Dwarves is a hard character to like, one that we would expect to keep on making bad choices, and what does Galadriel see in that a-hole anyway?

ETA: In summation. Regarding the racism of Celeborn toward Dwarves. I would prefer him to come across as a good person making unexpectedly bad choices, not as a bad person making the expected bad choices. The racism has to be a toned down version, or even come across as something other than racism, to avoid the latter.
 
Adding? / Depicting orcs attacking Lorien out of Moria would help but... there’s just no justification for what he says to Gimli. However, he isn’t hateful. He doesn’t behave nearly as badly as Thranduil, which is why I think it’ worth trying to give him additional... mitigating factors. As many as we can. There’s a difference between unsympathetic but semi-understandable behavior, and an unsympathetic person. (I don’t mind Thranduil looking unsympathetic.)

Marie when you say they “can” be alive are you saying you’d consider allowing it? Or trying it?

I feel like we don’t have to ask the Hosts any more specially than to show them scripts in which someone other than Celeborn’s parents died.


Edit: There are alt versions of the Eregion story in which he isn’t unwilling to enter the Halls; so we could remove that unwillingness from the story. But I also brought that up because Tolkien gives a specific reason for Celeborn’s dislike, as with Thranduil.


Edit 2: I found the quotes of what I was referring to in Unfinished Tales and The War of the Jewels:
JRRT in Unfinished Tales said:
Celeborn had no liking for Dwarves of any race (as he showed to Gimli in Lothlorien), and never forgave them for their part in the destruction of Doriath;
CRT in The War of the Jewels said:
This was published in Unfinished Tales in a 'retold', somewhat selective form for the purposes of that section of the book; and in the passage (p. 235) saying that Celeborn had no love for any Dwarves, and never forgave them for their part in the destruction of Doriath ('passing over Morgoth's part in this (by angering of Hurin), and Thingol's own faults'),
CRT in Unfinished Tales said:
It is a natural assumption that Celeborn and Galadriel were present at the ruin of Doriath (it is said in one place that Celeborn "escaped the sack of Doriath"), and perhaps aided the escape of Elwing to the Havens of Sirion with the Silmaril – but this is nowhere stated.
The third quote requires Galadriel leaving Beleriand before Celeborn does, however, since in the LotR she declares that she went east before the fall of Nargothrond.
 
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Escaping ahead of time, you mean? He escaped being present during the disaster?

At first I had entirely forgotten what Galadriel said in the LotR, about her leaving Beleriand before Nargothrond Fell. Now that I remember, the way I see it we apparently have 3 options about when they leave:

1. Galadriel's statement in LotR was incorrect, she was around during the fall of Doriath.
2. Galadriel left before Celeborn did. It looks like kind of odd behavior, but they are Elves so a few decades apart doesn't even mean the couple are having an argument.
3. Neither is present at the fall of Doriath, because they left together.

I don't want to contradict LotR. I don't know which of 2 or 3 I prefer, but if neither is present, then that's all the more reason to introduce more characters to be present during Doriath's Fall. For sure Oropher ought to stay around longer, unless there's a good reason for him to leave before Doriath falls.
 
I definitely prefer 3 over 2 (their time of separation is ahead of them still). Regarding escape ahead of time, I am thinking of the idiom that might apply to an accused killer who was caught but then acquitted/pardoned - he might be described as having "escaped the headsman's axe" without actually encountering said axe and physically fleeing from it. And even then, I think Tolkien was likely still in an early stage of planning the actual timeline (he spent SO MUCH TIME on the timeline for the first few chapters of the Fellowship, I can imagine him spending a great deal more time moving around what happens when and who is where/when as the First Age gets hectic toward the end - whether Celeborn is in Doriath for the sack or not is something that could very easily be flip flopped back and forth many times during that process).

As for Oropher and Celeborn's sister we are inventing who will be best friends with him, they are either around and escape in the literal sense, or escape in the same figurative sense as Celeborn by leaving earlier - I don't actually have a preference there, other than that we don't want to have a situation where basically everyone we like who is present for the sack survives the encounter. It might be easier if the people who need to survive aren't present, if we can arrange it in a way that isn't ham-handed.

And you are right, in that case we are very quickly running out of characters to fall in the sack (or to even be in town for the sack). I can see where Mithluin is coming from, in that you can make a one-sided battle like this impactful by clever writing, pacing, music, camera work, etc. But I definitely think this would be even more effective in conjunction with known faces being struck down.
 
There are also things for Galathil at least to do in Season 4, even if they're minor, in addition to attending the wedding. He and Annael can go together to Doriath as messengers from Cirdan, after he meets the Noldor (sending a pair of messengers isn't odd. It's more likely one will make it if the other dies, and we see pairs of messengers sent in the books).

I also think that it would be good to have at least one scene, after the Kinslaying is revealed, with Celeborn discussing his betrothal with his family. I'd like to see them express a variety of attitudes towards his plan to marry a Noldo. Celeborn's sister should be in favor of reconciliation (as Cellardur points out, it'd be weird if she was anti-reconciliation in the main story and pro-reconciliation in the frame). That leaves Galadhon, Galathil, and Mom to stake out the "You absolutely should not marry a Noldo!" and "I'm not entirely comfortable with this." positions. Mom and/or Galadhon can be the most opposed since they lived at Cuivienen and knew some of the people who went to Alqualonde. Galathil is younger and either didn't know the future-Teleri as well, or at all, so he can be more open-minded.

Edit: Aaaannd, if the above scene takes place in Doriath, Celeborn's Green-elven sister might not even be in the scene.

Did we show Feanor boycott Finwe's second wedding and his brothers' weddings? I hope so, because then we can contrast Celeborn's less warm-and-fuzzy relatives attending his wedding in spite of their misgivings.
 
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Feanor attended the wedding of Finwe and Indis. He was a jerk (drunken speech talking about how Miriel was a great queen), but he attended due to Nerdanel's influence. Indis attended his and Nerdanel 's wedding as well, though she was much more gracious about it. Feanor also interrupted Turgon and Elenwe's wedding to unveil the silmarils. We did not depict Fingolfin or Finarfin's weddings.
 
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