Celeborn’s Family

Moved from Women Fighters thread:
I'm starting to come around to having more of Celeborn's family survive, but I'm wondering why the roles you laid out (recently, in a list that I can't seem to locate right now) have to be filled by Celeborn's family, and not other non-related Sindar?
My question, as always, is why not? If we do need additional named Sindar, what harm would be caused by making them related to Celeborn? I could understand if people were against this idea because they felt it would cause a problem. But the only reason given for opposing this is that I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the project will be ruined without them. It wouldn't be ruined. But I've noticed that no other ideas have to be proven absolutely necessary just to be considered possible.


The reasons why I think we need additional Sindar:
I've now accumulated a large pile of roles/events for which we need a Sinda, for which Mablung, Beleg, and Daeron will be unavailable. We need somebody besides Thingol to: 1. voice distrust of the Noldor (without making Daeron always the bad guy), 2. be anti-reconciliation with the Noldor, 3. still be alive by the time Doriath falls, 4. die in the battles of the fall of Doriath and the 2nd and 3rd Kinslayings, and 5. get Elwing to safety. We'd benefit from a scene of Celeborn discussing his engagement with his relatives, and getting a variety of reactions. We will need at least one, probably a few new Sinda(r) at some point, and the Hosts have never given any reason why making that Sinda related to Celeborn would ruin the project.
Thingol cannot be the only person who does any of the above things (edit: he can't do 4 or 5 at all). For example, if he's the only Sinda who dislikes all Noldor after the Kinslaying reveal, it will look like his personal problem instead of a sentiment widespread among many Doriathrin Sindar, that Luthien has to try to talk them down from. We were going to give Luthien a role in diffusing the Sindar from having a huge angry reaction... which requires her to interact with Sindar who have such a reaction. That'll be unimpressive and meh if Thingol is the only Elf who doesn't want reconciliation while his subjects look 100% united in wanting to reconcile. Right now Luthien, Celeborn, Cirdan, and Melian are all going to urge reconciliation, and Thingol alone is reluctant to reconcile. Beleg is going to befriend Gwindor so he doesn't appear to be in the anti-Noldor camp either.

We'll need a stable of multiple named Elves available to die (in actual battle, not just by assassination) over the course of the Fall of Doriath, the Second Kinslaying, and the Third Kinslaying. Right now we don't have enough named Elves available to die during all of those battles.

We'll need warriors present during the Fall of Doriath and the Second Kinslaying who we can put into mortal danger. We can't do that with Galadriel and Celeborn because the audience already knows that they'll survive, so there's no tension in their participation in the battle -- if they're even present in Beleriand still.

In addition of course there are multiple ways that making them related to Celeborn would give us additional story options -- making Celeborn's 7000-year prejudice against all Dwarves everywhere less unsympathetic, giving us a meaty conversation about reconciliation and his engagement to Galadriel, giving us people to actually attend his wedding (Eldarin wedding ceremonies include only the close relatives, and nobody else), etc.


Is there any way that making one or two of these Elves related to Celeborn would cause harm?
 
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It's not huge harm. It's just that we already killed them off. We can go back and kill off fewer of them, but it's a change.
 
OK. Did the episode explicitly identify precisely who was killed, or just show unspecified people who Celeborn cared about?

The elves who died were left unspecified in the script, giving us flexibility in dealing with this later

I don't get the impression it would be a retcon to say, one of his parents and several of his friends died, but some of his family survived. We're giving him a sister so we've already committed to the idea that he didn't lose absolutely every relative. Since he has a sister and was depicted as younger than the other Kuivienen Elves, he must have had biological parents.
 
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While the elves killed in the Season 2 opening were left unspecified in the Script Outline, it was clearly the intention of the Hosts to have killed off Celeborn's relatives in that scene. So, while we didn't submit a script that said 'and here we see Celeborn's mother and father picked up by the Hunter and they are never seen again,' that...is pretty much the existing situation. I told you at the time that the Hosts were under the impression that they had already killed off Celeborn's family. Corey Olsen has mentioned several times since then that Celeborn's father is not included in this project. At some point, we're going to have to take that as the final word on the subject. Perhaps not yet - I anticipate at least one final conversation on the topic when we discuss Celeborn's wedding. At that time, it will be resolved one way or another. Most likely, he will say 'no' to including Celeborn's father in SilmFilm. But, I could be wrong. Certainly, there is a chance to make an argument advocating for including one of his parents at his wedding.

There is wiggle room. We could say that it was only some of his family that was lost to the Hunter. We have, as you pointed out, decided to save his sister and introduce her now. She has a reason to have been off screen as she's with the Green Elves, not the Sindar. But since this is a decision that was already made 2 seasons ago, we can't just undo it. We have to get the Hosts to approve a change like this. If they don't approve it...we don't make the change. They did approve the sister. That might be all the family Celeborn gets to have.

You have been wondering why there is such resistance to this idea. That's why. When we decided to make Celeborn an elf of Cuivienen, we undid that family tree that Tolkien made with 'Elmo'. We're not using it, and Celeborn is not Elwë's great-nephew. Tolkien did not feel the need to show family trees for Beleg or Mablung, because they were there from the beginning of Doriath and not directly related to Thingol. There was no need to 'fit' them in anywhere. That's what we did with Celeborn, so we don't need that family tree to show where he 'fits' in the story. We established his kinship with Thingol from their first introduction.


There are roles for minor characters in Doriath. Some of the roles you describe will be covered by Mablung, Beleg, Daeron, Saeros, or Celeborn himself. They are the minor characters we have already established there. We'll have other background people express various ideas as needed. As far as 'more named characters who can die', we will continue to introduce minor characters in the Beren and Lúthien season, where we spend more time in Doriath, as well as Nellas in the Túrin season (when we kill off Saeros and Beleg).

As roles requiring a Sinda emerge, we'll discuss who can fill them. At this point, while a relative of Celeborn's could fill some of those roles, there's not really any reason it can't be someone else.

I am well aware you would like for a relative of Celeborn's to die in Doriath when the dwarves attack. We'll see what we can do about that.
 
Well as far as i see it is only Elmo who is banned by the execs (for a very silly reason in my eyes! But nevermind... this is a simulation and i guess every film project has difficult producers and directors to deal with... ) or maybe Galadhon, because we chose to make Celeborn one of the oldest elves, although it is never explicitly mentioned that he is 1st generation.

But Galathil, nimloth, Amdir, Amroth and possibly Oropher and little Thranduil, ... i see no reason why they cannot appear in the story at one point!

As for lack of female characters... okay then for eru's sake lets flesh out the few female characters we HAVE! Lets give Eldalote, Evranin, Faniel, Idril, Lindis, Nimloth, Nellas, Nielthi, Meleth more room and maybe give them larger roles and reduce some of the males to minor characters! Same for the unnamed wives... lets give them names, give them dialogue, kill them maybe to have us some more dead characters we like for our beloved tragedy.

There are more males in our book, its just the way it is and i didn't have a problem with it.To reduce some to minor characters and raise some textual ghosts to major characters though is a thing i can live with.To kill characters off however feels unessessary if they are characters we never even had the chance to built up a relation to... thats even what cory says himself! Why should we kill of any random males just to get rid of them? Unecessary deaths are useless... its even what the execs preach!
 
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Trying to dive right in to Celeborn again...

Established facts in SilmFilm
1) Enough of Celeborn's family was taken by the Hunter to be very significant, to the point where the statement "Celeborn's family was massacred by the Hunter" is true.
2) Celeborn seems to be a 2nd generation Elf - he's a "teen"/young adult for the Hunter incident, so he had parents, but probably not grand parents.

Established in the legendarium (this is more my interpretation of my own observations, and not based on anything explicit in later HoME volumes)
3) It seems like Feanor's family is unusual in size, and maybe a more typical family size would be 2-4 children.

So, what we have is Celeborn with 2 parents and 1-3 siblings as his only family. And enough of them are killed by the Hunter that it is enormously significant in his life. We are positing the survival of one sister already. How many more of the 2-4 remaining family members can survive, while still keeping up "Celeborn's family was massacred by the Hunter" as true?
 
I would totally be ok with only his sister left and a few cousins.. Galathil, Galadhon and Elmo are not really important characters..
 
Trying to dive right in to Celeborn again...

Established facts in SilmFilm
1) Enough of Celeborn's family was taken by the Hunter to be very significant, to the point where the statement "Celeborn's family was massacred by the Hunter" is true.
2) Celeborn seems to be a 2nd generation Elf - he's a "teen"/young adult for the Hunter incident, so he had parents, but probably not grand parents.

Established in the legendarium (this is more my interpretation of my own observations, and not based on anything explicit in later HoME volumes)
3) It seems like Feanor's family is unusual in size, and maybe a more typical family size would be 2-4 children.

So, what we have is Celeborn with 2 parents and 1-3 siblings as his only family. And enough of them are killed by the Hunter that it is enormously significant in his life. We are positing the survival of one sister already. How many more of the 2-4 remaining family members can survive, while still keeping up "Celeborn's family was massacred by the Hunter" as true?

Maybe one sibling, plus the Green Elf sister? And he could be Nimloth’s father since that’s Galathil’s role in the books?
 
I would totally be ok with only his sister left and a few cousins..

Yes, I think we've already said, or at least haven't said the opposite, that 1st generation Cuivienen Elves have "siblings" in some undefined way. Elwe and Olwe are 1st generation Elves without parents, but are also brothers. So Celeborn could have cousins in the same way, from the siblings of his 1st generation parents. And I'd be fine with some of those surviving to fill some roles in Doriath or whatever. Some could end up becoming Avari, some Nandor, whatever.
 
Maybe one sibling, plus the Green Elf sister? And he could be Nimloth’s father since that’s Galathil’s role in the books?
To add on: if Galathil is Nimloth's father, maybe he outlives her when she is killed in the Second Kinslaying, and he stays behind to prevent the Feanoreans pursuing the survivors of Doriath to the Havens? Maybe he has a mutual kill with Curufin?
 
I'm inclined to think that if one of Celeborn's parents died at Kuivienen, that he likely only has one sibling (his sister). It seems kind of improbable for three siblings to have been born in the relatively short time that the Eldar lived there. And for the same reason I doubt SilmFilm Celeborn had grandparents.

Feanor and Nerdanel's family is indeed record-setting in size. Most Elves have fewer children.

As for which parent of Celeborn's would survive in my preference, it doesn't matter to me which one. It could be his mother who stays with the Sindar, becomes a warrior of Doriath, and dies in its fall.

There are roles for minor characters in Doriath. Some of the roles you describe will be covered by Mablung, Beleg, Daeron, Saeros, or Celeborn himself.
Which roles do you foresee any one of these could fulful?

None of those can have a conversation with Celeborn about whether to permit him to marry a Noldo? That isn't necessarily a scene we can't do without, but it would be very helpful to the season theme and to Celeborn and his sister's characterization.

As far as 'more named characters who can die', we will continue to introduce minor characters in the Beren and Lúthien season, where we spend more time in Doriath, as well as Nellas in the Túrin season (when we kill off Saeros and Beleg).
When I counted how many named characters are available to die in those last three major battles, I included Nellas, Nimloth, Mablung, and some others. I think the list is on this thread. There still aren't enough.
 
Well I don't know about "permit" but surely someone could argue about the merits of it without holding any sort of "go to your room and think about what you've done young man" style authority.
 
Luthien needs her father's approval to get married.... so I figured if the Eldar treat men and women as equals in most things, then a man also needs his parents' permission, if they're still alive and around. (Galadriel's parents aren't available to consult, so she gets to do whatever she wants.) Eloping is possible, but it's very rude to one's family, thus Luthien and Beren don't do it.

But at the least he would surely discuss it with whatever family are still alive, since they will be invited to the wedding. It would give us an opportunity to show an argument about reconciliation between Noldor and Sindar, without Thingol being the sole and only voice against reconciliation. I imagine Celeborn's parent being opposed, and having to be talked into it by Celeborn and his sister, or perhaps persuaded by meeting Galadriel.
 
Luthien needs her father's approval to get married.... so I figured if the Eldar treat men and women as equals in most things, then a man also needs his parents' permission, if they're still alive and around. (Galadriel's parents aren't available to consult, so she gets to do whatever she wants.) Eloping is possible, but it's very rude to one's family, thus Luthien and Beren don't do it.

But at the least he would surely discuss it with whatever family are still alive, since they will be invited to the wedding. It would give us an opportunity to show an argument about reconciliation between Noldor and Sindar, without Thingol being the sole and only voice against reconciliation. I imagine Celeborn's parent being opposed, and having to be talked into it by Celeborn and his sister, or perhaps persuaded by meeting Galadriel.
I've also suggested that Celeborn marries Galadriel against Thingol's wishes.
 
Thingol is the character who has been 'Celeborn's family' up to this point, so Thingol's strong disapproval of Celeborn keeping the Kinslaying secret and marriage to Galadriel can certainly be written as a disapproving father figure.

I imagine that while Beleg and Mablung certainly support the Noldor later, they don't have to both be immediate voices for reconciliation. Mablung in particular I imagine we will show struggling with this. Mablung is the one who met the dwarves and befriended Norn, so he seems like the best choice for the 'How could you exile your kin?' conversation. Then the Kinslaying is revealed and Norn can have the follow up conversation of 'Now you know.' During that conversation, Mablung can express his anger and mistrust towards the Noldor. Obviously he is going to support working with them in the end, but he certainly doesn't have to be happy about it when Thingol agrees to help with Nargothrond. Showing Mablung struggle through this issue would be a good way to show the Sindar in general struggling with it.
 
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