Complete Cast List for Season Two

David Tennant as Maeglin... I don't see that!

Yes, I'm of the same opinion. I'm a bit biased because I disliked Tennant so much Harry Potter, as Barty Crouch Jr.

I think we will need someone who is a love/hate kind of actor. Maeglin is supposed to be admired by everyone in Gondolin before his fall.
 
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Yes, I'm of the same opinion. I'm a bit biased because I disliked Tennant so much Harry Potter, as Barty Crouch Jr.

I think we will need someone who is a love/hate kind of actor. Maeglin is supposed to be admired by everyone in Gondolin before his fall.
Can't see him as Maeglin either.
 
Yes, I'm of the same opinion. I'm a bit biased because I disliked Tennant so much Harry Potter, as Barty Crouch Jr.

I think we will need someone who is a love/hate kind of actor. Maeglin is supposed to be admired by everyone in Gondolin before his fall.
Well, for one thing, he's a bit older than I would want. Other than that, he did a great job as both Dr. Who and the Purple Man, so I'm sure that he'd be great for the part. If only he wasn't quite so old.
 
Maeglin is a weird messed up emo kid. So, yes, he's a villain (eventually), but he's a very particular kind of villain.
 
(Can I just say I'm over the moon about Richard Armitage and Mark Strong? Most of the roles I was pretty flexible about, but not those two!)

Most of the female roles are going to be small roles, with the exception of Galadriel, Lúthien, and anyone whose role we expand (Haleth, for instance). There are a grand total of 2 girls among Finwë's grandchildren (Aredhel and Galadriel), and likewise 2 among his great-grandchildren (Idril and Finduilas [depending on her generation, again.]) For the most part, the wives have non-existent roles. It's better with humans - Andreth, Morwen, Haleth, and Elwing (okay, so she's part-human) are all going to have interesting and uniquely tragic stories.

I agree we're stuck with a relatively few number of female roles, but I don't think we can help but expand many of their stories. Not just to be "PC" or current or whatever; but because they're interesting, and, frankly, require elaboration once we leave the epitomizing style. Aredhel, for example, as the Noldo princess trapped in Gondolin? That sort of comes out of nowhere in the published Silm -- which works there, but we'll need to flesh that out. Maybe give her a story line or two in Gondolin in the seasons leading up to her capture by Eol. Andreth, too -- it would be awkward to have her as a young woman in love and then completely disappear until she's an old lady lookin' for a fight. I also think Finduilas needs fleshing out: it's heavily hinted in Tolkien's writings that she was the possible "breach in the wall of fate", and that will work/be conveyed best, I suspect, in this narrative style if she's given her own storyline.

And, of course, we're completely forgetting the women of Numenor: if we don't turn Erendis, Ancalime, and Miriel (at least!) into complex, sympathetic, and flawed characters, what are we even doing?


Maeglin is a weird messed up emo kid. So, yes, he's a villain (eventually), but he's a very particular kind of villain.
I love Tennant, but I agree he's too old for Maeglin. My head-image is rather close to Ben Barnes, actually... But Dorian Grey Barnes, not Narnia.


EDITED: Some of my text got eaten, somehow.
 
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Oh, I agree that all those stories are interesting, and certainly with the humans, there's more of a balance between important male and female characters.

But the bulk of the elves we have left to cast are male, and there's no real way around that. I'm hardly going to argue that Aredhel is a minor part...just that she's one of the few parts. We have Finwë's grandkids left to cast, so that's Aredhel and....12 male elves. For Doriath, we have Lúthien and Nimloth (and possibly Nellas) and I suppose that balances well enough with Daeron and Saeros (and Denethor).

We had a lot of female roles this time around, and, yes, granted, many of them are small/minor. But we are going to have our Season 3 casting be overwhelmingly male, and thus the 'save this actress for later!' idea is going to look a little weird. There's plenty of actresses who are pretty enough to be the handful of female elves we have left to cast, and the wives of Finwë's grandsons are extremely minor roles (Elenwë is the only one who even has a part to play, and that's a pretty limited arc.)

Not that I disagree with saving a trained martial artist for action scenes that aren't 'oops, I died.'
 
Oh, I agree that all those stories are interesting, and certainly with the humans, there's more of a balance between important male and female characters.

But the bulk of the elves we have left to cast are male, and there's no real way around that. I'm hardly going to argue that Aredhel is a minor part...just that she's one of the few parts. We have Finwë's grandkids left to cast, so that's Aredhel and....12 male elves. For Doriath, we have Lúthien and Nimloth (and possibly Nellas) and I suppose that balances well enough with Daeron and Saeros (and Denethor).

We had a lot of female roles this time around, and, yes, granted, many of them are small/minor. But we are going to have our Season 3 casting be overwhelmingly male, and thus the 'save this actress for later!' idea is going to look a little weird. There's plenty of actresses who are pretty enough to be the handful of female elves we have left to cast, and the wives of Finwë's grandsons are extremely minor roles (Elenwë is the only one who even has a part to play, and that's a pretty limited arc.)

Not that I disagree with saving a trained martial artist for action scenes that aren't 'oops, I died.'
I'm certainly not debating the premise! No, we do have a lot more male than female characters left to cast, and while I could see one or two of the grandsons' wives growing into a character in our plot outlines (to plug a need), we certainly can't imagine all of them doing so. But you're right, "saving" an actress doesn't make much sense right now, unless we have a definite role in mind for her.
 
Maeglin as a weird messed up emo kid would be the worst Maeglin version we could go for... I hope that#s exactly what will not happen...
 
Eh - he watches his father attempt to murder him but actually murder his mother, and then he watches his father's execution immediately after. He's quite messed up, and very much 'other' in the world of Gondolin. Idril keeps her distance from him. So, the 'weird messed up kid' is basically by definition. The 'emo' part is facetiousness on my part, as most emo kids are not nearly as traumatized as they would like you to believe.

We can talk more about that when we get to Season 4 (or wherever that story goes), but I think making Maeglin at least in part a product of his environment and experiences is necessary.
 
Well, I'm not sure how much acting experience she has. She does have an imdb page, but I'm not sure that means she's ready to be part of a fantasy TV show. But, who knows, maybe she's looking for a second career?
 
Right - it's a fine line between 'this person would be perfect for this role!' and 'this person has played a nearly identical role in the past!'

They vetoed Jason Mamoa for Ulmo specifically because he was already cast as Aquaman. They likewise vetoed Vin Diesel, most likely because he's already Groot. It could be seen as 'lazy' casting to do that, instead of coming up with all the traits you need for a particular role, and then going to find the correct actor. But obviously tempting, when you've *seen* them do it well!
 
Right - it's a fine line between 'this person would be perfect for this role!' and 'this person has played a nearly identical role in the past!'

They vetoed Jason Mamoa for Ulmo specifically because he was already cast as Aquaman. They likewise vetoed Vin Diesel, most likely because he's already Groot. It could be seen as 'lazy' casting to do that, instead of coming up with all the traits you need for a particular role, and then going to find the correct actor. But obviously tempting, when you've *seen* them do it well!
Would this, in your mind, invalidate Tennant as Maeglin? I didn't see all of Jessica Jones, but the charismatic, handsome, talented sociopath with rapey tones is pretty much how I understood Kilgrave's character to be (and certainly is in the comics. The Purple Children storyline is freaky).
 
I have only ever seen Tennant in the extremely minor role of Barty Crouch Jr, so I am not the person to say what he would or would not do well as. He doesn't look particularly elvish to me, so I wouldn't go out of my way to cast him as anything. I get that he can play a crazed villain, but I'm not looking for Maeglin to be a crazed villain, so....

The part where Maeglin lives for hundreds of years as a prince of Gondolin in good standing makes me think we need some rather subtle villainly, not a Wormtongue.
 
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