Concerns about season 5

Rohan isn’t out if the way if she travels south of the Misty Mts to Rivendell. She could take that road since her mother was taken by orcs in the mountains.
 
What about the Beornings instead? Rohan is kind of a long way out of the way, and she could run into Beornings on paths around the area, since they helped in keeping those areas safe.

The shortness of that trip is what worries me. The northern route is shorter, unless there are rumors of Orcs in the mountains.
 
I have some serious reservations about trying to cram all of the 'Tale of Aragorn and Arwen' into the Season 6 frame. Keep in mind that our frame generally consists of about 4-5 minutes of screen time per episode, spread out over 13 episodes. So in the end, we are telling a story in 1 hour, broken up into small episodic segments. We don't have the storytelling capacity to introduce a bunch of different characters and events in the frame. If the story you are describing is too much story for a single episode of Silm Film, then it is too much story for the Season's Frame. If you can picture this...it would mean that Aragorn's adventures as Thorongil will be squeezed into maybe 2-3 episodes of frame (which means we tell that story in about 8-12 minutes). So, we will essentially inform the viewer that he is Thorongil, and that he's having adventures....but not show any of them. I would definitely expect the Thorongil story to be a season-long Frame in its own right.

We have done wildly different things with the Frame each season, and I'm willing to try something new that we haven't done before. So, just because all of the other Frames have played out over about a year of time for the characters, doesn't mean we have to keep doing that. But...I do think it's too ambitious to show Aragorn grow from Age 20 to Age 50, meet Gandalf, travel from Rivendell to Rohan and Gondor, and then go to Lorien where he is reunited with Arwen and they get engaged, then back to Rivendell to get Elrond's non-blessing (and oh, by the way, his mom dies). That's....just way too much. We don't have the screentime to establish all of those locations and characters. We might have to switch to voice-over narrative to let the viewers catch up...and that is definitely seriously undesirable!

The Season 3 Frame was very 'active' - meaning that a lot of events were suggested to take place. Too many events. Estel is hanging out with the Dunedain, meeting Halbarad and his son Hamilcar. He and Hamilcar strike up a rivalry, and it's the Long Winter transposed there, so there are wolves invading. So far so good. But people also wanted to visit Bree, seeing the Prancing Pony and its current landlord. And involve Gandalf. And the Sons of Elrond. And have a story where hobbits from the Shire were alerted to the issue, and Bilbo organized them to repel the wolves. As we were plotting this all out, it soon became clear that it was WAY TOO MUCH PLOT for the Frame to handle. So we streamlined it to a story of the Dunedain fighting off the wolves to protect the Shire, with cameos by Bree and Gandalf(?), and Elladan and Elrohir as supporting characters. No hobbits, and the main focus is on the Hamilcar/Estel rivalry. Elrond and Gilraen appear in bookend episodes 1 and 13 only.

Speaking of the twins...at some point, we might want to have an Elladan-and-Elrohir-centric Frame, probably. They've been supporting characters in the Frame of Seasons 1-3, and we do plan a story where one of the twins goes overboard on the whole revenge thing. .

I do love how everyone who is suggesting a love story in the Frame is underselling it as hard as possible. Like, it's an absolutely terrible idea, but.... Eöl/Aredhel and Aegnor/Andreth (as well as Haleth/nobody) are major stories in Season 5. We're allowed to have a tragic love story in the Frame! I realize that no one is thrilled with the idea of an elf pining for Arwen or a hobbit lass pining for Bilbo, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the suggestions. Could that subject matter be handled in a super-cringey way? Sure. But it wouldn't have to be. If Arwen is travelling outside Lorien again, interacting with the woodsmen she met in Season 2, she could have Lothlorien elves along with her as guards. (I dunno - Haldir or somebody). And it could become clear that Haldir loves Arwen but she has no interest in him, so she lets him down gently. (Just so long as its not her brothers taking him aside and threatening him with a shovel talk!)
 
Yeah it’s clear that we can’t expect the frame to carry a lot of story. We have to remember to keep things short. Arwen leaving Lorien seems good enough.
 
I have some serious reservations about trying to cram all of the 'Tale of Aragorn and Arwen' into the Season 6 frame. Keep in mind that our frame generally consists of about 4-5 minutes of screen time per episode, spread out over 13 episodes. So in the end, we are telling a story in 1 hour, broken up into small episodic segments. We don't have the storytelling capacity to introduce a bunch of different characters and events in the frame. If the story you are describing is too much story for a single episode of Silm Film, then it is too much story for the Season's Frame. If you can picture this...it would mean that Aragorn's adventures as Thorongil will be squeezed into maybe 2-3 episodes of frame (which means we tell that story in about 8-12 minutes). So, we will essentially inform the viewer that he is Thorongil, and that he's having adventures....but not show any of them. I would definitely expect the Thorongil story to be a season-long Frame in its own right.

We have done wildly different things with the Frame each season, and I'm willing to try something new that we haven't done before. So, just because all of the other Frames have played out over about a year of time for the characters, doesn't mean we have to keep doing that. But...I do think it's too ambitious to show Aragorn grow from Age 20 to Age 50, meet Gandalf, travel from Rivendell to Rohan and Gondor, and then go to Lorien where he is reunited with Arwen and they get engaged, then back to Rivendell to get Elrond's non-blessing (and oh, by the way, his mom dies). That's....just way too much. We don't have the screentime to establish all of those locations and characters. We might have to switch to voice-over narrative to let the viewers catch up...and that is definitely seriously undesirable!

The Season 3 Frame was very 'active' - meaning that a lot of events were suggested to take place. Too many events. Estel is hanging out with the Dunedain, meeting Halbarad and his son Hamilcar. He and Hamilcar strike up a rivalry, and it's the Long Winter transposed there, so there are wolves invading. So far so good. But people also wanted to visit Bree, seeing the Prancing Pony and its current landlord. And involve Gandalf. And the Sons of Elrond. And have a story where hobbits from the Shire were alerted to the issue, and Bilbo organized them to repel the wolves. As we were plotting this all out, it soon became clear that it was WAY TOO MUCH PLOT for the Frame to handle. So we streamlined it to a story of the Dunedain fighting off the wolves to protect the Shire, with cameos by Bree and Gandalf(?), and Elladan and Elrohir as supporting characters. No hobbits, and the main focus is on the Hamilcar/Estel rivalry. Elrond and Gilraen appear in bookend episodes 1 and 13 only.

Speaking of the twins...at some point, we might want to have an Elladan-and-Elrohir-centric Frame, probably. They've been supporting characters in the Frame of Seasons 1-3, and we do plan a story where one of the twins goes overboard on the whole revenge thing. .

I do love how everyone who is suggesting a love story in the Frame is underselling it as hard as possible. Like, it's an absolutely terrible idea, but.... Eöl/Aredhel and Aegnor/Andreth (as well as Haleth/nobody) are major stories in Season 5. We're allowed to have a tragic love story in the Frame! I realize that no one is thrilled with the idea of an elf pining for Arwen or a hobbit lass pining for Bilbo, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the suggestions. Could that subject matter be handled in a super-cringey way? Sure. But it wouldn't have to be. If Arwen is travelling outside Lorien again, interacting with the woodsmen she met in Season 2, she could have Lothlorien elves along with her as guards. (I dunno - Haldir or somebody). And it could become clear that Haldir loves Arwen but she has no interest in him, so she lets him down gently. (Just so long as its not her brothers taking him aside and threatening him with a shovel talk!)
We could have Thorongil in Gondor for the Fall of Gondolin season.
 
Well, if we don't want to use Aragorn or Arwen too much, we can focus on Elladan and Elrohir, and have them interact with both, at separate parts of the story.

It would make perfect sense for the Sons of Elrond to begin the Season 5 frame in Rivendell and end it in Lothlorien. That way, both Aragorn and Arwen would feature in the Season 5 frame, but separately. Then they could escort Arwen back so she's in Rivendell for the Season 6 frame.
 
Okay, so reading back through the first pages of this thread, I've got a few ideas, thoughts, etc.

Someone was right earlier on, the Feanorians have NOTHING to do this season, outside of being a sideshow in Aredhel and Haleth's stories, until the Bragollach, when they are routed mostly.

We literally cannot just leave them hanging the entire season (the first 10 episodes anyways) when they are crucial to the story as a whole.

If we want to convey the themes of mortality in the frame, we may have to go a new direction. We basically addressed these issues with Aragorn in season 3 (didn't the young friend he made, Hamilcar, die during that frame?) and Arwen in season 2 (her mother's death, and her friend who left for Valinor) and Bilbo is obviously acquainted with mortality, after the events of the Hobbit. But, who in the third age is not familiar with death and mortality?
 
Okay, so reading back through the first pages of this thread, I've got a few ideas, thoughts, etc.

Someone was right earlier on, the Feanorians have NOTHING to do this season, outside of being a sideshow in Aredhel and Haleth's stories, until the Bragollach, when they are routed mostly.

We literally cannot just leave them hanging the entire season (the first 10 episodes anyways) when they are crucial to the story as a whole.

If we want to convey the themes of mortality in the frame, we may have to go a new direction. We basically addressed these issues with Aragorn in season 3 (didn't the young friend he made, Hamilcar, die during that frame?) and Arwen in season 2 (her mother's death, and her friend who left for Valinor) and Bilbo is obviously acquainted with mortality, after the events of the Hobbit. But, who in the third age is not familiar with death and mortality?
We could give the Feanorians larger roles in Aredhel and Haleth's stories. Maybe Celegorm and Curufin go looking for her when she has disappeared in Nan Elmoth and Caranthir brings them news that he got from the Dwarves that Eol has married her. Maybe Amras could encounter Haleth in addition to Caranthir.

The Feanorians will be accepting Men as vassals like all the other Elf lords. In particular, the real Amlach pledges his service to Maedhros. If we wanted to, we could tell more of a story about other Men who serve the Feanorians and why they choose to do so.

The Silmarillion mentions that, when Fingolfin "pondered once more an assault upon Angband ... most of the Noldor were content with things as they were, trusting them to last, and slow to begin an assault in which many must surely perish were it in victory or in defeat. Therefore they were little disposed to hearken to Fingolfin, and the sons of Feanor at that time least of all. Among the chieftains of the Noldor Angrod and Aegnor alone were of like mind with the king."

This is a shift from the attitudes of the Noldor as they were in the beginning of Season 4, when Fingolfin and Angrod and Aegnor wanted to establish a siege and the Feanorians wanted to directly attack Angband, so we may want to have a plotline that explains their change in attitudes. Maybe the sons of Feanor doubt that Men will be any use in the battle or are too concerned about no help coming from Gondolin or Nargothrond. Their attitudes could have genuinely changed, or we could blame it on some magically-sown hopelessness.

Do we necessarily need to have someone unfamiliar with death and mortality to address those themes, or could we just have the sons of Elrond or other Elven characters be unused to it? Maybe they try to visit an old friend of theirs on their way from Rivendell to Lothlorien and find that he/she has already died. Beorn dies sometime between the events of The Hobbit and LOTR, so maybe it could be him.
 
So the idea would be that the twins travel to Lorien to "fetch" Arwen, so she will have an escort when she returns too Rivendell? Ok I feel that could be an unnecessary precaution (on Elrond's part?) but then again, I think this could work to our advantage. If we use the first part of the season (number of episodes not specified) for the journey of the twins to Lorien, we could focus on their arrival to Lorien and the beginning of the journey back with Arwen during the latter part of the season frame (again, not specifying how big part this should be). Arwen could then react to the idea that she needs protection and the twins could argue that she might be able to defend herself but if she's killed, well then that's it. We wouldn't need someone who hasn't seen death or knows nothing about it to create a sequence of events and conversations on the theme of mortality. The twins know more about death and dying than Arwen does, or at least about killing.
This would make a good parallel not only to the mortality theme and the whole Men-Elves situation in the main story, but it will also touch on the "war and peace" theme that the siege creates. The twins and their sister will travel through lands in peace, but soon Saruman will start to fortify Isengard - perhaps they will see some signs of that (without being able to interpret them).
 
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