Concerns About Season Four

Maybe what's being missed here is that we are choosing to deliberately add conflict between Gothmog and Sauron that is not present in the published book (we have to create a lot of stuff). This should be one of the least contentious creations I'd think, since allied bad guys scheming against each other while simultaneously working toward the same goals is a normal trope.

Since Gothmog meets his end at Gondolin, it seems fitting that perhaps Sauron has a hand in it. Keep in mind that the fall of Gondolin ultimately leads to the victory of the good guys, so it's not like a short term win for Sauron is anything like victory, even if maybe it looks like it at the time.
 
The One Ring was different in that it was specifically able to communicate with the other 20. The fact that Sauron possesses the Nine did not prevent the Elves from using the Three, so unless Sauron goes out and builds a Master Sword, the elves would be alright to use weapons using techniques Sauron leaked to them.

In S02, we had Melkor helping the Noldor to make weapons, so I'm not entirely certain why this would be different.

Melkor helping the noldor making weapons DOES in fact add to their corruption... , yet he does not have a hand in their weapons making, just as sauron has no direct hand in the making of the three..
the rings of power are different in that Sauron does teach the elves a bit about preserving power in rings and Celebrimbor is able to make his own conclusions from it. But a balrog-slaying weapon that is inspired by saurons k owledge is a different thing, again i feel here's a misconception, the power of elven blades comes from deep insight and blessing, not from technique.
 
So to change topics, how should we place the Aredhel plotline? The published Silmarillion tells it before the Coming of Men into Beleriand, even though it takes place later.
 
I think aredhels story should be tied in with eols appearance. We have delayed him so far.. as far as i remember
 
I don't think we can possibly do that, Haerangil. Eol has to be a long-term resident of Nan Elmoth before Aredhel shows up, he has to have a home there and a bunch of enchantments already set up. And he has to be a known presence for the sons of Feanor to be aware of him and try to waylay him.

Eol's presence has already been unnecessarily delayed, to the detriment of his whole story. I don't want to delay it any further, for any cause.

Anyway, Maeglin and Aredhel escape after the mortals have arrived.

I think we should do things in chronological order as much as possible, because every single time we have changed the order of events, it has caused big screw ups in later events that also had to be changed, causing yet more events to have to be changed, creating plot holes and headaches. It should always be avoided when possible.
 
So what would be the main themes of s4? The noldor establishing themselves in beleriand, , dagor aglareb, construction of gondolin, the arrival of the edain ,ending with the dagor bragollach or fingolfins death? And maybe -just maybe- early men in hildorien.

Quite a lot of stuff and eol & aredhel and maeglin, the coming of glaurung and fi rod & andreth all have to happen in between. We'd have to do 455 years in quick motion...
 
I don't want to do 450 years in this season. Several storylines will suffer for it, particularly Aredhel and anything with Men, as well as the dwarves. But of course I am a broken record at this point, so we'll wait till Friday and see.

I want Season 4 to be the Finrod and Turgon show, with a side helping of Galadriel/Celeborn.
 
The appearance of men will drastically change our stories speed... it's sixty years from beor and thingols meeting until beregs agitation and the split of the edain... with the sinda and noldo conflict, we'd have the building of nargothrond , minas tirith and gondolin, eol turning up, noldo & dwarves, galadriel & celeborn and eol&aredhel... that could work. Fleshed out that should give a solid plotline.One could include some hildorien tale if we feel it doesn't happen enough else..
 
Do you think the Hosts will want to push forward with the events to get to Beren and Luthien? Also, they also might want to put the tribulations of Aredhel earlier, given one of the Hosts’ enthusiasm about finally reaching Aredhel in the session on casting because Aredhel was her favorite elf.
 
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Melkor helping the noldor making weapons DOES in fact add to their corruption... , yet he does not have a hand in their weapons making, just as sauron has no direct hand in the making of the three..
the rings of power are different in that Sauron does teach the elves a bit about preserving power in rings and Celebrimbor is able to make his own conclusions from it. But a balrog-slaying weapon that is inspired by saurons k owledge is a different thing, again i feel here's a misconception, the power of elven blades comes from deep insight and blessing, not from technique.

I think that when Tolkien uses the term "Art" do describe elvish "magic", that deep insight into the natural and supernatural worlds are part of it, but that insight would be used through some sort of technique. The elves do something different when they are forging blades.
 
We'll probably not come to any agreement here -which im fine with.

If you argue that Sauron teaches the Elves some new alchemy by which they are able to forge weapons they could not forge before as a technique, but the powers bestored in the weapons do not come from him then again my position would be: that's not how magical weapons work, take a look at Anglachel/Gurthang. But neither of us can truly prove his point here, Question would be how we explain how magic weapons work and how we sell it to an audience. I still feel uncomfortable with the idea that Sauron has his hand in the making of weapons like Sting, Glamdring and Orcrist, but i made my point and I'm really running out of better Arguments.
 
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We'll probably not come to any agreement here -which im fine with.

If you argue that Sauron teaches the Elves some new alchemy by which they are able to forge weapons they could not forge before as a technique, but the powers bestored in the weapons do not come from him then again my position would be: that's not how magical weapons work, take a look at Anglachel/Gurthang. But neither of us can truly prove his point here, Question would be how we explain how magic weapons work and how we sell it to an audience. I still feel uncomfortable with the idea that Sauron has his hand in the making of weapons like Sting, Glamdring and Orcrist, but i made my point and I'm really running out of better Arguments.
I agree with Harengil. I don’t really like the idea of Glamdring, Orcrist and Sting being the product of a petty scheme by Sauron.
 
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Okay! In light of today's session, it looks like we are getting two Seasons before Beren and Lúthien :)

Season 4 will end with Glaurung's attack.
Season 5 will begin with Finrod meeting Bëor and will end with the duel of Fingolfin and Morgoth.

Details to be determined...
 
Okay! In light of today's session, it looks like we are getting two Seasons before Beren and Lúthien :)

Season 4 will end with Glaurung's attack.
Season 5 will begin with Finrod meeting Bëor and will end with the duel of Fingolfin and Morgoth.

Details to be determined...
I’m surprised. I thought they would want to reach Beren and Luthien sooner, while Corey seemed adamant about not making stuff up.
 
If we're getting 2 seasons I'm very glad. :)

I’m surprised. I thought they would want to reach Beren and Luthien sooner, while Corey seemed adamant about not making stuff up.
I don't think Corey needs to worry about us making stuff up - there doesn't seem to be time for it, even with 2 seasons. Except for Galadriel & Celeborn's romance, whatever it was Aredhel liked about Eol (???), and the nobles and ladies in the courts outside of Gondolin.
 
I don't think Corey Olsen is opposed to making things up. His concern was more about getting bogged down in uninteresting sidelines. Building kingdoms and politicking is not really what we want our show to focus on - we're trying for unmitigated tragedy, which requires building up hope and then tearing it down, again and again. Plus lots of death scenes.

So, basically...we do need to make sure that we have a cohesive storyline for Season 4, and it's not just a bunch of nothing-much-interesting punctuated with some exciting battles. I'm not worried about this, but I can see why someone would be concerned about that before we hash out the episode content.
 
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