Dwarves: S3 and beyond
- Thread starter amysrevenge
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Haerangil
Well-Known Member
A short excourse into eddic dwarves:
There are long lists of names for dwarves in the dvetgatal and a few other sources, most names of tolkiens dwarves from durins house are taken from tjese lists ( notable exceptions : balin, an arthurian name and dis , a female goddess).
In the völuspa durin is one of the first dwarves, he however is secondary to modsognir who is called the mightiest of dwarves. Another chief of a house or race of dwarves is dwalinn and lofar and perhaps sindri - though that is a bit vague.
Other prominent dwarves who are maybe not fathers of tribes ir dwarf sub- races but at last prominent kings are nori, diurnir, ivaldi , andvari, brokkur and nybling/nibelung
Nibelung is a dearf kind in german legend tradition along with alberich/ oberon , albegast and schildung. Waldung and egerich are alberichs sons, so probably no fathers, nibelung and schildung are nibelungs sons, nibeling can be interprezed as son of nibel/ niful so maybe here we have another posdible name of a father.
I recollect: modsognir, dwalin, lofar, plus maybe nori, sindri, diurnir, ivaldi , alberich/ alfrik and nibel/ niful could be dwarf- fathers - if we follow norse/ german tradition.
There are long lists of names for dwarves in the dvetgatal and a few other sources, most names of tolkiens dwarves from durins house are taken from tjese lists ( notable exceptions : balin, an arthurian name and dis , a female goddess).
In the völuspa durin is one of the first dwarves, he however is secondary to modsognir who is called the mightiest of dwarves. Another chief of a house or race of dwarves is dwalinn and lofar and perhaps sindri - though that is a bit vague.
Other prominent dwarves who are maybe not fathers of tribes ir dwarf sub- races but at last prominent kings are nori, diurnir, ivaldi , andvari, brokkur and nybling/nibelung
Nibelung is a dearf kind in german legend tradition along with alberich/ oberon , albegast and schildung. Waldung and egerich are alberichs sons, so probably no fathers, nibelung and schildung are nibelungs sons, nibeling can be interprezed as son of nibel/ niful so maybe here we have another posdible name of a father.
I recollect: modsognir, dwalin, lofar, plus maybe nori, sindri, diurnir, ivaldi , alberich/ alfrik and nibel/ niful could be dwarf- fathers - if we follow norse/ german tradition.
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Just as a heads up, all of the info on the slides for tomorrow's session came from the thread for Episode 4. So, if there were ideas about dwarves in this thread that you feel strongly about incorporating into the introduction of the dwarves, but did *not* state there....you might have to be prepared to type tomorrow!
Moving my objection to immortal Dwarves and 4200-year-old Dwarves here from the Script 4 thread page, because MithLuin wants me to move. I also object to inexplicably beardless Dwarves, which you can read about on that thread and respond here.
And why does Gamil Zirak have to live 500 years? You already changed it so he's not Telchar's master. Other than teaching Telchar, Gamil Zirak had no canonical role at all (I just checked every single book except the technical linguistics journals). He's named only once, in the Narn, as Telchar's master and that's it. Since he's not Telchar's master in the SilmFilm (for reasons that entirely escape me), why should we keep the name at all? Let alone give him inexplicable super powers?
But somebody on podcast 9 already suggested heirs named after the Fathers, and Corey vetoed specifically that.
He wants no dynasties in the Seven Kindreds, the Fathers to have no heirs but live for thousands and thousands of years. Which is absurd and totally contradicts the explicit statements in The LotR and The Hobbit that the Longbeards had a royal dynasty, not lifespans thousands and thousands of years long.
Dwarves that live more than 4000 years are not acceptable to me. They are not Elves. They should not live long enough for the audience to ever think that any of them are immortal like Elves. We should not trick the audience into thinking Fathers of Dwarves are literally immortal. That is an absolutely horrible, terrible idea. The concept that mortality and immortality are vastly different was one of the most fundamental and important concepts Tolkien wanted to convey! Randomly making any Dwarves immortal, or making them look and act immortal so the audience has no possible way to know the difference, is a horrible violation of Tolkien's most fundamental and important ideas.
This desire to have main characters who live for the entire series needs to be satisfied with the huge numbers of of Elves, Ents, Maiar, Valar, Eagles, Spiders, and Huan who are already immortal. We should not accept Dwarves who live for millennia. Nor should we be open to later seasons having non-Numenorean Humans who live for centuries, or any Humans who live for millennia (without Rings of Power and horrific consequences). We must not have dwarf or human characters who are alive from beginning to end of the whole series, except in the frame. It is completely absurd for the Hosts to demand that.
Yes, mortality is a hard thing to bear once you've witnessed the youth of the Eldar. Well that sorrow is one of the themes of Tolkien!
We have to persuade the Hosts to give up on 4200-year-old Dwarves and accept the Dwarven royal dynasties which the LotR explicitly describes. We need to insist on not contradicting the LotR.
(edited for typos)
So why can't it be? Even non-petty Dwarves hold family and racial grudges for generations. (Humans do it all the time in real life.) The entire Petty-Dwarf society hates Elves; Mim doesn't need to have personally lost a kingdom to Finrod. We only need one scene where the Great Dwarves come into Nulukkizdin and shove some nameless natives out, deriding them as rejects and exiles, and maybe saying something about why their ancestors were exiled. Or we can just... make up some names for the Petty-Dwarves in that scene.
Why should they randomly have magical super lifespans? They aren't Fathers. Mim is nobody in particular. There is nothing at all special about Mim except that the other Petty-Dwarves die before he does. Well somebody was going to be the last one, but being last does not magically convey super powers upon him, or his sons. "I am the last of my people" was not meant to be a supervillain origin story.
And why does Gamil Zirak have to live 500 years? You already changed it so he's not Telchar's master. Other than teaching Telchar, Gamil Zirak had no canonical role at all (I just checked every single book except the technical linguistics journals). He's named only once, in the Narn, as Telchar's master and that's it. Since he's not Telchar's master in the SilmFilm (for reasons that entirely escape me), why should we keep the name at all? Let alone give him inexplicable super powers?
Yes! The supposedly "reincarnated" heirs (probably not actually reincarnated) would be great! That is the canon. That could plausibly be combined with giving the original Fathers lifespans 2 or 3 times the norm for Dwarves, but those Fathers would still be dead by the time of Season 3 Ep 4, more than 3620 years after they awoke, so their longer lifespan wouldn't actually matter for SilmFilm. But heirs would work just fine as long as they're called [name/title] the [#]. (Azaghal must be a title, not a secret true name, anyway.) If we used the same actors and only slightly changed the makeup or something, and showed them aging, the Elves could be confused why they suddenly have numbers added to their names, or age backwards occasionally, and the Dwarves can say enough for viewers to figure it out, but could be mysterious enough for the Elves to remain confused until Beor dies right in front of them.
But somebody on podcast 9 already suggested heirs named after the Fathers, and Corey vetoed specifically that.
He wants no dynasties in the Seven Kindreds, the Fathers to have no heirs but live for thousands and thousands of years. Which is absurd and totally contradicts the explicit statements in The LotR and The Hobbit that the Longbeards had a royal dynasty, not lifespans thousands and thousands of years long.Dwarves that live more than 4000 years are not acceptable to me. They are not Elves. They should not live long enough for the audience to ever think that any of them are immortal like Elves. We should not trick the audience into thinking Fathers of Dwarves are literally immortal. That is an absolutely horrible, terrible idea. The concept that mortality and immortality are vastly different was one of the most fundamental and important concepts Tolkien wanted to convey! Randomly making any Dwarves immortal, or making them look and act immortal so the audience has no possible way to know the difference, is a horrible violation of Tolkien's most fundamental and important ideas.
This desire to have main characters who live for the entire series needs to be satisfied with the huge numbers of of Elves, Ents, Maiar, Valar, Eagles, Spiders, and Huan who are already immortal. We should not accept Dwarves who live for millennia. Nor should we be open to later seasons having non-Numenorean Humans who live for centuries, or any Humans who live for millennia (without Rings of Power and horrific consequences). We must not have dwarf or human characters who are alive from beginning to end of the whole series, except in the frame. It is completely absurd for the Hosts to demand that.
Yes, mortality is a hard thing to bear once you've witnessed the youth of the Eldar. Well that sorrow is one of the themes of Tolkien!
We have to persuade the Hosts to give up on 4200-year-old Dwarves and accept the Dwarven royal dynasties which the LotR explicitly describes. We need to insist on not contradicting the LotR.
(edited for typos)
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I agree that we should continue to fight for non-immortal dwarves. This is not a fight I've given up on yet. I know what they've requested, and I try to listen to why, so I can see if there is a way around it that will satisfy their reasons. Dwarves that are slightly longer lived than usual is annoying, but not impossible. I don't really want a 500 year old dwarf, but since I know the audience will have no true sense of the passage of time anyway, I can see how such a thing might actually help prove dwarven mortality by having a young dwarf on screen one season, followed by a later dwarf with the same name, but now super old and venerable in a later season. Would I prefer they keep the ranges under 350 years? Yes. But I don't think they're ruining the spirit of the thing with the role they've proposed for Gamil Zirak. And who knows, maybe by the time we get to Nargothrond, we can talk them into having Mîm's father be a small child during the eviction, and have Mîm recount the tale to Túrin's company later and everyone be happy with the continuity.
I think that is why 'presenting an immortal leader to the outside world' combined with 'actually a dynasty with a repeated name' comes close to fitting the bill. Elves are allowed not to understand dwarves; they're allowed to be confused by mortality and assume immortality until it's explicitly explained otherwise to them. So, maybe at first the audience thinks it's the same character, and only after they get to know the dwarves better do they realize that the Azaghal who met Thingol is not the same Azaghal who meets Maedhros. Again, a question for a later season. Revealing secrets about how a culture works is something you do once the audience is getting comfortable with the set up. With dwarves, there should always be something new the audience doesn't know yet.
The first dwarven character this will come up with is Norn. He is our eager ambassador to Doriath from Belegost. He set up the meeting between Thingol and Azaghal, and seemed more positive about the Sindar than any other dwarves they've met. He's all about the cultural exchange and learning new things -- there's a reason he learned Sindarin better than other dwarves did before he even met the Sindar. And...eventually...he's not going to be there any more. The Sindar in Doriath are going to wonder where their dwarf ambassador went, why he doesn't come visit any more. Do the dwarves even tell them of his death? Or do they just say he's in the mountain and there's a new ambassador now, leaving the elves to wonder? Do the elves assume he died a violent death while travelling, not knowing anything about old age in non-animals? Maybe there is something mysterious about his 'disappearance'. We'll have to work out that story, but it will likely be one of those minor background details that is not really explained, just a subtle hint to encourage the audience to want to know more.
The second character will be Telchar. The Telchar we've just met in Season 3 is a young dwarven weapons maker. She was quite involved in arming the Sindar of Doriath for their war with the orcs. And she will make Angrist, Narsil, and the Dragon-helm, so we'll see her again in Season 4. Where she'll be...considerably older. Will the elves notice her changed appearance, her hair going grey for instance? Will they wonder about it, ask even? Do the dwarves have some embarrassment about aging, particularly around the ageless elves? Do they become reticent when the elves try to talk about it, or consider their questions rude/prying/unseemly?
In other words, a first crack at how we're going to handle the dwarves in the elf-centric stories of the First Age is not the end-all, be-all of what we can do. It's a question that is going to recur, and as the Hosts get more comfortable with the idea of dwarf original characters and invented side-stories (technically, they don't know about Norn yet), they may have room for altering their opinions. They don't want to clutter the story up, and that I can respect, but this wasn't the only way to streamline and keep the audience focused on the important characters.
I think that is why 'presenting an immortal leader to the outside world' combined with 'actually a dynasty with a repeated name' comes close to fitting the bill. Elves are allowed not to understand dwarves; they're allowed to be confused by mortality and assume immortality until it's explicitly explained otherwise to them. So, maybe at first the audience thinks it's the same character, and only after they get to know the dwarves better do they realize that the Azaghal who met Thingol is not the same Azaghal who meets Maedhros. Again, a question for a later season. Revealing secrets about how a culture works is something you do once the audience is getting comfortable with the set up. With dwarves, there should always be something new the audience doesn't know yet.
The first dwarven character this will come up with is Norn. He is our eager ambassador to Doriath from Belegost. He set up the meeting between Thingol and Azaghal, and seemed more positive about the Sindar than any other dwarves they've met. He's all about the cultural exchange and learning new things -- there's a reason he learned Sindarin better than other dwarves did before he even met the Sindar. And...eventually...he's not going to be there any more. The Sindar in Doriath are going to wonder where their dwarf ambassador went, why he doesn't come visit any more. Do the dwarves even tell them of his death? Or do they just say he's in the mountain and there's a new ambassador now, leaving the elves to wonder? Do the elves assume he died a violent death while travelling, not knowing anything about old age in non-animals? Maybe there is something mysterious about his 'disappearance'. We'll have to work out that story, but it will likely be one of those minor background details that is not really explained, just a subtle hint to encourage the audience to want to know more.
The second character will be Telchar. The Telchar we've just met in Season 3 is a young dwarven weapons maker. She was quite involved in arming the Sindar of Doriath for their war with the orcs. And she will make Angrist, Narsil, and the Dragon-helm, so we'll see her again in Season 4. Where she'll be...considerably older. Will the elves notice her changed appearance, her hair going grey for instance? Will they wonder about it, ask even? Do the dwarves have some embarrassment about aging, particularly around the ageless elves? Do they become reticent when the elves try to talk about it, or consider their questions rude/prying/unseemly?
In other words, a first crack at how we're going to handle the dwarves in the elf-centric stories of the First Age is not the end-all, be-all of what we can do. It's a question that is going to recur, and as the Hosts get more comfortable with the idea of dwarf original characters and invented side-stories (technically, they don't know about Norn yet), they may have room for altering their opinions. They don't want to clutter the story up, and that I can respect, but this wasn't the only way to streamline and keep the audience focused on the important characters.
I'm very glad you haven't given in to this, MithLuin.
It can't even be as simple as Azaghal IV, Azaghal V, Azaghal VI, etc. In the LotR a King named "Durin" reappears in the Longbeard line every several generations, not every single generation. The Dwarves only give that name when they're convinced the prince is a reincarnation of their Father.
We can make the title Azaghal appear more often than Durin, but realistically not more often than every third generation, because the Dwarves won't believe their Father has been reincarnated in a child born during the lifespan of the previous "incarnation". So:
Azaghal IV, son, grandson, Azaghal V, son, grandson, Azaghal VI, etc.
With the help of Excel I can probably figure out how to have the King of Belegost to be titled Azaghal during both the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and Season 3, but it should not be so at every single appearance of the Dwarves. Likewise with whatever title we give to the King of Nogrod.
But what role do they want for a dwarf named Gamil Zirak who is explicitly not the canon character Gamil Zirak? Why again did they eliminate the canon character and then recycle the name for a totally unrelated character who has nothing whatsoever in common with him?
It can't even be as simple as Azaghal IV, Azaghal V, Azaghal VI, etc. In the LotR a King named "Durin" reappears in the Longbeard line every several generations, not every single generation. The Dwarves only give that name when they're convinced the prince is a reincarnation of their Father.
We can make the title Azaghal appear more often than Durin, but realistically not more often than every third generation, because the Dwarves won't believe their Father has been reincarnated in a child born during the lifespan of the previous "incarnation". So:
Azaghal IV, son, grandson, Azaghal V, son, grandson, Azaghal VI, etc.
With the help of Excel I can probably figure out how to have the King of Belegost to be titled Azaghal during both the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and Season 3, but it should not be so at every single appearance of the Dwarves. Likewise with whatever title we give to the King of Nogrod.
But what role do they want for a dwarf named Gamil Zirak who is explicitly not the canon character Gamil Zirak? Why again did they eliminate the canon character and then recycle the name for a totally unrelated character who has nothing whatsoever in common with him?
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The_Singing_Fox
Member
Maybe the dwarves of Belegost have different naming conventions, they just name their sons after the father. It comes up in real life dynasties, and as they are a different tribe than the longbeards they don't have to have the same traditions. Of course we could just have it your way which works perfectly, but the idea of the Elves not working out the dwarves's mortality for some generations is quite nice.
If the Hosts prefer that style over the Longbeard style, I'd be content. The King's title would then not always indicate somebody who is believed to be the reincarnation of the Father of that Kindred.
The Elves are completely astounded when Beor dies of old age. Realistically, their Dwarven allies have been dying for quite a while before then. But apparently out of sight of Elves, and Dwarves are both less close as allies and friends, and much more secretive, than the Edain. Beor actually lived in Finrod Felagund's household, but no dwarf ever did so.
So it makes sense that the Elves hadn't understood yet that Dwarves are mortal. Their confusion and ignorance can even be used for a rare spot of humor, if this series has any.
But the audience should understand it sooner than the Elves do -- much sooner. If a fact is not conveyed to the audience, to a significant extent it doesn't exist in the story. Not even Elves have literally eternal lives; they will only live as long as Arda Marred is inhabitable, and over tens of millennia they will age by "fading". But the audience won't know that unless we script and film the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth... so to the audience, Elves are literally eternal. Which is an OK approximation... for Elves. (Even Cirdan will eventually sprout a magnificent flowing beard, and if we don't want him to look like a freak he shouldn't be the only one... but that'll be many seasons away.)
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amysrevenge
Well-Known Member
And I suppose there is no real reason why the reincarnation can't be literally actually true. Doesn't happen with Elves (they get reborn a different way), doesn't happen with Men (once they're gone they're gone, at least as long as Arda remains). But Dwarves? Why not a bit of reincaration? Aule didn't know everything when he made them...
Maybe Azaghal VI literally remembers the lived experiences of Azaghal III. Maybe he doesn't remember, but is of effectively identical character.
That would certainly be the most effective way to achieve character continuity without 5000-year lifespans.
At one point Tolkien said that all the Durins claim to remember their previous lives as Kings. Then later he came up with a long philosophical/theological explanation why rebirth in one's descendants can't be a thing. I think that perhaps what's impossible for Elves may still be possible for Dwarves. The biggest objection for Elvish rebirth as children (cheating the unsuspecting new parents part of their parentage in helping give rise to the new fea/spirit, and the joy of raising a new person who is truly a child) wouldn't necessarily bother Dwarves. They might feel privileged to bring back Durin or Azaghal or whoever into the world, and if they believe in reincarnating Fathers they'd expect the possibility when marrying into or being one of the royal line.
But Corey Olson opposes Dwarven royal dynasties because he's very bothered by the reincarnation idea, so making the LotR appendix on Dwarves acceptable to him probably requires getting rid of literal reincarnation, and/or never mentioning it.
At one point Tolkien said that all the Durins claim to remember their previous lives as Kings. Then later he came up with a long philosophical/theological explanation why rebirth in one's descendants can't be a thing. I think that perhaps what's impossible for Elves may still be possible for Dwarves. The biggest objection for Elvish rebirth as children (cheating the unsuspecting new parents part of their parentage in helping give rise to the new fea/spirit, and the joy of raising a new person who is truly a child) wouldn't necessarily bother Dwarves. They might feel privileged to bring back Durin or Azaghal or whoever into the world, and if they believe in reincarnating Fathers they'd expect the possibility when marrying into or being one of the royal line.
But Corey Olson opposes Dwarven royal dynasties because he's very bothered by the reincarnation idea, so making the LotR appendix on Dwarves acceptable to him probably requires getting rid of literal reincarnation, and/or never mentioning it.
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The Hosts took a look at the important dwarf roles in the First Age, and the canonically provided dwarf names, and decided who to highlight and how.
The maker of the Nauglamir is not named. The dwarf who is killed in Doriath that precipitates the death of Thingol and sack of Doriath is not named. They decided that they wanted it to be an old, venerable dwarf that the audience knows, so the outrage of the dwarves over his (essentially) murder will be understood.
Gamil means 'old' and is a title more than a name. So, the idea was to have Zirak be a young jewelsmith of Nogrod who makes the Nauglamir for Finrod, and then, when Thingol gets the idea to put the silmaril in the Nauglamir, it's the original smith who is brought back for the job...but this time as a venerable old man named Gamil Zirak.
Yes, we could come up with an original name - we're going to come up with a ton of original dwarf names, because Tolkien provides very few from this time period. We'll have to name the King of Nogrod, for instance. We've already introduced a few original characters in Season 3 - including giving a nod to Telchar's master - in the script discussions. The Execs haven't seen those outlines yet, so we don't know what their reaction to these ideas will be, but it's certainly possible that we'll make some changes. It seems to me that they wanted a 'famous' pivotal dwarf in the story to have a canonical name, and so they chose the name of a character who did nothing in the story and repurposed it.
And yes, the timeline doesn't quite work. BUT, we don't know the exact year of the making of the Nauglamir. Sure, it's sometime after the founding of Nargothrond in FA 52 (once Finrod is friendly with the dwarves), and obviously it happens well before Finrod's death in FA 465. But...we can push it a little later in the story, so that Zirak could plausibly still be alive when Thingol comes into possession of the Nauglamir in FA 502. At the very least, I don't feel the need to call the audience's attention to the year when the Nauglamir is first made.
TV shows often pull tricks of reusing actors/actresses to help establish some sort of continuity for the viewer. One blatant example is all of the times Denise Crosby returned to the set of ST:TNG after the death of her character Tasha Yar. She was Tasha Yar in alternate timelines, Tasha Yar's half-Romulan daughter, etc. But a more subtle use of this sort of thing is the AI 'A.L.I.E.' in The 100. The AI takes the form of its creator, Becca. So, flashback scenes to Becca working on it a century ago use the exact same actress. The show gets to have someone on screen who has clearly been dead for some time (ie, is not immortal), but still impacts the current storyline.
We do know when the Nauglamir was made, because JRRT always, always said that it was made from scratch for Thingol. Giving it to Finrod was only ever an ad-hoc editorial invention by CRT to justify getting rid of the outlaws who followed Hurin from Hithlum, and CRT admitted that changing that and rewriting the story was unwarranted and a huge mistake. We should not make the same mistake, and we don't need to.
We have no need to get rid of the outlaws who help Hurin carry pieces of treasure out of Nargothrond, because we are not nearly as limited in space as CRT's Silmarillion is. CRT got rid of the outlaws and every scene in which they appear because he thought it was hard to explain why they were following Hurin (even though I think he kept most of the scene where Hurin acquires them). Later CRT admitted that there was no reason not to include the outlaws in the story and no reason audiences would not accept their existence. We should include them because we should include the Wanderings of Hurin, which are a fascinating story and well worth telling.
There will be lots of other things for a "young Zirak" character to do before making the Nauglamir for Thingol. We need Dwarves who will trade with Caranthir, and Dwarves who will help Finrod enlarge Nargothrond and design his fortress. There will be plenty of opportunities to establish a character other than reusing the non-JRRT Nauglamir story. There is no reason Dwarves cannot trade crafted goods with Finrod in the context of making friends and establishing Nargothrond, and getting paid in treasures out of Valinor. But none of those traded goods should be specifically the Nauglamir of Thingol.
For example, Finrod will need a silver crown in Nargothrond, and he didn't bring one from Valinor. As the final act to cement his place as king of Nargothrond and Minas Tirith, and alliance with the Dwarves, they themselves could send one of their promising young jewelers to make him a crown. Maybe the "outer" nickname "Zirak" comes from his making this work of silver for Finrod, if Zirak means silver (it might mean spike, but why would you nickname somebody that?).
Nargothrond was not full-wrought until 102, which would shrink the required lifespan by a little (450). Although 450 is still excessive so I'd rather avoid that.
We could use some other way to introduce Zirak. Maybe he's just Finrod's good friend and they share an interest in stone-carving (in addition to Zirak being a jeweler).
We have no need to get rid of the outlaws who help Hurin carry pieces of treasure out of Nargothrond, because we are not nearly as limited in space as CRT's Silmarillion is. CRT got rid of the outlaws and every scene in which they appear because he thought it was hard to explain why they were following Hurin (even though I think he kept most of the scene where Hurin acquires them). Later CRT admitted that there was no reason not to include the outlaws in the story and no reason audiences would not accept their existence. We should include them because we should include the Wanderings of Hurin, which are a fascinating story and well worth telling.
There will be lots of other things for a "young Zirak" character to do before making the Nauglamir for Thingol. We need Dwarves who will trade with Caranthir, and Dwarves who will help Finrod enlarge Nargothrond and design his fortress. There will be plenty of opportunities to establish a character other than reusing the non-JRRT Nauglamir story. There is no reason Dwarves cannot trade crafted goods with Finrod in the context of making friends and establishing Nargothrond, and getting paid in treasures out of Valinor. But none of those traded goods should be specifically the Nauglamir of Thingol.
For example, Finrod will need a silver crown in Nargothrond, and he didn't bring one from Valinor. As the final act to cement his place as king of Nargothrond and Minas Tirith, and alliance with the Dwarves, they themselves could send one of their promising young jewelers to make him a crown. Maybe the "outer" nickname "Zirak" comes from his making this work of silver for Finrod, if Zirak means silver (it might mean spike, but why would you nickname somebody that?).
Nargothrond was not full-wrought until 102, which would shrink the required lifespan by a little (450). Although 450 is still excessive so I'd rather avoid that.
We could use some other way to introduce Zirak. Maybe he's just Finrod's good friend and they share an interest in stone-carving (in addition to Zirak being a jeweler).
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Nicholas Palazzo
Well-Known Member
I don't think anyone is suggesting that Gamil Zirak and Telchar are the same.
Haerangil
Well-Known Member
Because it wasn´t. Telchar and Zirak lived in completely different Times and both were Weaponsmiths rather than Artificers... though I already mentioned that Tolkien´s Craftsmen often seem to be universal-Geniuses.
I don´t know... three out of our great assemly of nine named dwarves from the first Age have to do with the making of the Nauglamir and the Sack of Menegroth , yet the Execs chose to change everything and I do not understand why.
I don´t know... three out of our great assemly of nine named dwarves from the first Age have to do with the making of the Nauglamir and the Sack of Menegroth , yet the Execs chose to change everything and I do not understand why.
Nicholas Palazzo
Well-Known Member
Ok, nobody is saying they are the same person.
Oh! What were their names?
I'm looking in the book now...
Fangluin (bluebeard) counselled the other Dwarves not to agree to make the Nauglamir, and then mocked the makers for accepting the scanty reward Thingol gave them. Maybe he's supposed to be a dwarf of Nogrod, although I don't know about a blue-bearded Firebeard. We could have him be a dwarf of Belegost who urges the Broadbeams not to participate in the whole affair.
Bodruith was a messenger from Belegost to Nogrod.
I don't see a third dwarf name (unless you count "Naugladur" as a name) nor any of the makers of the Necklace named.
Incidentally, I notice that Mablung is shown wielding an axe, not a sword.
I'm looking in the book now...
Fangluin (bluebeard) counselled the other Dwarves not to agree to make the Nauglamir, and then mocked the makers for accepting the scanty reward Thingol gave them. Maybe he's supposed to be a dwarf of Nogrod, although I don't know about a blue-bearded Firebeard. We could have him be a dwarf of Belegost who urges the Broadbeams not to participate in the whole affair.
Bodruith was a messenger from Belegost to Nogrod.
I don't see a third dwarf name (unless you count "Naugladur" as a name) nor any of the makers of the Necklace named.
Incidentally, I notice that Mablung is shown wielding an axe, not a sword.
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