Dwarves

probably.question is if they have lines and are named characters or just support.of course random dwarf extras could be young, they also could be children or femals depending on the scenes context. but wozld it make sense to actually cast such extras? we haven,t made any such efforts for elces or maiar yet...
 
I don't think we have to worry too much about that. The dwarves are not central to this story, after all, and we could settle at just saying that there are some younger dwarves around. Maybe we can invent a female dwarf character, we could do that. But to just invent young ones for no particular reason other than showing that they exist and go through casting, wasting good actors, would make no real sense to me.
 
Haakon said:
I don't think we have to worry too much about that. The dwarves are not central to this story, after all, and we could settle at just saying that there are some younger dwarves around. Maybe we can invent a female dwarf character, we could do that. But to just invent young ones for no particular reason other than showing that they exist and go through casting, wasting good actors, would make no real sense to me.
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Babylon 5 made a point of having a pool of really good character actors who would play various different aliens with the help of really good makeup and prosthetics. It should be possible to gather a bunch of people who can play "filler" characters of whatever race might be needed for any given scene.

For example, you're going to want a bunch of Noldor to listen to Feanor when he goes off the rails, and a bunch of Teleri for them to slaughter, with possibly a few Vanyar getting really hot under the collar on the sidelines. At some point you're going to want quite a few Maiar for making war on Morgoth/Melkor. Later you'll have hordes of Men and Orcs turning up, not to mention the Dwarves under discussion in this thread.

Rather than spend time casting these individually, it would be a good idea to look out for people who are good at filling in the gaps between the "named talent".

Or am I attempting to teach Granny to suck eggs? :oops:
 
Well, I think what you are thinking of are the extras. Some extras ascend over time. Star Trek: DS9's Morn is a good example. I've been thinking about this a lot today and about the dwarvish stories we might not take the time to tell in this series. Perhaps what we will need is a Sons of Durin spinoff to go with the House of Eorl spinoff.
 
Figwit obviously was just an extra as cast, and eventually got lines when it was clear that people had noticed him/liked him.

I think we will have to figure out what story we are telling with the dwarves before we can figure out the balance of named characters vs extras in this season. It could go either way.

We may have scenes in the dwarf-halls at some point, in which case we will want to see women and children. The groups of travelling dwarves should probably be grown men, though a mix of older and younger is good. Keep in mind that Gimli was 'too young' for the Quest for Erebor; dwarves keep their women and children close to home.
 
close to home or hide/disguise them, eoither way we won't recognize/see them. Only in scenes where only dwarves are shown but no other cultures...

by the way, the two Dwarf houses of the Ered Luin are the Firebeards and Boroadbeams...

Do we wish to create a special appearance for each house? I think the Firebeards should have the trait of being red-blonde or dark redhaired and the Broadbeams should be a bit more broad/squat/heavy... but maybe not all of them in a uniform way but more of a tendency. But they could have diffgerent traditional costumes, also different from the dwarves in later times and the house of durin.
 
Nogrod and Belegost should definitely be distinct from each other, but how far we go with developing separate cultures for them likely depends on whether or not we have an ongoing dwarf-centric story.
 
Oh, my goodness, we're going to have so much fun/work with Nogrod and Belegost. We don't even have the names of the Father who founded those cities!
 
We won't need their names... but it should be fun to develope costumes to separate both tribes from another they don't need to be big differences... but I would like a bit of a different look for each of them and the Petty Dwarves. Given we don't have that many characters with lines I#d like to explore their look for extras and general feel of it.
 
Haerangil said:
We won't need their names... but it should be fun to develope costumes to separate both tribes from another they don't need to be big differences... but I would like a bit of a different look for each of them and the Petty Dwarves. Given we don't have that many characters with lines I#d like to explore their look for extras and general feel of it.
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I know we won't necessarily need the names... just threw that out as an example of how little we know about Beleriand dwarven culture.
 
sure.. there#s tons of fanfic out there, some better some not that good, but little Original Tolkien, he just gave us snippets...
would have been fun to have a silmarillion like book written from a dwarven perspective though.
 
What do you think of Javier Bardem as one of the middle-aged Broadbeams? He could be Telchar.
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He'd need a longer beard, though...

Hm, as I googled 'Javier Bardem beard' I found benicio Del Toro with a beard. He could be a good Dwarf, perhaps... upload_2017-4-7_8-13-19.jpeg

Oh they're tall, at least Del Toro...

But then again, they are about as tall as John Rhys-Davies.
 
As I understand it, it isn't at all clear if the Firebeards and the Broadbeams lived together or seperately in Belegost and Nogrod. Do you think we should seperate them? I kind of like the idea of having them live mixed, the more I think about it.
 
personally i'd prefer to have them separate.
it's a bit cliche but the firebeards could be the more firy agressive clan, those who kill thingol while the broadbeams are more stoic and pragmatic thinking ( on the other hand it could be them who also sell weapons to melkor ... pragmatic businessmen).

but i'm sure both clans intermarried, but maybe without completely losing their traditional traits.
 
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Another Idea... If we have to invent Dwarf-names or dwarves... what about not giving them real names but just adressing them with synonyms for "Dwarf"?
I mean Naugladur just means Dwarflord, and Fangluin, Bluebeard, also seems to be just a synonym for a dwarf.Telchar, Azaghal and Gamil Zirak are likely nicknames...

Narag, Norno, Naucon, Norn, Dorn, Nogon, Gorn, Dern, Cadhad, Casar, Nuxo, Naugli, Naugol, Nuig, Nawag, Nauco, Turg, Indrafang, Pau, Begl, Fanga, Naugla...

I could clearly see Dwarves adapting such synonyms as codes or outer names.
 
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I think we could add names from the list of dwarves in the poetic Edda, the way Tolkien did. The problem is they are perhaps not too easy to handle and maybe he let them be for good reasons. Some are a bit boring, meaning 'south' or 'north' or 'new moon' or 'way'. Some are kind of cool but wouldn't work in Beleriand: Motsogne (power sucker) and Mjödvitne (midwinter).
A few are left that sound like Tolkienian Dwarf names: Nali. Nar. Jari. Aurvang. (Maybe) Tekk (Petty Dwarf name?).
 
no i definitely would avoid any norse names. those should be used only for third age dwarves who had contact with the northmen and adapted their language.

the beleriandic dwarves should have khuzdul or sindarin names,though some who are friends of the noldor may have quenya names too.
 
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