Frame Characters

I think maybe one person could help her. We don't have to make her treat this person like a slave. More like an aide. Someone who assists her. An older relative?
 
Haha, you try raising just one kid under those conditions and then come back and ask me what she needs the servant for! It's very easy to spend all day every day cooking and cleaning, with no time left for, say, educating your child. Even just one or two helpers could be very useful!
 
I like that better than a servant. Someone who would show her deference, but also someone we would see working alongside her, doing laundry or some such.

(Elves might not have to do laundry as often. Do they even sweat?)
 
Or Ivorwen, Gilraen's mother? That would be better. Gilraen needs someone to talk to, a grown person who isn't Elrond, to express feelings to.
 
Haha, you try raising just one kid under those conditions and then come back and ask me what she needs the servant for! It's very easy to spend all day every day cooking and cleaning, with no time left for, say, educating your child. Even just one or two helpers could be very useful!

Fair point. :)
 
This may just be me, just I feel like giving Gilraen someone to talk to daily will undermine any attempt to portray her as lonely and secluded. I may have missed something somewhere, but I thought that this isolation was the root of her entire attitude.
 
True - but her isolation in Rivendell, being the sole human amongst a bunch of elves, is important to portray. And, well...we only get brief interactions with her in each episode, so we have to be clear and consistent. Some nuance is fine, but not if it undermines the point.

So, the question is if we can give her companions/servants and still maintain her isolation on screen.

I think that her eagerness to talk with the riders who come in (episode 7?) is an opportunity to make her isolation clear, and rather telling that she immediately chastises Elrond for his elvish 'long view' after her meeting with them.
 
Well maybe her mother would be too close and giving too much comfort. But we need to transform her feelings into actions and words, and that is much easier if she has someone to interact with. She has Elrond of course, by that's different.
Someone living secluded or isolated will feel the need to talk to others. I like the example of the riders. But it has to be more, or she'll just start talking to herself (which could be an alternative; she could talk to Arathorn)
 
Oooh, I actually like that! Talking to Arathorn could come across as creepy/crazy, but if we are making her this very 'practical no-nonsense' type of person, that would be one concession to sentiment that might humanize her. Obviously, we would have to be really careful how we did that, but just looking up at the sky and making comments about this boy that he left her (either in exasperation or a I-wish-you-were-here-to-see-this type of way.....)....well, that could work, maybe. But of course - used sparingly.

If the devoted servants are ARATHORN's people (rather than her mother), that could still serve to keep her isolated. I think we can add to her household without destroying the visual isolation we are creating for her. But...we'd have to be very careful how we did it, is all. There's a lot of pitfalls to avoid.
 
Right - and that's what I meant with avoiding the creepy/crazy aspect...a way of showing her thoughts without implying that this is a two sided conversation.
 
Exactly - we want the audience to be aware of her grief, missing her dead husband...and having her speak to him fondly/wistfully - look at how our son is growing up, you'd be so proud of him, I miss you so much, etc would be a positive thing (from time to time).

We could avoid using the name 'Arathorn' if she had a pet name for him (if that's an issue).
 
I would say to keep in mind that in shorter mediums (like film and television) where there is not as much time to fully convey every nuance of a character, extremes are your friend. It's why Aragorn's almost paralyzing self-doubt works so well in the Jackson films even though it's nowhere near that dramatic in the books. Jackson and Co's choice to do this was intentional, not negligent, and it worked. Whether we agree with their choices or not, the films and their characters still hold up on their own to this day.

This is not to say "don't add more characters to Gilraen house," it's just to make sure our adding of more characters serves a purpose without undercutting others.
 
That's a good point, and it's good that we've steered away from close relatives to someone who just helps her.
 
I'm thinking about taking a swing at an actual pilot script while we are waiting for the hosts to get to the planning session for s02e01. I think that giving the Gilraen a bit more grief will allow her to be more aggressive with Elrond without it looking like she's a horrible person.
 
Yes - for many of these decisions, it will really depend how it is written as to whether it works or comes across as cluttered/contradictory. I do want to avoid too many additional frame characters, but we've been assuming background elves (even with the occasional line), so I don't mind a background human servant in Gilraen's household, *if* this person can fit in naturally without much explanation. If it's an older man, people will assume it's Estel's grandfather (for instance), so we'd have to explain that he's not. Etc. Not that this is hard - we just have Estel address him as 'grandfather' at one point, and then have him correct the boy, "I'm not your grandfather, *Dunedain version of peace be upon him*") Or whatever.
 
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