Nicholas Palazzo
Well-Known Member
Indeed.
So...who is Arwen's friend? Glad you asked! *I* want her to be an elf of Lothlorien who is 'like a sister' to Arwen
Haha, you'll note I very carefully didn't assign either of you the line "You will lead, I will follow" But Fëanor drops out first, too, so that's worth considering.
Shawn, two of your issues are related. It's been over 400 years since Arwen lost her mother. Why does all of this matter *now*? And the answer that the Hosts came up with for that was that Arwen would have a mentor who is now deciding to leave and depart over Sea into the West. So, the loss of this other character who was dear to her is bringing up the unresolved issues of the loss of her mother.
We ran into the problem of how to introduce an elf in Rivendell who has left, when our frame takes place in Lothlorien. The audience would not get a chance to meet this other elf, but we want them to understand why Arwen cares about her, so we would need flashbacks in the Frame in addition to the flashbacks to establish the Celebrían storyline...it was getting a bit unwieldy, and not really solving the problem it set out to solve.
So...who is Arwen's friend? Glad you asked! *I* want her to be an elf of Lothlorien who is 'like a sister' to Arwen...they are best buds and one of the reasons Arwen likes to come visit her grandparents so much (just kidding, but not really). So, then we could see the friendship 'in real time,' hear the friend's decision to journey into the West, involve Arwen in that journey and farewell, and *that* is the situation that brings up all the old memories of losing her mom that she has to deal with now. It's a much more streamlined version of the story, and one we can tell in the Frame Snippets that we have available each episode. The other version was going to take up a lot of screen time to establish...or else be rushed and very confusing to the audience, who was bound to lose the thread of the (3) different timelines in the Frame.
As far as the palantir goes - that was an option that was brought up recently, but the obvious advantage of it would be we could allow Arwen and her mother to have a conversation, to bring Celebrían out of historic flashbacks and into the present as a living character. To me, that is the only appeal of dragging Arwen halfway across Middle Earth in this season, though of course we can make good use of the journey for other purposes. Others may suggest other uses of the palantir.