Inclusion of queer characters?

Well, Elves aren’t exactly human.

From what I read off of Tolkien Gateway, there's very little required for a Elven marriage. It appears to be blessings exchanged between the newlyweds, an invocation of Eru, and an "act of bodily union". Tolkien appears to follow the idea of “honorable marriage” since sleeping with an Elf who is not your spouse seems to forge the same bonds as marriage. The page I looked at gives a lot of emphasis on the consummation.
 
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Honestly, the fact that we will never have an elf have an extra-marital affair will be a much stronger question that the audience is going to find unusual than lack of queer characters. 'No sex outside of marriage' fits well with Catholic moral teachings, but is hardly the standard in modern American society nor the way sex is portrayed on American TV shows. I am reminded of the scene in Dances with Wolves, when a very simple wedding ceremony is still preceded by an 'illicit' night together. As if the idea of having sex after marriage is way too boring to audiences. Elves will already look very different in this regard. I am totally fine with not even implying that Beren and Lúthien consummate their relationship until after her father accepts it and they get married. Wandering in the forests alone? No problem, Beren can be a total gentleman about it and the clothes stay on. But audiences are going to wonder about that one, for sure.

We don't need to show pre-marital sex. Elves work differently than people do. Maybe they do want to, but hold back until they marry.
 
Oh, I agree. There is no reason to depict premarital sex between our elvish characters. And while we will be implying a sexual relationship post-wedding, we are hardly going to include explicit sex scenes. I imagine we'll have some romance and some kissing, but all very tame PG kinda stuff. I would not expect any of our depictions of sexuality to push the envelope on a TV-14 rating. I think that by avoiding any tendency to show them as 'repressed' or 'legalistic' about this, we'll avoid making it seem weird/stilted.

We show the courtship of Finwë and Míriel, and later of Fëanor and Nerdanel. This will set the standard for what the audience will expect from us when it comes to elvish relationships. We'll want to establish when something deviates from the norm, so we'll likely show that there is something off about Eöl and Aredhel. I'm not sure exactly how we'll plan to portray 'not wholly unwilling' but it won't be entirely innocent. Our attempts to show that Finwë's remarriage to Indis is shocking and taboo is already tough enough - it's really blasé to the audience that a widower remarries after his wife's death. Portraying that divorce is 'impossible' for elves, even if your spouse is dead, is going to be a bit of a tough sell. Still, it helps make their culture different!

I am merely pointing out that the audience will be expecting Beren and Lúthien to be, for lack of another term, sexually active. It's okay to disappoint their expectations, but it's good to be aware of them, too. The idea of a couple declaring their love for one another, but then actually waiting for the family's blessing to get married and actually get together is going to feel weird/foreign/old-fashioned to the audience. That's okay, though. The reason to keep this in mind is because when you portray someone as overly 'innocent' like this, the audience becomes skeptical and thinks that, in reality, the characters are behaving shamefully in some way - that that's not what's really happening. There is more of a set-up for watching someone go back on their word, break their vow, cheat on the fiance they aren't sleeping with, etc. I don't mind if the audience is disappointed when there is no hidden agenda, but again, you have to be aware when you step away from their expectations.


Whether or not we want to go from 'no divorce' and 'no premarital sex' to 'no homosexuality' is another question.
 
Oh, I agree. There is no reason to depict premarital sex between our elvish characters. And while we will be implying a sexual relationship post-wedding, we are hardly going to include explicit sex scenes. I imagine we'll have some romance and some kissing, but all very tame PG kinda stuff. I would not expect any of our depictions of sexuality to push the envelope on a TV-14 rating. I think that by avoiding any tendency to show them as 'repressed' or 'legalistic' about this, we'll avoid making it seem weird/stilted.

We show the courtship of Finwë and Míriel, and later of Fëanor and Nerdanel. This will set the standard for what the audience will expect from us when it comes to elvish relationships. We'll want to establish when something deviates from the norm, so we'll likely show that there is something off about Eöl and Aredhel. I'm not sure exactly how we'll plan to portray 'not wholly unwilling' but it won't be entirely innocent. Our attempts to show that Finwë's remarriage to Indis is shocking and taboo is already tough enough - it's really blasé to the audience that a widower remarries after his wife's death. Portraying that divorce is 'impossible' for elves, even if your spouse is dead, is going to be a bit of a tough sell. Still, it helps make their culture different!

I am merely pointing out that the audience will be expecting Beren and Lúthien to be, for lack of another term, sexually active. It's okay to disappoint their expectations, but it's good to be aware of them, too. The idea of a couple declaring their love for one another, but then actually waiting for the family's blessing to get married and actually get together is going to feel weird/foreign/old-fashioned to the audience. That's okay, though. The reason to keep this in mind is because when you portray someone as overly 'innocent' like this, the audience becomes skeptical and thinks that, in reality, the characters are behaving shamefully in some way - that that's not what's really happening. There is more of a set-up for watching someone go back on their word, break their vow, cheat on the fiance they aren't sleeping with, etc. I don't mind if the audience is disappointed when there is no hidden agenda, but again, you have to be aware when you step away from their expectations.


Whether or not we want to go from 'no divorce' and 'no premarital sex' to 'no homosexuality' is another question.
Read through that link. No mention of homosexuality, no talk of rape. Maybe we do that with Eol and Aredhel.
 
On Eol and Aredhel: Eol uses his magic to persuade Aredhel to journey closer to his abode from afar. It’s very creepy.

I honestly don’t know what to do with homosexuality.
 
I think there are many reasons why emphasizing the importance of monogamous pairing of Elves will help our story. One of them is that without a mortality-based drive to multiply behind it, there's really no cause for any sort of social pressure opposing a broader range of relationships.

(I've never looked at it from quite that angle before. So many of our social behaviours are deeply rooted in biology and the circle of life/death. We've brushed the edges of that in discussing the Noldor selecting their kings, but really it would run so much deeper, in ways that aren't necessarily obvious. And possibly in ways that weren't interesting to Prof. Philology when he came up with all of this haha.)
 
Read through that link. No mention of homosexuality, no talk of rape. Maybe we do that with Eol and Aredhel.
Tolkien does discuss rape. An elf, about to be raped would die beforehand. The Elvish spirit and Elvish body are closer connected than any human. This is why Elves can die of a broken heart and why their sorrows are so deep, but at the same time their joy and happiness is more intense than Men. Eol and Aredhel is creepy, but it's not a rape story. Eol used deception and lies to to get Aredhel to him, but the marriage was taken part willingly. It gets much, much darker to the end when he won't allow her to leave.
I think there are many reasons why emphasizing the importance of monogamous pairing of Elves will help our story. One of them is that without a mortality-based drive to multiply behind it, there's really no cause for any sort of social pressure opposing a broader range of relationships.

(I've never looked at it from quite that angle before. So many of our social behaviours are deeply rooted in biology and the circle of life/death. We've brushed the edges of that in discussing the Noldor selecting their kings, but really it would run so much deeper, in ways that aren't necessarily obvious. And possibly in ways that weren't interesting to Prof. Philology when he came up with all of this haha.)
Tolkien's view of the world was consistent with Catholic theology. Consequently our social behaviours are not just rooted in biology, but in divine/universal law and the rational mind to interpret them. So Elves, Dwarves and Men all being created with rational minds and being under the universal law would actually have the same laws in general. This is what Aragorn relays to Eomer. Only when they were corrupted would they begin to stray for the path.
 
Tolkien does discuss rape. An elf, about to be raped would die beforehand. The Elvish spirit and Elvish body are closer connected than any human. This is why Elves can die of a broken heart and why their sorrows are so deep, but at the same time their joy and happiness is more intense than Men. Eol and Aredhel is creepy, but it's not a rape story. Eol used deception and lies to to get Aredhel to him, but the marriage was taken part willingly. It gets much, much darker to the end when he won't allow her to leave.
They talk about a “darkness” in Eol that Maeglin inherited, and Maeglin later tries to rape Idril. I know there's one version where it's mentioned that Eol raped Aredhel.
 
They talk about a “darkness” in Eol that Maeglin inherited, and Maeglin later tries to rape Idril. I know there's one version where it's mentioned that Eol raped Aredhel.
There might be one, but I have not come across it. The 'Fall of Gondolin' has him attempt to murder Earendil.

Yes initially Tolkien, had Eol rape Aredhel but he changed his mind later on.

'It is not said that Aredhel was wholly unwilling, nor that her life in Nan Elmoth was hateful to her for many years. For though at Eöl's command she must shun the sunlight, they wandered far together under the stars or by the light of the sickle moon; or she might fare alone as she would, save that Eöl forbade her to seek the sons of Fëanor, or any others of the Noldor. And Aredhel bore to Eöl a son in the shadows of Nan Elmoth, and in her heart she gave him a name in the forbidden tongue of the Noldor, Lómion, that signifies Child of the Twilight; but his father gave him no name until he was twelve years old.'

This is ambiguous, but the text in MR.

'But among all these evils there is no record of any among the Elves that took another's spouse by force; for that was wholly against their nature, and one so forced would have rejected bodily life and passed to Mandos.'
 
Aaaaand, dudes of that era "forbidding" things of their wives was not seen as any great flaw. It's another of those details, minor at the time, that is seen differently now.

ETA Eol/Aredhel is going to be a difficult topic for me as my cousin just recently extricated herself from an Eol-like man (including things like his attempting to forbid her from seeking out her kin). Tell me that if the tech was available, Eol wouldn't hide tracking devices on Aredhel's person or in her things.....
 
Aaaaand, dudes of that era "forbidding" things of their wives was not seen as any great flaw. It's another of those details, minor at the time, that is seen differently now.

ETA Eol/Aredhel is going to be a difficult topic for me as my cousin just recently extricated herself from an Eol-like man (including things like his attempting to forbid her from seeking out her kin). Tell me that if the tech was available, Eol wouldn't hide tracking devices on Aredhel's person or in her things.....
Depends on whether or not we want to make Eol more hatable.
 
I think Eol as-written is substantially more dislikable to a 2018 audience than he would have been to a 1938 or 1978 or even 1998 audience.
 
I think Eol as-written is substantially more dislikable to a 2018 audience than he would have been to a 1938 or 1978 or even 1998 audience.


Perhaps in some circles. The idea of a man taking advantage of a woman in any way has been universally seen in substantially poor light for quite a while.
 
I'm not saying he was ever fine and dandy. But a relationship that was maybe marginally acceptable (according to the background material it doesn't cross any uncrossable lines) back in the day would not come across as any kind of acceptable now, marginal or otherwise, unless "not wholly unwilling" was deliberately rewritten/reinterpreted to be "willing"
 
It is my understanding that it was originally 'not unwilling' and was edited to 'not wholly unwilling'.

Eol is a controlling man who wins his wife by deceit, and later murders her while attempting to kill their child. He was always going to come across as a domestic violence type, with shades of 'locked a woman in my basement for 20 years while she had my kid(s).'

The mentality of a wife needing to submit to her husband may have shifted over the past century, but Eol was written as creepy and controlling. One part that modern audiences are less likely to care about than medieval audiences is that Eol does not seek nor obtain the permission of her family.
 
I think that the "not wholly unwilling" could be interpreted as something similar to the Stockholm syndrome. In fact, the conditions normally associated with the syndrome are usually harsher, including physical abuse. As long as Eöl is in control, which is pretty much from the start and until Aredhel runs away, he has no reason to act unpleasant in every way. It's not like he's repulsive. He can be interesting and impressive, and probably charming, too, in his own way. Even if he stops her from running away a couple of times, and even punishes her, it will be a perfect set up for the Stockholm syndrome. It will be natural for Aredhel to develop feelings for him, to become attracted to him. It's a kind of survival reaction, I guess.
 
It's also the worst thing in the book. Worse than Maedhros hanging by his wrist (worse than the moment where they realize they need to cut his hand off). Worse than the Narn (worse than the moment Morwen jumps).

The reaction of the other Elves.... "Well, you oughtn't to have done what you did, but since you did, I guess you own her forever. Certainly nobody else would ever have anything to do with her, even if she were extricated from the situation, as we all universally practice the virtue of uncompromising monogamy!"
 
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