Managing Character Deaths

Dying of broken hearts is more of an elvish thing. There is little reason for Andreth to die of a broken heart as an old woman over the death of her sweetheart who ditched her when she was a teen. I'm sure she was sad to hear about it. But...they weren't even together.
Her death is reported in 455 FA, which happens to be the same year that Aegnor died in the Dagor Bragollach. Coincidence?
 
I think I agree with Ange here. An old woman dying of a broken heart over a love that never was fulfilled. That’s pretty good stuff.
 
I suppose I am just heartless. I can see her crying when she gets the news, but....

A girl in my high school class died yesterday. She was a wonderful person, and obviously she died young. Complications from surgery left her in fragile health, and it seems she did not recover. Her former classmates were obviously sad to hear the news, but...most of us haven't exactly kept in touch since we graduated 20 years ago. It isn't exactly devastating to get such news. It's just...sad.

If I still lived locally, I would go to the funeral. But I wouldn't pretend that my loss was anything like her husband's or even her former students (she was a kindergarten teacher).

I can see an elderly person being lost when the love of their life dies. I knew a man with a weak heart who lived 3 years after his wife passed away. He talked about how difficult it was to live alone in the house he had shared with her for years, raising their kids. But he wasn't ready to die yet, either. He wanted to see his oldest granddaughter graduate from college first. And he did attend that graduation. I asked him if he wanted to go to her wedding or her younger sisters' graduations, and he was more noncommittal about those. It was just as well; he didn't live that long.

So, in summary, if the love of my life left me alone without explanation, I might grow bitter, but news of his death many many years later wouldn't break my heart.
 
Related - my grandfather died in 1993. My grandmother is still alive, never remarried, and still misses him every day (so do I, he was more like a 2nd dad), and she didn't do a Padme.
 
I'm not saying everyone dies when hearing of or experiencing a loved one's death. I'm saying it makes a good story element. If we are to show her death scene at all, this would be a good idea. I think we should consider it. An alternative would be to show her dying later on, maybe happy because she has some small hope of seeing him after her death (she would probably be wrong though?).
 
Hmm, maybe we could show her getting the news of his death, and later show her tombstone. We don't have to suggest *what* she died of...she could be sick. Maybe she would be buried next to him? And if anyone wanted to suggest 'Maybe they are together now in Mandos', we could have a character like Finrod quash that idea pretty fast. After all, the entire reason Luthien becomes mortal is because she and Beren *won't* be together in death.
 
Ah yes but I’m talking about the discussion between Finrod and Andreth. (Again, sorry for OT)
 
Related - my grandfather died in 1993. My grandmother is still alive, never remarried, and still misses him every day (so do I, he was more like a 2nd dad), and she didn't do a Padme.

So, my maternal grandfather was a bit of a ne'er-do-well. He was a drunk and a philanderer. He left my grandmother once (with a child), started a new family, she went and got him back and had three more kids with him before he left again. He died around 1985, about three years after I was born. My grandmother continued to speak of him in glowing terms about how handsome he was, and how he could build or fix anything until the day she died in 2013. It is clear that he broke her heart, and she did mourn his death, but it was her life after he passed that really defined her. I think that Andreth deserves to be a character in her own right whose existence does not hinge on "her man".
 
Ah yes but I’m talking about the discussion between Finrod and Andreth. (Again, sorry for OT)

Corey Olsen doesn't want to include that. He seems to be under the impression that philosophical discussions do not make for riveting television. We have to figure out how to let the mindsets in the Athrabeth pervade the rest of our telling of these stories.
 
Throw a line in here or there, or Finrod recounts the conversation to Beren when he comes to Nargothrond?
 
Well we could and I guess that’s what is going to happen. But I think it’s the wrong choice. We set out to make a series untrammelled by reality but chain ourselves to the ideal of a mainstream fantasy show.
 
I think that Finrod's visit to an elderly Andreth is the necessary coda to Aegnor and Andreth's love story. Aegnor won't visit her, obviously, but Finrod would, and we can make use of that. But...we probably don't want to include the messianic hope of an incarnate Eru in our telling of the story. Not just because it skirts dangerously close to an explicit (rather than implicit) inclusion of the Christian religion, but because we are never going to do anything with it. The birth of Jesus would be well after the 4th Age (obviously), so any messianic foretelling we're getting has to point to Earendil, not Christ.

So, without that piece, what can they say to one another? They can discuss the limited immortality of Elves, and how the fate of Men is a giant unknown ('beyond the circles of the world'). That would be on topic, and the audience would care about that because it answers some of their questions about what happens when an immortal elf dies, and how that is different from when humans die. They can talk about amdir and estel. And they can talk about why Aegnor did not marry Andreth, and why she still wishes he had.

The big question is how much we would want Andreth to say about the fall of Men? We again don't want it to sound too much like the Garden of Eden story, but we also have to at some point have someone say or in some way let the audience know that Morgoth and/or Sauron were out in the East corrupting the newborn Men and so Men are fundamentally different from Elves and fear death in a way that they should not have done.
 
Yes I agree that we would have to cut some of their discussion, and the parts that have a Christian touch would, as you point out, certainly be among the material that we would cut out. Regarding the other topics that you mention, I agree that they should talk about the limited immortality of Elves and of the unknown fate of Men, and most definitely about amdir and estel, as well as about Aegnor.
I do think that this conversation would be an excellent opportunity to touch in the fall of Men, and we shouldn't be afraid of the similarities between this story and the Garden of Eden story. There are of course parallels but also differences.
 
Yes, the intention is for Fingolfin's duel with Morgoth to be a Season Finale.

I don't think there is any need for a king to carry out his own executions. I realize that's a thing in Winterfell in Game of Thrones, but I see no reason for that to be the case in Gondolin.
Maybe this action blurs the line between justice and vengeance?
 
Not really. It's a just sentence for the crime committed (Eöl has murdered Aredhel while attempting to murder Maeglin.) What it shows is lack of mercy, not lack of justice.
 
Please don't ship Caranthir and Haleth. They aren't lovers, they aren't even friends. They're acquaintences who met once. And Caranthir is married.
 
Please don't ship Caranthir and Haleth. They aren't lovers, they aren't even friends. They're acquaintences who met once. And Caranthir is married.
Yes Caranthir was married, but this goes to the point of making characters to black and white. Caranthir does treat Haleth and the people of Haleth with great honour and kindness. Whilst there should be no romance, I think we should make a point of showing Caranthir treats Haleth as one of the Great people of Beleriand. If possible, I would like for Caranthir to use the same formality and ceremony used for a Noldor Princess when he meets her.
 
Idea regarding Aegnor and Andreth: Aegnor finds Andreth dying of old age as Ladros and Dorthonion are evacuated. He flies into a rage, slaying any Orc he can find until he finds a Balrog and they kill each other.

Good idea? Or am I just crazy?
 
Last edited:
Back
Top