Men (as in humans)

Also important to keep in mind that we will get casting directions in later seasons (such as season 4 when we introduce Men) that will provide some guidance. I would expect our Men to be more varied in appearance than our Elves, so varied how and in what way and who gets what traits will all be sorted out then. Hard to assign roles before getting those directions.
 
i think the marachians have a more northern and middle-european appearance and the beorians and halethrim look a bit more mediterranean... though all three tribes mixed ,especially hadorians and beorians... so i guess there wasn't that much of a difference... the halethrim seem to have tended more towards staying among themselves though..

but i'm not sure about the easterlings.their descendants lived in northern eriador and around the sea of rhun so i guess they didn't look like hunns or mongols as many people seem to think.they probably weren't that different in appearance from the edain (it's never mentioned explicitly but some remains of the borians and the mixed hadorian-uldorian populance of hithlum may have contributed to the populance of numenor)
 
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Haerangil said:
but i'm not sure about the easterlings.their descendants lived in northern eriador and around the sea of rhun so i guess they didn't look like hunns or mongols as many people seem to think.they probably weren't that different in appearance from the edain
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Yeah...maybe we should have started a thread in the costumes section before I started this one...

I'm not sure if we're helped thinking East or West in Earth terms when considering Easterlings and their appearance. Some later become the Lossoth, whom we could give a look inspired by the Inuit. Maybe the Sami people could be another inspiration.

But I don't think we should rule out Huns or Mongols as inspiration. I feel a need to voice a resistance against giving them some sort of generic Asian look. It turns out it doesn't have to be that way. Let's look at what we know about their appearance. Take Genghis Khan. Now, what did he look like? There doesn't seem to be a contemporary description, but I found that the 14th century Persian historian Rashid al-Din describes Genghis as 'tall with red hair and green eyes'. Al-Din was apparently writing after the Khan's death. My source says: 'But he was writing while in the court of his descendants in the Ilkhanate. And apparently both the red hair and the green eyes were family traits that a fair number of his grandchildren had.' (I haven't read al-Din myself.)
Attila the Hun, the Emperor of the Huns from 434-453, is described (in a different source) as: "Short of stature, with a broad chest and a large head; his eyes were small, his beard thin and sprinkled with grey; and he had a flat nose and tanned skin, showing evidence of his origin".
So by these two examples alone, we can see that we have the freedom to give the Easterlings a very wide range of varied appearances.
 
i"m not sure if the lossoth are similar to the inuit... they are never really described but i think the sami might be closer.

i would be okay to make the easterlings of later ages more like mongols or hunns but as i said i'm not sure about the first age easterlings.

they are described as mostly a bit smaller and less tall -but so are the halethrim.

they are also described as either swarthy or sallow (sometimes the borians and uldorians are distinguished from each other by this)

but again also the halethrim and beorians are said to be more swarthy in appearance.

i think they probably were not that different from the halethrim...
 
With plenty of mixing and exceptions, I confess I have largely fallen into the pattern of imagining the Edain as the largely Celtic or Mediterranean peoples who populated Western Europe around the time of Julius Caesar, with the Easterlings looking more like the Germanic peoples who migrated into Europe throughout the history of the Roman Empire. That may not be what Tolkien was thinking, but given his interest in the Germanic peoples and languages, I don't think it's unforgivable.

That being said, the differences I would like to emphasize would be more of costuming, beard and hair norms, and culture, rather than skin or "ethnic" features. The Germans, as much as for anything else, were weird to the clean-cut Romans for their full beards and wild hair (at least Tacitus felt so). Having the Easterlings look like they could pass as Edain, if they cut their hair and changed clothes, but having their culture be more tribal/strong-man chieftain based, more migratory, etc, might very well help us avoid a lot of the criticism I've seen of works like GoT, and their non-white "savages".
 
Yes the cultural expressions are really important.
It looks like we more or less agree - the variations in appearance among the Edain should be greater than between them and the Easterlings. The same goes for the Easterlings.
 
[QUOTE="That being said, the differences I would like to emphasize would be more of costuming, beard and hair norms, and culture, rather than skin or "ethnic" features. The Germans, as much as for anything else, were weird to the clean-cut Romans for their full beards and wild hair (at least Tacitus felt so). Having the Easterlings look like they could pass as Edain, if they cut their hair and changed clothes, but having their culture be more tribal/strong-man chieftain based, more migratory, etc, might very well help us avoid a lot of the criticism I've seen of works like GoT, and their non-white "savages".[/QUOTE]

Agree with this. The diffrences should be mainly cultural. As for the Easterlings, inspiration from Scythians, Sarmatae and Alani might also be used. The Alani had no problem cooperating with the Germanic Vandals.
 
Yes -- and the political situation of the Easterlings should be complicated. Sometimes on the side of the Eldar/Edain, sometimes on Morgoth's. Sometimes some on one side and some on the other. Much like the Germanic peoples in the first few centuries C.E and their relationships with and against Rome.

We might also consider making them more openly religious (originally typed "spiritual", but that's a problematic word) than the Edain. Worship of spirits of the earth, that could be co-opted into Morgoth-worship, perhaps?
 
Haakon said:
Yes the cultural expressions are really important.
It looks like we more or less agree - the variations in appearance among the Edain should be greater than between them and the Easterlings. The same goes for the Easterlings.
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Could take some of the costume ideas from Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian, particularly from the Riders of Doom scene.
conan-the-barbarian.jpg
 
I'm not sure; aren't those outfits a bit too modern? Also, that reminds me of The Holy Grail actually.
 
My problem with the Conan inspiration is the obvious presence of steel. True steel should be late and rare, I think, except for the best of swords.

This (heavily romanticized) depiction of a Gallic leader, Vercengetorix, could be used, as well, for a pre-Eldar influenced human, either Edain or Easterling. upload_2017-4-19_16-7-30.jpeg
 
Marielle said:
My problem with the Conan inspiration is the obvious presence of steel. True steel should be late and rare, I think, except for the best of swords.

This (heavily romanticized) depiction of a Gallic leader, Vercengetorix, could be used, as well, for a pre-Eldar influenced human, either Edain or Easterling. View attachment 1091
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I do agree that pre-elven-contact men should be in a late stone/early bronze age state. However, I find it rather implausible that elves (or Morgoth on the flip side) would have no influence on human craftsmanship.
 
i'd even go so far to look into the stone and bronze age for inspiration...

when the edain first arrive they should have a rather primitive tribal feel about them, then those who live near the elfar then would start to adapt or imitate elvish clothing and become more similar to the elven culture they try to adapt to..

same for the easterlings, they should be rather primitive at first but then adapt to a more noldor and later angbandian style.

i'd leave too much religious speculation out as the refugees from hildorien seem not to like to talk abouttheir past.
 
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another thing would be climate... i think any people living in hithlum, would wear warm clothes and lots of fur... be they elves,edain or easterlings... i don't know for those living in dorthonion, near anfauglith, the coastal lands or the inland forests and plains..

any ideas for the climate of these lands? i think they might be lush but rather middle-european than mediterranean.
 
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