If we use accents to depict the Shibboleth, I think it would be alright to have the characters actually have discussions about how they talk. We could include discussion that leads up to Feanor's line, "Take no heed! We speak as is right, and as King Finwe himself did before he was led astray. We are his heirs by right and the elder house. Let them sa-si, if they can speak no better," and also perhaps a conversation between Galadriel and Finrod about whether to use þ or s.
Ah. No, I do not think we ought to do this. There has been no decision to incorporate 'the Shibboleth of Feanor' into this adaptation. We are willing to make nods to it, but are not adopting it as-is. Corey Olsen has been very clear that he is
not interested in Tolkien's later writings being incorporated in their entirety into this project, and will consider bits and pieces on a case-by-case basis only. For instance, we are not going to have an entire episode where Finrod and Andreth sit down and have a full-on philosophical debate for an hour like they do in the
Athrabeth. Will we incorporate parts of it? Likely, yes, but
certainly not all of it. The part where Andreth fortells Eru's incarnation, for instance, is not going to be happening. The
amdir vs
estel discussion has been moved elsewhere (as you know). What we are
definitely including is the romance between young Andreth and Aegnor. Finrod's visit to middle-aged Andreth is a Season 5 question that has not yet been resolved. I imagine there will be a strong desire to make it happen, but right now, there is still a question mark on that, let alone what the content of the visit would be if it does happen. I imagine that, if it is included, one way to handle it would be to have two 4 minute scenes, in which the first is a general discussion of elven-vs-human fate, and the second is a more personal question about Andreth and Aegnor's decisions regarding their mutual love for one another. But we shall see.
On to the Shibboleth of Fëanor!
So, for instance, Amrod did die in the shipburning, because that helped us tell that story in a dramatic way. There were two main reasons to use that version - one, is that the shipburning comes across as much more visceral in the text than the kinslaying, which is relayed in more remote terms - but on screen, the shipburning will almost seem a footnote once we have depicted a massacre. So, to keep the horror fully present to the viewers, we've used Amrod's death and the reaction of Círdan to emphasize what a terrible act that was. And secondly, it is going to be a tough sell to the audience that the Oath of Fëanor is binding. It is going to become obvious to everyone who is not a son of Fëanor (and even some who are) that the
only valid moral course of action would be to break the Oath and give it up (once elves hold the silmarils rather than Morgoth). And yet we are going to depict the Sons of Fëanor stubbornly sticking to it through three more kinslayings, well past the point at which the audience is going to be shouting, 'Just give it up already!' at them. Part of the issue here is that 'giving your word' is more important in some cultures than others. And in modern Western culture....I would say that there is a rather cavalier attitude taken towards breaking promises. It's kind of a shrug, like, yeah, that happens. [Compare this to the worldview depicted in
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for contrast.] So, we need to overcome that cultural impulse to make an audience buy into this aspect of the story - and to do that, we are making it very clear that
according to the Fëanorean viewpoint, Amrod's death in the shipburning was a direct result of his attempt to break the Oath. It doesn't mean that that's really what happened - but they think it is. So, their tendency to consider the Oath 'unbreakable' makes more sense after that. [In
Harry Potter, if you break an Unbreakable Vow, you die. If you break the Oath of Fëanor, you get cast out into the Everlasting Darkness - ie, the Void. Same idea - we needed to show the audience what that meant by getting them to talk about this, though.] Once the decision is made to have Amrod burned alive with the ships, then it is easy enough to use Amras' line about how fell and fey Fëanor has become.
In a similar way, we knew we wanted to have Fëanor request a strand of Galadriel's hair (because of Gimli doing the same in LotR), but we did
not use the full scene as written by Tolkien in the 'Shibboleth.' In our version, he asks her once, and she turns him down, but it's not nearly as big a deal. There are not three separate requests from him. We did not want to go full 'creepy uncle' vibe with Fëanor in that scene, and if he persisted, it would have looked like he was trying to lure her down into the basement or something. Fëanor is many things, including a killer, but he's not
that kind of predator. So, here, we have a 'nod' to the story in the Shibboleth, but we did not adopt it wholecloth - for a reason. We still get the seed of Galadriel's dislike for Fëanor, and we do have him requesting a strand of her hair when she is a child - and her turning him down. But we did not use the scene Tolkien wrote in the Shibboleth.
When it comes to the way the Fëanoreans speak, I am willing to consider giving them a slight variation that would be different from the other Noldor. Would I include Finrod in this? WElll....probably not. It will seem out of place if it's 'the Sons of Fëanor
and the Sons of Finarfin,' but not Galadriel and not anyone else in their host. And, as Nick points out, the idea that siblings who are raised together and have lived together their entire lives would speak with different accents is just...weird. It's going to sound off. Typically, a character's accent speaks to their origin and who they generally spoke with growing up. Not their parents - their peers. So, having same-generation characters who all grew up together and interacted throughout their childhoods 'talking different' is not going to seem natural. And considering everything else that is going on in Season 2, we
do not have the screentime to explain any of this!
I do not see any way to bring Fëanor's line into conversation in a natural way. I can certainly imagine him speaking scornfully of his family, but to use that line, we'd have to give the entire background here, and we will not do so. We do have Fëanor's conflict with Rúmil depicted as a minor sidebar in Season 2, so we can show the invention of the Tengwar - though Rúmil and Fëanor would likely be in agreement on this
þ -->
s point. But the characters are speaking English on screen, not Quenya, so the
sa-si thing won't make sense. And, more importantly, we're just calling her 'Míriel' -the name 'þerindë/Serindë' isn't even part of this project! (Nor are all the other variations on names in the House of Finwë as depicted in the 'Shibboleth') Everyone gets one name and one name only
unless there is an important thematic reason for changing it, such as Elwë --> Thingol, Melkor --> Morgoth, Mairon --> Sauron, Lúthien --> Tinúviel. Certainly Túrin will most likely be allowed to keep introducing himself however he likes. Renaming our entire elven cast in Beleriand seemed...a bit much...so we've simply used their Sindarin names all along (as is the case in the published
Silmarillion). So, we will depict Míriel doing needlepoint on screen, but we are unlikely to call her 'Serindë' or 'Broidress' at any point.
Finrod is introduced as a character in Season 3 (so, post-Darkening). There's not likely to be much opportunity for him and Galadriel to discuss
þ vs
s, though they
do have discussions about their opinion on Fëanor. And that's the point. Given the choice, I'd rather have them talk about what they think of Fëanor, than use a very convoluted round-about way of explaining her dislike of Fëanor via an explanation of why she and her brother speak differently - it's not that he has a lisp, it's that he's doing it deliberately? Because of...technical language preferences? Which she would already know about and not have to have explained to her? So she's bringing this up now...why? No. That is not a conversation I want us to write. In other words - if we're incorporating something from all of this, it's Galadriel's clear dislike for Fëanor,
not the actual shibboleth.
When I suggested a 'nod' to the shibboleth, I meant just that - a subtle hint that could be incorporated without requiring any explanation at all. I did not mean actually using the shibboleth fully deployed in this adaptation. Nor am I comfortable with having characters discuss grammar in their dialogue. And, I remain wholly skeptical that it's a good plan to give major characters an affected lisp if the goal isn't to make them sound ridiculous. I think we conveyed Fëanor's opinion towards his step-family quite clearly in Season 2. We did not need the shibboleth to make that point, and so we need not use it.