Hi, Octoburn! Glad you are having the chance to dive into these scripts. We'll be discussing episodes 8 and 9 next live session.
As for the language, we're kind of 'finding a voice' this season. In seasons 1-3, there was very little attempt to turn the ideas for this show into actual dialogue (a scene here or there, but no actual scripts beyond the pilot). One goal is to 'seamlessly' make use of the dialogue in the published Silmarillion - so, a somewhat archaic style is necessary, so that a line like, "If there lay no grievance between us, lord, still the kingship would rightly come to you, the eldest here of the house of Finwë, and not the least wise," does not sound completely jarring and out of place. We want to build a way of speaking for these characters around the handful of examples in the text.
In that example, Maedhros says "you," not "thee," most likely because this is a formal setting where he is acclaiming a king, not talking privately with his father's half-brother in a friendly setting. He is attempting a reconciliation that is not yet accomplished. But obviously our show has to have a lot of private moments between people who are close family members....so....the thee/thou thing is gonna come up in some capacity.
I would not say we are wed to doing this exactly this way - we're trying it out, trying to give these characters voices, and trying to make them sound like themselves. But, this is more a 'first pass' than a set decision on how to do that, so we're certainly open to suggestions of how to make these people talk. We may be able to err on the side of more 'intimate' moments having thee/thou, while most of the public dialogue stays formal enough to avoid that.
I am eager to hear suggestions on how to handle this question, and started a thread on it here:
https://forums.signumuniversity.org...rn-turns-of-phrase-and-archaic-language.3549/
I realize that on some level, it is personal taste...but if it's jarring, it's probably not quite working as-is, and there's probably a better way to handle things. I know it will take some getting used to, and for some people, reading 'The Sun Doth Still Shine' doesn't sound significantly different from 'The Sun Still Shines'. I'm not sure what a middle ground would be...perhaps 'The Sun Yet Shines'? But then you'd probably have to consider 'Shineth'.
As for the language, we're kind of 'finding a voice' this season. In seasons 1-3, there was very little attempt to turn the ideas for this show into actual dialogue (a scene here or there, but no actual scripts beyond the pilot). One goal is to 'seamlessly' make use of the dialogue in the published Silmarillion - so, a somewhat archaic style is necessary, so that a line like, "If there lay no grievance between us, lord, still the kingship would rightly come to you, the eldest here of the house of Finwë, and not the least wise," does not sound completely jarring and out of place. We want to build a way of speaking for these characters around the handful of examples in the text.
In that example, Maedhros says "you," not "thee," most likely because this is a formal setting where he is acclaiming a king, not talking privately with his father's half-brother in a friendly setting. He is attempting a reconciliation that is not yet accomplished. But obviously our show has to have a lot of private moments between people who are close family members....so....the thee/thou thing is gonna come up in some capacity.
I would not say we are wed to doing this exactly this way - we're trying it out, trying to give these characters voices, and trying to make them sound like themselves. But, this is more a 'first pass' than a set decision on how to do that, so we're certainly open to suggestions of how to make these people talk. We may be able to err on the side of more 'intimate' moments having thee/thou, while most of the public dialogue stays formal enough to avoid that.
I am eager to hear suggestions on how to handle this question, and started a thread on it here:
https://forums.signumuniversity.org...rn-turns-of-phrase-and-archaic-language.3549/
I realize that on some level, it is personal taste...but if it's jarring, it's probably not quite working as-is, and there's probably a better way to handle things. I know it will take some getting used to, and for some people, reading 'The Sun Doth Still Shine' doesn't sound significantly different from 'The Sun Still Shines'. I'm not sure what a middle ground would be...perhaps 'The Sun Yet Shines'? But then you'd probably have to consider 'Shineth'.