Script Discussion S04E13 Finale!

I think it might be okay to use the term 'herald' here - this might be an opportunity to show that a herald could be male or female.

We were going to try to show that heralds were more typically healers not fighters, though. So, they're high-ranking in this society and play a pivotal role in the military, but...not exactly the kind of person you'd want at your back in a skirmish.

So, knowing that, would you prefer that this person be a lieutenant (ie, military rank for a skilled combatant) rather than a herald (support role that is high in the command structure, but not a skilled fighter)?
In that case, they should be lieutenants. Also, I think Edhellos should be lieutenant of Angrod, since she doesn't do any healing.
 
No, I don't mean that their role in the army is medical; it's not.

I mean that, if people train for fighting *or* train for healing, heralds are the latter.

Remember how Finrod and Edhellos had a conversation in Episode 4 about how she had 'stepped into' her role in her husband's army, and how Finrod seemed a bit surprised by that? That's what we want the herald to be - someone who is a bit of an outsider to the fighting, but still important in decision-making. They hold a high enough rank that they aren't expected to do much actual fighting, though they can take part in fights/battles.

In the current US Marine Corps, lieutenants are officers fresh out of school, so they don't have much practical experience yet, and they're commanding enlisted men who do have more experience and training when it comes to fighting. What they bring to the table is meant to be a bit more of the tactical side of things and formal training rather than the practical side of things. That's what their sergeant is for; someone older and more experienced than the lieutenant, but lower ranking and not an officer. (If you want to be cynical about this, it's the sergeant's job to make sure the lieutenant doesn't get anyone killed due to his own lack of experience.)

We're going for a rather different dynamic here, but we still want that duality of each person bringing a different skill set to the table, and for the elven culture to not 100% value skill at armed combat above all other skills.

Elrond is a healer, and Elrond is the herald of Gil-galad. We know that Elrond commanded the army that confronted Sauron in Eregion; Gil-galad wasn't even there. So, it's not like Elrond doesn't fight. But he did recognize it was a losing battle and went ahead and founded Rivendell instead. So, you know, that's the kind of outside-the-box thinking that you'd expect from a herald ;)

(Also, as an aside, we're going to use the word 'lieutenant' at some point in this story, so there's nothing wrong with introducing it here.)
 
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I can't believe that JRRT used the title lieutenant with such a low officer in mind...

The lieutenant historically originally was the left hand or proxy of a higher officer, but royal-lieutenant for example referred to the general-in-chief...

Gothmog is called the "lieutenant of morgul", which sounds much like a ceremonial position, the mouth of sauron is sauron's lieutenant or the lieutenant-of-the-tower, Sauron was Morgoth' s lieutenant. I BELIEVE lieutenant of Morgul or lieutenant of barad-dur can be understood in sense of governor, proconsul, steward or even vice-regent.

Herald was historically a liege-lords official ambassador and diplomat, among the elves however i also have the impression that herald-of the high king was something of a ceremonial title for a commander-in-chief or a similar high office.Or maybe Elond was Gil-galads contact-man towards the Numenoreans, his heritage could speak for it..therefore his Herald.
 
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Btw i like to check jrrts elvish wordlists for vocabulary to find out how he does connect terms and meaning, i found Quenya, "Cáno" ,"Chieftain", "Lord", "Governor", "Cryer", "Herald","Commander"...

So if Elrond was gil-galads "Cano" i think he was a high commanding officer who actually led troops into battle, no mere ambassador or banner-bearer.
 
I can't believe that JRRT used the title lieutenant with such a low officer in mind...

The lieutenant historically originally was the left hand or proxy of a higher officer, but royal-lieutenant for example referred to the general-in-chief...

Gothmog is called the "lieutenant of morgul", which sounds much like a ceremonial position, the mouth os sauron is sauron's lieutenant or the lieutenant-of-the-tower, Sauron was Morgoth' s lieutenant. I BELIEVE lieutenant of Morgul or lieutenant of barad-dur can be understood in sense of governor, proconsul, steward or even vice-regent.

Herald was historically a liege-lords official ambassador and diplomat, among the elves however i also have the impression that herald-of the high king was something of a ceremonial title for a commander-in-chief or a similar high office.Or maybe Elond was Gil-galads contact-man towards the Numenoreans, his heritage could speak for it..therefore his Herald.
Gothmog’s also called the High-Captain of Angband.
 
Yeah, i guess that makes him captain-general or commander-in-chief. So maybe the two, high-captain and lieutenant of Angband coexisted on a similar level of rank as Morgoth's two highest offices.
 
Yeah, i guess that makes him captain-general or commander-in-chief. So maybe the two, high-captain and lieutenant of Angband coexisted on a similar level of rank as Morgoth's two highest offices.
I’d say that Lieutenant could be slightly lower on the totem pole, since there’s Gothmog, Lieutenant of Morgul, who is the Witch-King’s second-in-command at the Pelennor Fields, and takes command when The Witch-King is killed. I think of Boldog’s position as equivalent to the Third Age Gothmog.
 
I would argue that when Tolkien is using the term "lieutenant", he is using it more in an informal context rather than as an actual rank. In that context, a lieutenant is more like the executive officer of whomever they are a lieutenant .
 
Well the witch-king was his high-captain so maybe, yes... if Sauron imitated Morgoth's command structure then the lieutenant would be lower...
 
Does anyone have any suggestions for the name of Fingon's lieutenant who dies in this episode? I'd like to mention that she appears in Episodes 9 and 10.
 
I haven't had a chance to sit down with it like I did E12 (being old and having needed sleep and having not yet completed the tasks of the day today), but I was a bit confused about why Fingon's horse has to jump a wall of flame rather than just run in the opposite direction.
 
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