Script Discussion: S06E02

[Odola]

Depends on how many miles we think he could do, without fighting orcs or spiders a tough hiker can do up to 25-35 miles a day, other far less fit people might only do 9, might equal fighting spiders and beasts for a tougher person.

I think in the books he was only dressed in his wild hair and animal skins if i remember correctly... he certainly smells, is unshaved and does not look very appealing or trustworthy to a cicivilized person.

After climbing montains in winter and fighting with spiders and monster that must be mostly gone or he has replaced with some raw monster or giant-spider hides. Very stylish for sure.

Note for EP 2: Beren should get new set of hardy clothes from a storage hole at a hiding place if he has to have any chance at all at not arriving in front of Luthien (bad) and Thingol (far far worse) in an immodest state. Might be a birthsday present form Barahir or something before Beren leaves on his lonely mission.

 

[Haerangil]

Oh, i don't see why Luthien,the nice person she is, would't provide him with some clothes she borrows and possibly an opportunity to wash himself and get a nice shave.

 

[Odola]

Oh, i don't see why Luthien,the nice person she is, would't provide him with some clothes she borrows and possibly an opportunity to wash himself and get a nice shave.

So you not like the idea of Beren having a small camp fire birthday just before he leaves never to see his band alive again? With some half-brewed beer and old Barahir getting all teary and "I wish you a family and love"-like, and giving him some last pieces of clothing they have still in storage somewhere...? What a pity.

 

[Haerangil]

In the books that seems to be a quite long span of time...
He leaves Dorthonion in winter, has adventures he never talks about and enters Doriath in summer.. 3-5 months!
The exact words are he was stumbling, so obviously was in very bad condition. Luthien flees him twice at last, when they meet again it is again spring and it seems she comes looking for him and possibly caring for his bad condition. That is 13 months at last !

Of course we compress that time! For sure...

 

[Haerangil]

So you not like the idea of Beren having a small camp fire birthday just before he leaves never to see his band alive again? With some half-brewed beer and old Barahir getting all teary and "I wish you a family and love"-like, and giving him some last pieces of clothing they have still in storage somewhere...? What a pity.

I would have liked that for him ☺

But he leaves Dorthonion after his band is already dead, his father slain and he has slain his fathers killer so i doubt if he had any nice presents , not much of it would have been left by then.

 

[Odola]

I would have liked that for him ☺

But he leaves Dorthonion after his band is already dead, his father slain and he has slain his fathers killer so i doubt if he had any nice presents , not much of it would have been left by then.

I meant before Beren leaves the band for that mission just before returning to find them all dead. In our version of the story Beren leaves Dorthonion while the graves are still fresh. As such the clothes would be only through the mission itself and through the revenge before the Ered Gorgoroth expedition. Relatively new still. (Actually Barahir might have tailored them himself for his son's birthday from hides, as Beren himself does not hunt).

 

[Haerangil]

It makes much sense he would go on such a trip well prepaired, or at last as best as he possibly can under the dire circumstances.i believe the rebels/terrorist cell would have secret hidden storage places where they have stuff. So he has a backpack, weapons, rations, equipment, the best clothes he can get, he also needs them direly if it is winter.

But when we meet him again theres most likely nothing of that left anymore, maybe some rags.

 

[Kathrin]

Well I guess it does depend on how literal we take the cliff description. I have hiked hikes where you could just jump down 500 or thousand meters from the path at many points, but there is still a path. If we call that a cliff, then its just an very hard journey up, depending on the season maybe especially, but if we interpret it as a literal, smoothed cliff with no nooks or any, kind of, rock structure you could navigate along of, then yeah, that complicates things. But I would argue that the wording in the Silm can easily go both ways, and i'd also argue that the more extreme interpretation would just look weird. The mountains should look supernaturally antagonistic, but they should still look like mountains. And yeah, Beren should be reasonably prepared, but it should be extremely taxing.

Also WHAT is it with Tolkien always having his heroes set out mountaineering in winter. (especially in Fotr, where they wait a month for December lol)

I also am pro Beren arriving in visually terrible shape xD. I feel like his meeting with Luthien is an event of extreme contrasts and that visualises it very clearly.

 

[Odola]

Also WHAT is it with Tolkien always having his heroes set out mountaineering in winter. (especially in Fotr, where they wait a month for December lol)

Yepp, hear you.

I also am pro Beren arriving in visually terrible shape xD. I feel like his meeting with Luthien is an event of extreme contrasts and that visualises it very clearly.

The Silmarillion says : "It is told in the Lay of Leithian that Beren came stumbling into Doriath grey
and bowed as with many years of woe, so great had been the torment of the road."

So he should also seem much older than he really is and than he looked before the start of the journey - in addition to his general shabbiness.

 

[Haerangil]

Sounds like he was really more than half dead. Even fleeing from him Luthiens magic must have had some rejuvenating effect on him...
Plus he survives as the wild man in the woods without the elves ever taking real notice or trying to catch him from the beginning. I actually wonder if Melian might have had some hand in that...

 

[Kathrin]

a little bit of a theoden effect happening there maybe as well, i mean stumbling through the (ex?)-lair of ungoliant, i can see that

 

[Haerangil]

I can see some parallel...

 

[MithLuin]

Here is the link for the Script Outline that we will be developing during the script discussion this evening.

Script Outline - Season 6 Episode 2

 

[Odola]

Here is the link for the Script Outline that we will be developing during the script discussion this evening.

Script Outline - Season 6 Episode 2

So I have just listened to the parts of the stream I could find on Twitch but might have missed something. I agree that cutting Rivil's Well makes sense in this version of the story, and as Tarn Aeluin is a very similar location - also a pure hallowed lake - and hallowed previously by Melian herself while she was wandering there, why not just stay there and not go to some random woodland location Beren would have to return from first?

And make the revenge a chase around Tarn Aeluin itself (there is place enough, the lake has some size.) Maybe Beren manages to kill all orcs around it in his rage "cleaning" the lake's shore, then he buries his comrades and father, then addresses his father's grave like "you were right, I will leave", then goes to the lake to clean himself and seems in the mirror some vague distant magical reflection of Melian and hears her nightingales for a moment then the sound gets intterupted by orc trumpets from afar, he runs up a hill an seems a group of orcs coming, climbs up higher and higher untill we see him at a mountain peak watching Dorthonion defiled from above and then turning South to see Doriath in the distance with the same soothing magical glow he just saw in his vision in the lake? Seems more economical than letitng him go somewhere random for the revenge first.

 

[MithLuin]

As we show Beren arriving too late in Episode 2, we will see that when he returns to the camp...the orcs are gone. He does not have to fight his way into the camp. He can enter as cautiously or as recklessly as the director requests, because the enemy is gone.

So, he will have to go out to find the orcs, and he will return later. It is certainly possible to show Beren fighting orcs at Tarn Aeluin after he has made his decision to leave Dorthonion, but that will likely not be the location of where he confronts and kills Gorgol.

 

[Odola]

As we show Beren arriving too late in Episode 2, we will see that when he returns to the camp...the orcs are gone. He does not have to fight his way into the camp. He can enter as cautiously or as recklessly as the director requests, because the enemy is gone. .

No, no the camp is empty when Beren returns. What I meant for Gorgol and his team being simply in the woods on another side of the lake itself (maybe randomly destroying trees there or drinking Beren's band's beer, eating their supplies and celebrating - instead on another side of Dorthonion (Rivil's Well). This way they have invaded the semi-sacred refuge at the shore of the hallowed lake defiling and desecrating Beren's last safe space that he holds dear.

This also would save us the sight of orcs carrying Barahir's hand and Beren carrying it back in his backpack through half of Dorthonion.

 

[MithLuin]

Oh, and for anyone who was listening to my frustrated ranting about the bridges as indicated on the Map of Beleriand, here's the issue:



Arossiach = "Ford of Aros" in Sindarin, so that is definitely meant to be a ford, not a bridge.
Brithiach = "Ford of Gravel" in Sindarin, downstream of the Dry River, the last safe river crossing of Sirion before the bridge in Doriath.

Likewise, Iant Iaur means "Old Bridge", so that definitely indicates...a bridge. As you can see, all three are indicated on the map by a 'break' in the river, despite two being fords and one being a bridge.

So, the road south of Tol Sirion crosses the (unnamed?) second tributary of the River Sirion. Is it a ford? Is it a bridge? The map does not show a break, but that does not tell us much.

We have decided that it is a stone bridge, built by Finrod for ease of travel between Nargothrond and Tol Sirion. It will be destroyed in this episode, so going forward, that crossing will be a ford, not a bridge.

 

[MithLuin]

There are three straightforward ways to exit Dorthonion:

The Pass of Anach in the southwest, the course of the river Rivil leading to the Fens of Serech in the northwest, and the land of Ladros in the northeast.
(Marked in green below)


Similarly, there are what could be called 'smugglers pass' options (yellow). In the southeast, the mountains that lead to Dor Dínen are not impassable. In fact, we have shown an army of orcs to have crossed them during the Dagor Bragollach. After Ladros was overrun by Glaurung, the orcs passed through Dorthonion and over the mountains, coming around to the Pass of Aglon from behind as a surprise pincher movement.

It's true that Dorthonion also has some forbiddingly tall mountains around it, though they are not impassable so much as...seldom passed . The mountains around Gondolin are very tall and forbidding, but this does not stop Maeglin from going out at times. I don't recall any part of the story mentioning someone crossing the mountains to the east of Dorthonion; that is (apparently) a fairly desolate place. And, we know that Ered Gorgoroth has steep sides on the southern face, so while it may be possible to climb up into them from the north, climbing down to the south is trickier.



We do have some decisions to make about particular locations in our story. We know that the fortress of Angrod and Aegnor is in the west of Dorthonion, somewhere north of the Pass of Anach. I have been picturing it roughly around the tall mountain above the word 'NU' in Taur-Nu-Fuin. In Season 6, this is now a haunted land of ghosts.

In Episode 2, Beren and Gorlim set out from Tarn Aeluin, and Gorlim goes to Ladros while Beren goes...elsewhere...to try to find people in hiding. Where does he go? He is going to enter a cave and wind up sleeping beside a lake at some point, so any suggestions as to where on the map that ought to be?

In Episode 3, Beren will begin at Tarn Aeluin, and then have to hunt down the orcs who killed the outlaws. In the book, that happens at Rivil's Well (the source of the river Rivil - a mountain spring). Where would we like the death of Gorgol to occur?

Beren will enter the Ered Gorgoroth somewhere under the name 'Dorthonion' on the map. The details aren't super important, but he must be between the rivers, so there is no easy way to get out of Nan Dungortheb...except to go through.

 

[Odola]

We do have some decisions to make about particular locations in our story.

Finally!

In Episode 2, Beren and Gorlim set out from Tarn Aeluin, and Gorlim goes to Ladros while Beren goes...elsewhere...to try to find people in hiding. Where does he go? He is going to enter a cave and wind up sleeping beside a lake at some point, so any suggestions as to where on the map that ought to be?

In Episode 3, Beren will begin at Tarn Aeluin, and then have to hunt down the orcs who killed the outlaws. In the book, that happens at Rivil's Well (the source of the river Rivil - a mountain spring). Where would we like the death of Gorgol to occur?

Here my propositions - if the land is already overrun, then it cannot be too far imho.

I would like to keep the revenge site not too far from the camp site to make sure Tar Aeluin is now a "desecrated" and exposed location - no longer a secret hallowed safe heaven to return to. I think is serves the emotional dynamic to make Beren leave immediately. And we do not show much of Beren's road tacking them and back again anyway because of time so it does not matter if it isn't that far - just enought distance to show some tracking and then epic fight scenes killing Gorlim and then chasing and hunting the rest of the orcs around the lake until he comes back at the camp site and can bury his father complete with severad hand included in one go, and so we do not need an akward anticlimatic after-burial of it.

Beren will enter the Ered Gorgoroth somewhere under the name 'Dorthonion' on the map. The details aren't super important, but he must be between the rivers, so there is no easy way to get out of Nan Dungortheb...except to go through.

O.k.
My idea was to let him head for Pass of Aglon originally and then have a "change of heart" at the mountain top and then clearly and visibly change directions at the sight of Doriath from afar. (blue line)

Your idea imho only makes sense if his original destination was Pass of Anach but he encountered orcs halfway through and was forced to turn South immediately (pink line and star sign at the "confrontation site"):

 

[Haerangil]

IMHO it seems likely that Beren tried to get the smugglers pass above Dor Dinen but by mistake got too close to nan dungortheb and so got entangled... most likely he didn't intentionally enter that valley..