Script Discussion S06E13

Generally speaking, you can keep a flock of up to 10 goats on a 1 acre farm. If you don't want goats to eat things, you can keep them penned (and provide feed), or you can leave them free range over a much wider area.

This is not a tiny island, though. Keep in mind that the distance between the mountains and the River Gelion is similar to the entire length of Dorthonion, and the island of Tol Galen (which means 'Green Island') is visible on the map. It's smaller than Ladros, sure, but not tiny by any stretch.
Dorthonion measures 60 leagues east to west (or 180 miles / 290 km). So Tol Galen could be as long as 50 miles!

Dorthonion:
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Tol Galen:
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These clips are taken from the same map, at the same scale.

So, yes, they can keep goats on Tol Galen.


By the by....
Here are the zoning laws related to keeping farm animals in Anne Arundel County, Maryland:
40,000 square feet is under 1 acre. 1 hectare = 2.5 acres. 1 hectare = 10,000 square meters.
So, this is saying that you can keep up to 25 goats on a 1 hectare farm lot. Or 80 chickens. No one is suggesting that Beren and Lúthien start a modern commercial farm, of course! But their island is MUCH bigger than a hectare. They can have a homestead while leaving most of the island wild and green. Even with goats (no pigs, though - not in Ossiriand).

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Generally speaking, you can keep a flock of up to 10 goats on a 1 acre farm. If you don't want goats to eat things, you can keep them penned (and provide feed), or you can leave them free range over a much wider area.

This is not a tiny island, though. Keep in mind that the distance between the mountains and the River Gelion is similar to the entire length of Dorthonion, and the island of Tol Galen (which means 'Green Island') is visible on the map. It's smaller than Ladros, sure, but not tiny by any stretch.
Dorthonion measures 60 leagues east to west (or 180 miles / 290 km). So Tol Galen could be as long as 50 miles!

Oh, then they need some "hands" to run such an estate (pun not intended), They have a baby the very next year - that means Luthien is pregnant for the most of their 1st year there already. She presumably cannot do any magic anymore and has lost most of her strenght, stamina and fine motor skills. And she has a husband not yet wholly comfortable with the loss of his hand (but I still do not understand how it comes Beren does not have it - he spend 3 years in Valinor - even if he was not reembodied with the hand, difficult to imagine thet Este and Irmo could not have healed him afterwards - there was plenty of time for that - what would be the purpose of keeping him without it? And I doubt they have physiotherapists to theach him how to compensate for it in Valinor - as they would simply restore the damage and not teach somebody to live with it...). So we should see some of the unnamed servants from Menegroth around them in Tol Galen.
 
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Title suggestions for this episode?

Most obvious title is "Leithian" = Release from Bondage

Other possibilities might be:
Unto the Ending of the World = "Tenn’ Ambar-metta"
Thus They Lost Her Whom They Most Loved
 
Okay, so the Ring goes to Emeldir and to Dor-Lómin, correct? Now how does it makes its way back to the House of Thingol and consequently to the Havens? Is it sent with Grinthir and Gethron with Túrin and kept in a vault until Dior accedes to the throne of Doriath?

Why "kept in a vault until Dior accedes to the throne" ? Why not just simply send to Beren who is still very much alive then for several decades ro come yet? Are there no messangers going between Tol Galen and Doriath? Beren does not speak to mortals, but he does communicate with elves.
 
That is a question for the Túrin season. For now, we are just establishing that the Ring of Barahir goes back to Doriath with young Túrin, so any choices we make about what to do with it in Dor-lómin have that end point in mind.
 
Title suggestions for this episode?

Most obvious title is "Leithian" = Release from Bondage

Other possibilities might be:
Unto the Ending of the World = "Tenn’ Ambar-metta"
Thus They Lost Her Whom They Most Loved
My original suggestion when I gave outlining this season a go while first listening was "The Dead That Live", but that may be too much of a giveaway.
 
Perhaps "Land of the Dead that Live" (Dor Firn-i-Guinar) could work...it doesn't sound like as much of a give away.
 
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Also, Bre has created a piece of artwork that is very similar to what I had in mind for the final shot of tapestries in this episode!

 
I am too traumatised yet by the awful "floating boat"- simily from RoP which also has such a delayed reveal of what has been said much later - that for the time being I get an allergic reaction to any such devices. But that is just me...
How do you prefer delayed reveals? Should the secret be revealed bit by bit or dropped on you like Arya being the Princess that was Promised, jumping out of a tree?

Julian Fellowes wrote a novel known as Belgravia, which was adapted into a miniseries in 2020. It's rather similar to Dickens, particularly Oliver Twist, in how secrets are revealed. In this case it's made abundantly clear that the Trenchard family is hiding something about their deceased daughter Sophia. At the end of the first episode, it's revealed that Sophia died giving birth to the son of a young Viscount killed at Waterloo. Anne admits the truth to the Viscount's mother and the rest of the story progresses from there as everyone tries to take advantage of what they know, or what they think they know.

This is what Ebert (or the current Ebert writers) said about Belgravia's structure.

Hitchcock knew that a bomb would be infinitely scarier if the audience were aware of its placement under a table where two oblivious characters were seated. Had the bomb simply gone off without warning, it would’ve produced a momentary jolt, but nothing more. The buried identity of Charles' birth parents is the ticking bomb reverberating beneath every scene in "Belgravia," and once it is unveiled toward the end of episode one, the suspense increases in every hour that follows, culminating with a finale that had me on the edge of the my seat.


Fellowes also wrote the screenplay for the Robert Altman film Gosford Park, which he won an Oscar for. Early in the film as the guests and their servants arrive at the titular mansion, one of them offhandedly mentions his name and two characters passing him turn their heads in surprise, as if they recognize that name.

Then I think about Die Hard where Hans' plan is delivered piecemeal to the audience.
  • First he and his men kill the guards, lock down the building, and take the partygoers hostage on the 30th floor.
  • As John escapes from the 30th floor, he seems more parts of the plan:
  • Theo (Hans' tech expert) and his assistant Kristoff are moving carts on the 31st floor
  • Heinrich, Uli, and Marco moving crates of missiles on the 35th, then they're seen handling wires and packets of explosive
  • Hans reveals that he's after $640 million in negotiable bearer bonds, which is why he takes Takagi aside to get the code. Takagi refuses to talk, so Hans kills him and tells Theo to start breaking into the vault.
  • Theo goes over the security measures for the vault and the time he needs to break through the safeguards on the vault: 30 minutes to break the code, up to 3 hours for the safeguards on the vault. And he can't break the electromagnetic seal on the vault because the circuits can't be cut. Hans assures Theo he has a plan.
  • John gets the police to come to Nakatomi to dislodge the bad guys, but Hans is unworried; they were going to come at some point or other, it's just a matter of timing. The missiles are used to fend off the cops in an APC; even though John kills the two henchmen manning the missile launcher, no further rescue attempts are made.
  • Hans demands the release of various terrorists groups, so the FBI is brought in. Their procedure is to cut the power and smoke the bad guys out... which was Hans' plan all along because this disables the electromagnetic seal allowing them to access the bonds.
  • The FBI intends to lure the terrorists up to the roof and spray the deck with automatic fire, but they'd walk into Hans' trap in which he'd blow the roof, with all the hostages on it; the authorities would spend a month trying to figure everything out and by then, they'll be sitting on a beach earning 20%.
 
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I wonder if the distinction is who the secret matters to: characters or audience.

In a lot of modern storytelling based on existing IP, secrets are teased that will have an impact of fans. Call-backs or revelations of identities that will be characters they know (Gandalf in RoP). Or a new take on a story element they anticipate (I’m thinking of Khan Into Darkness). These revelations aren’t significant to characters but only the audience. Now, these examples give good reason why the information isn’t given up front. But the Gosford Park example does the inverse. The revelation of a name means nothing to the audience here but it does to characters. The audience is invited to see the emotional wright through character and story and the meaning of the revelation can be withheld as we still follow an emotional character journey. I think some audiences are getting tired of the former while the latter exists within the narrative itself.
 
For this particular example, it became a question of how deliberate Lúthien's plan was.

She asks Beren to wait for her - why? Is she planning to steal his soul from the underworld? Is she planning to follow him to where mortals go when they die? Does she *intend* to sing her song to Námo all along?

We settled on her having one thought (Don't you go where I can't follow) and one goal (be together with Beren), no elaborate plan to break the rules. She knows that they have separate fates, but she wants to be together anyway. So...tarry for me. At the very least, they'll have one more chance to say goodbye....

That is her story in Episode 13, not Beren's story in Episode 12, though, so by placing the line in 13, we are using it to tell the story of Lúthien's grief. It is not a singular memory, but mixed in with many other memories of their time together that she is recalling during the first act, while she is still alive. These memories are what she would have remaining if she went to Valinor rather than became a mortal. So we have to show the audience that, to invite them into her loss and grief, and so that they will understand what she is choosing between when it comes time to make her choice. We place the line in the scene where she dies, to help show why she is overcome by her grief.
 
In the script discussion for Episode 13, Evan mentioned the bay window scene from Twilight New Moon. It deals with Bella's depression while Edward is gone. He was referencing it as a way to cinematically convey a 'fugue state' of grief to the audience where one character is cut off from the life around them.

Here's the clip in question:

Life in Doriath goes on...but not for Lúthien.
 
In the script discussion for Episode 13, Evan mentioned the bay window scene from Twilight New Moon. It deals with Bella's depression while Edward is gone. He was referencing it as a way to cinematically convey a 'fugue state' of grief to the audience where one character is cut off from the life around them.

Here's the clip in question:

Life in Doriath goes on...but not for Lúthien.
Like Marianne waiting for Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility but multiplied a hundredfold?
 
eh...pain and grief and depression can be acute or chronic. I think that the Marianne situation is more acute. Her heart is broken in that moment. She cries inconsolably about it. But...that doesn't mean that she's like that for the rest of time!

I think it is fairly well established that while Marianne may genuinely love Willoughby, and that Willoughby will 'always regret' losing her (by choosing to marry a wealthy woman instead)...it is abundantly clear that he did not truly love her. He very carefully gave her no promises, but led her on, concealing that he was not quite as free and single as he appeared. Sure, if she'd had money, he may have chosen her instead. But...that's not exactly a ringing declaration of true love! And the way he tried to act like he didn't know her in public was shamefully immature on his part.

So, yes, she's heartbroken...but she doesn't choose to die a spinster about it. She doesn't go the 'I will never love again' route like Buttercup in The Princess Bride.

I cannot say whether or not Bella Swann would have snapped out of her grief eventually or 'gotten over' the loss of Edward Cullen. Probably? There is a love triangle in those movies, isn't there? Regardless, the story is that she and Edward are destined to love one another, so of course this misunderstanding gets resolved somehow. He is gone, and she is hurting, and she doesn't know why he ghosted her. Her depression lasts for months, but (hopefully) not for the entire movie.

In the case of Lúthien and Beren...they did choose each other, despite the hardships and obstacles, and they did get married in public with the blessing of both of their families. He didn't choose to leave or abandon her...he died, he was killed. I think grieving someone who has died is a bit different than grieving someone who has broken up with you. There might be more pain of rejection in the breakup, but there's a lot more loss and grief in the death. Regardless - Lúthien is definitely not moving on from this loss, nor will she love someone else in place of Beren in the future.
 
eh...pain and grief and depression can be acute or chronic. I think that the Marianne situation is more acute. Her heart is broken in that moment. She cries inconsolably about it. But...that doesn't mean that she's like that for the rest of time!

I think it is fairly well established that while Marianne may genuinely love Willoughby, and that Willoughby will 'always regret' losing her (by choosing to marry a wealthy woman instead)...it is abundantly clear that he did not truly love her. He very carefully gave her no promises, but led her on, concealing that he was not quite as free and single as he appeared. Sure, if she'd had money, he may have chosen her instead. But...that's not exactly a ringing declaration of true love! And the way he tried to act like he didn't know her in public was shamefully immature on his part.

So, yes, she's heartbroken...but she doesn't choose to die a spinster about it. She doesn't go the 'I will never love again' route like Buttercup in The Princess Bride.
Well, Marianne gets pretty close when she runs out in the rain at Cleveland (the Palmers' estate) and nearly dies of fever and lung congestion.
 
Reckless endangerment can be a symptom of depression, yes. Not necessarily chronic, though.

At the end of the day, that movie is telling a different story - there are elements of honor and keeping one's word, as well as the struggle of poverty in that culture. But moving on and loving someone else who is genuinely kind and generous turns out to be the right thing for her to do in that story, and we are invited to hope that she will do so, and cheer her on when she does.

For Lúthien, we will have her dying of grief not long after Beren dies. So, there is no 'recovery' or moving past the grief. We are not invited to hope that she will move on and love someone else after Beren.
 
Reckless endangerment can be a symptom of depression, yes. Not necessarily chronic, though.

At the end of the day, that movie is telling a different story - there are elements of honor and keeping one's word, as well as the struggle of poverty in that culture. But moving on and loving someone else who is genuinely kind and generous turns out to be the right thing for her to do in that story, and we are invited to hope that she will do so, and cheer her on when she does.

For Lúthien, we will have her dying of grief not long after Beren dies. So, there is no 'recovery' or moving past the grief. We are not invited to hope that she will move on and love someone else after Beren.
That makes sense. On the other hand is it possible that other Elves are unaware that most of the time their kind don't move on and love someone else? Celegorm, Curufin, and Maeglin never seem to take this into account when the former two were attempting to force Lúthien to marry Celgorm and Maeglin when he attempted to take Idril during the Fall of Gondolin.
 
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