Session 1.7

Heh, on the thought 'Are there deer yet?'....the destruction of Almaren could be the cataclysmic disaster that wipes out the dinosaurs :p

So, prehistoric deer-like creatures?
 
Couldn't Nessa just create some? Deers that is. Also, as MithLuin reminded me/us, that Tolkien did write about sexual lust, I still don't think it appropriate for the Nessa-Ungoliant relation. Valar and Maiar are not necessarily motivated in the same way as humans, or elves.
 
The intersection of the spheres of influence of the Valar has to be an important way to demonstrate themes of harmony.

So, yes, Nessa should be shown to work with Yavanna, so that a clumsy creature becomes a graceful one, or trees achieve a certain balance to them, etc. If you look at early mammals, and compare them to modern species, it's clear that there has been an improvement in mobility over time. So, maybe Yavanna is playing around with creatures (we can get feathered lizards and all sorts of fun combinations), and after the creature wanders off, Nessa meets up with them and they learn to caper about a bit. Or something.
 
At the risk of beating a dead horse.....

I put this in its original form on another thread, but wanted to keep all the Nessa stuff together in one place.

And so.....a run-down of one possible plotline of this episode that avoids some of the issues we've been complaining about.

Life is good at the beginning of this episode. The Valar have learned to work together, there is (apparent) harmony, and the great unifying project of the construction of the Lamps is underway.

BUT, all is not well. There are new, killer beasts about, and they are working in darkness and leaving gruesome carnage behind. One day, Nessa goes out to play with her woodland friends and stumbles upon this scene instead. Horrified, she rushes back to tell the other Valar. Yavanna is upset*, and Nienna comforts Nessa. But Yavanna is more proactive, and appeals to the other Valar to go out and fix what is wrong. Aulë is more like, let me finish building these Lamps first, then I'll help. Someone mentions that with the light of the Lamps, they'll be able to see better and prevent this sort of thing.

Queue Tulkas' entrance! 'I heard you needed some help,' and he is all excited to fight monsters. Melkor is annoyed, but tries not to show it. So, they tell Tulkas what is going on, and Nessa shows him the place where she found the carnage. Yavanna takes care of burying them. Oromë helps with the tracking. Nessa finds the survivors of her little band of critters and asks them what happened, but they are too frightened and distraught to tell her.

Ungoliant now makes her appearance, meeting with each of the trackers one by one (maybe not Yavanna). This can reveal some of the weaknesses of the Valar. By having Ungoliant target multiple Valar, she is both more threatening and less focused in her interest. She can show the same hunger towards all three, and be revealed to covet something each of them has. I think that three encounters like this can lend the story a very mythic feel, and get the right sort of vibe. If Ungoliant does try to lure or entice them, it can be seen as a 'Don't leave the path!' moment, rather than a 'come hither' gesture.

Nessa can be a bit naive and innocent, inviting her 'new friend' to help her in her quest to find the dangerous monster. Ungoliant can agree to help her look for the culprit. Oromë is warier, with a 'Who are you?' approach, but not wanting to be lacking in hospitality (think Aragorn addressing the 'old man' they think is Saruman at their little fire in Fangorn). But he is more intent on completing his mission than on keeping track of her, so she slips off... only to run into Tulkas. Since everyone is new to him, he doesn't realize she's not with the Valar. We might reveal Tulkas to be a little 'simple' here, dividing the world into friends or foes, and not necessarily being great at telling them apart without a little guidance.

Ungoliant will thus be moving in and out of these scenes, but will be very much 'other.' She can just fade in to the background at the end, fleeing the light of the Lamps, leaving the viewer a bit disappointed that there was no conflict (with her). But there will still be an action sequence where Tulkas and Oromë take on the pack of mad marauding beasts (rabid T-rexes?). Nessa hangs back at first, a little uncertain if she wants to be part of the slaying and mayhem. But, she sees an opportunity to help and then joins in the 'dance' of fighting. She and Tulkas are mutually impressed with one another, have each others backs, and Oromë smiles knowingly. :p Then they go back to see the lighting of the Lamps and we get some Yavanna/Aulë domestic spat. They are the old married couple of the Valar.


* Not as unnatural as might be thought. Here is an example of a naturally-occurring mass die-off:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60000-antelope-died-in-4-days-and-no-one-knows-why/

But the point being that Yavanna is not going to be horrified by the circle of life, merely by something breaking out of the natural order of things and killing wantonly for no reason. Modern viewers may not be entirely comfortable with Oromë being a god of the hunt, killing innocent creatures 'for no reason' (do the Valar eat?) - so in this instance, we make it very clear what the reason is, and it is in the defense of other innocent creatures.


I don't expect the hosts to spend any more time discussing this plotline at this juncture, but wanted to throw this out there for people to mull over here. I am certainly open to suggestions for improvements on this scenario!
 
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I am somewhat reticent to bring this up again, but after listening to the most recently posted podcast, I feel that I must. I now understand a bit more fully the fear many have expressed with sexualizing Ungoliant's desire for and attraction to Nessa. While it seemed a possible implication in the previous discussion, in the more recent one, it was far more overt. There are many reasons which I am not comfortable with this. Some of the folks here may have suspected from my previous posts on this topic that I have a moral issue concerning homosexuality. I make no pretenses otherwise. However, of the many folks of the LGBT community I have known, some of whom are close friends, (I realize that's a cliché, but what can you do?), I have met no more predators among them than I have amongst anyone else.

Portraying Ungoliant's desire for a female Vala as sexual, and predatory will certainly read as a comment on the nature of such desires and relationships. I may not believe that such lifestyles are morally acceptable, but neither do I condemn those that practice them as evil, at least no more than anyone else. (Let he who is without sin cast the first stone and all that. My stone-throwing privileges are unquestionably revoked).

Understand, that I do not think any of this was in the mind of the hosts. From what was said, it seemed relatively innocent, and without any malicious intent, but having listened to the discussion, I wanted to address it.
 
We are telling a story of the beginnings of the world. Should the first episode concerning sexuality portray it in a negative way? I hope not.
 
At the risk of beating a dead horse.....

I put this in its original form on another thread, but wanted to keep all the Nessa stuff together in one place.

And so.....a run-down of one possible plotline of this episode that avoids some of the issues we've been complaining about.

Life is good at the beginning of this episode. The Valar have learned to work together, there is (apparent) harmony, and the great unifying project of the construction of the Lamps is underway.

BUT, all is not well. There are new, killer beasts about, and they are working in darkness and leaving gruesome carnage behind. One day, Nessa goes out to play with her woodland friends and stumbles upon this scene instead. Horrified, she rushes back to tell the other Valar. Yavanna is upset*, and Nienna comforts Nessa. But Yavanna is more proactive, and appeals to the other Valar to go out and fix what is wrong. Aulë is more like, let me finish building these Lamps first, then I'll help. Someone mentions that with the light of the Lamps, they'll be able to see better and prevent this sort of thing.

Queue Tulkas' entrance! 'I heard you needed some help,' and he is all excited to fight monsters. Melkor is annoyed, but tries not to show it. So, they tell Tulkas what is going on, and Nessa shows him the place where she found the carnage. Yavanna takes care of burying them. Oromë helps with the tracking. Nessa finds the survivors of her little band of critters and asks them what happened, but they are too frightened and distraught to tell her.

Ungoliant now makes her appearance, meeting with each of the trackers one by one (maybe not Yavanna). This can reveal some of the weaknesses of the Valar. By having Ungoliant target multiple Valar, she is both more threatening and less focused in her interest. She can show the same hunger towards all three, and be revealed to covet something each of them has. I think that three encounters like this can lend the story a very mythic feel, and get the right sort of vibe. If Ungoliant does try to lure or entice them, it can be seen as a 'Don't leave the path!' moment, rather than a 'come hither' gesture.

Nessa can be a bit naive and innocent, inviting her 'new friend' to help her in her quest to find the dangerous monster. Ungoliant can agree to help her look for the culprit. Oromë is warier, with a 'Who are you?' approach, but not wanting to be lacking in hospitality (think Aragorn addressing the 'old man' they think is Saruman at their little fire in Fangorn). But he is more intent on completing his mission than on keeping track of her, so she slips off... only to run into Tulkas. Since everyone is new to him, he doesn't realize she's not with the Valar. We might reveal Tulkas to be a little 'simple' here, dividing the world into friends or foes, and not necessarily being great at telling them apart without a little guidance.

Ungoliant will thus be moving in and out of these scenes, but will be very much 'other.' She can just fade in to the background at the end, fleeing the light of the Lamps, leaving the viewer a bit disappointed that there was no conflict (with her). But there will still be an action sequence where Tulkas and Oromë take on the pack of mad marauding beasts (rabid T-rexes?). Nessa hangs back at first, a little uncertain if she wants to be part of the slaying and mayhem. But, she sees an opportunity to help and then joins in the 'dance' of fighting. She and Tulkas are mutually impressed with one another, have each others backs, and Oromë smiles knowingly. :p Then they go back to see the lighting of the Lamps and we get some Yavanna/Aulë domestic spat. They are the old married couple of the Valar.


* Not as unnatural as might be thought. Here is an example of a naturally-occurring mass die-off:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60000-antelope-died-in-4-days-and-no-one-knows-why/

But the point being that Yavanna is not going to be horrified by the circle of life, merely by something breaking out of the natural order of things and killing wantonly for no reason. Modern viewers may not be entirely comfortable with Oromë being a god of the hunt, killing innocent creatures 'for no reason' (do the Valar eat?) - so in this instance, we make it very clear what the reason is, and it is in the defense of other innocent creatures.


I don't expect the hosts to spend any more time discussing this plotline at this juncture, but wanted to throw this out there for people to mull over here. I am certainly open to suggestions for improvements on this scenario!

I like MithLuin's concept of Ungoliant targeting multiple "Powers" and this is also what I had been thinking. I went back to review Ungoliant's and spider's "qualities".
  1. We know she consumes light and excretes/weaves? darkness. With the discussion in Session 1.8 about the Powers being sources of light we now have conveniently provided a new food source for Ungoliant and I picture her more as Haakon described, a glutton, gorging herself on light or power.
  2. Ungoliant is the only one of the Powers that we know of that procreates, Shelob is one of her offspring.
  3. Various species of female spiders eat or attempt to eat the male after mating.
I envisage her story starting one or two episodes before the Nessa/Tulkas episode and the way we can do it would be to have a mystery. Some of the lesser Maiar go missing and/or the almost lifeless husks of them are discovered. This is not a physical assault but a spiritual one in which Ungoliant sucks out their light force or power. Whether they are left "dead' or close to dead can be decided (I think we had decided that the Powers cannot die). The ones found can be of both genders (if all the Maiar have genders) removing the exclusively same sex creepy attraction element. During Nessa's confrontation with Ungoliant we can see that by subsuming the light force from the Maiar she not only weaves darkness but is also using it to start procreation, not necessarily in spider form yet, but some little blobs? which she calls her "children". This also fits with the practice of some female spiders that eat the male after mating. The mating and the eating can be one and the same thing and gender is not an issue because all Valar and Maiar have the light force inside of them. And anyway, gender is just an apparel that the Maiar and Valar wear that suits their personality.
I don't agree with the host's ideas about Ungoliant wanting to turn Nessa and get her to join her. I see Ungoliant as being a monstrous glutton that wants to suck the face off anything that will make a good meal. "Joining" her just doesn't fit Ungoliant's MO. In the Darkening of Valinor she was a hired gun, obviously a loner and spurned by the other Powers, and she also threatened to turn upon Melkor. She only acted with him because of the prize of the smorgasbord on offer in Valinor not because she wanted an ally.
 
Spiders also entrap their prey, and (possibly) play with it a bit. Not to the extent of cats, but....'caught in a web...soon you'll be...eaten'. So, webs of darkness that confuse and ensnare seems to be her main weapon, though it should be noted that she is a poisonous spider as well, as even Yavanna can't revive the trees after she poisons them. How much of that we want to pre-figure in her 'humanoid' form is up for discussion.

Ungoliant consuming her mates is stated in the text. Tolkien also uses the word 'lust' to describe her desire for light and her general devouring hunger about a dozen times in the later Quenta, so it's not *that* surprising people would pick up on that. (Though here lust would mean inordinate consuming desire, not particularly sexual desire.) While the Valar did have children in the earliest versions (Lost Tales), obviously that idea was explicitly discarded later, so that only Ungoliant and Melian are mentioned to have children in the versions appearing in the published Silmarillion and later. Among other things, it should permanently tie her to her spider-form, so we should never see her in humanoid form again after this first season.

I also agree that she's not the joining type. She was willing to call Melkor master, for a time, but only when she perceived him to be more powerful than her. Her allegiance to him is all about fear and coercion. After she is strengthened by the Two Trees, she calls him 'Blackheart' instead of 'Master.' At no point are they partners. Obviously, her relationship with Melkor is meant to prefigure Sauron and Shelob, where Sauron consider her 'his pet,' but she owns him not. It is also mentioned that she particularly fears the gaze of Manwë and Varda, so it is possible that she is scared off not by Tulkas nor by the lighting of the Lamps, but by one of them coming upon her and her quailing and fleeing (think Shelob and the Phial).
 
Back to the drawing board! The hosts have mentioned a hunt with Oromë and Tulkas in the latest episode (the lighting of the Two Trees), and this would be an opportunity to show the increasing dark and danger of Middle Earth now that the Lamps are overthrown and the Valar removed. Melkor's wrath has had a chance to brew. That is thematically a good place for the beasts of horn and ivory that stain the ground red.

So, obviously, we can't use that here, with Ungoliant and Nessa, and that part of my idea has to be nixed.

To avoid redundancy, Ungoliant herself has to be the threat, and the targets have to be the Maiar/Valar, *not* the creatures living in Almarin.

So, Phillip's idea of discovering the occasional drained Maia laying about, weak and disoriented and 'dimmed' would be a great way to set the stage.
For one thing, this gives Tulkas a reason to show up later, not right away. (I realize the decision at one point was to have him enter with all of the Valar, but I would like to preserve him as the late-comer who shows up for a fight...if possible.)

So, now we have set the stage, by having Ungoliant's victims discovered in the previous episode, and perhaps even having that be an impetus for building the Lamps in the first place. In one sense, Aulë makes the lamps so all of Yavanna's plants will have light to grow. We have altered that slightly to have this be a group decision, group project, etc. So, just as the project gets underway in the beginning of this episode....

Nessa goes off by herself into the woods and doesn't come back. At first, no one notices she is gone, and if anyone does miss her, they think nothing of it, as she often dances and runs about on her own. She is fairly independent, marches to the beat of her own drum, etc. She is not 'young' (that's Vana, Oromë's wife), but she is youthful and energetic.

But something happens to worry everyone. Perhaps she is able to send a message (a telepathic distress signal?). Perhaps there is a splotch of visible darkness that troubles the Valar. (Can you see further when you're up on the lamp scaffolding?) Perhaps Lassie comes and tells them that she's fallen into a well. Whatever - warning received! Everyone immediately thinks of the prior victims (who are very slow to heal with no Irmo or Estë about).

So now there is a hunt/chase to find her, and we get to see where she is - all tangled up in Ungoliant's web-trap. We want the viewer to experience some anxiety as to whether or not the others will find her in time. We also need to portray her capture as spiritually dangerous, so I think the temptation is for her to give in to despair. Perhaps she tries to free herself a few times, changes form, contorts herself, all to no avail. Ungoliant does the typical 'no one is coming for you, you're mine now' routine (because her words are poison?) Nessa has to express some kind of trust in the other Valar caring for her (waaaaaay too damsel-in-distress...we can do better) and also has to hold onto her own identity as Ungoliant tries to erase it. Ungoliant is darkness and death and annihilation.....

But of course, there's no question, and Tulkas comes bursting onto the scene, all ready to beat up the monster...who does her best to appear as an 'innocent' woman. (Perhaps Tulkas has not met Nessa before, so does not even know her yet?) Can you really picture Tulkas swinging a fist at Ungoliant's face here? I would like to see him pause in some consternation, and have Nessa say 'the ropes!' to spur him into action, tearing apart spider webs. Ungoliant vanishes, but now out of the shadows come...spiders. Not giant spiders. Just...regular sized spiders. They run all over the place, over the ropes, over the arms and legs of Nessa and Tulkas....who then get out of there as fast as possible, swatting at spiders and more than slightly horrified. After their run, they pause to pull spiders out of each others hair, and do belated introductions. Maybe they are conveniently located next to a pool by a waterfall or some other 'romantic' location. The tension and horror very quickly give way to laughter, and the two of them do something companionable on their way back to the Valar, culminating in 'race you back!' and them both running like the wind and laughing and smiling at each other.

...and then the rest of the episode happens, with building the lamps, Melkor feeling like *he* is in charge and calling the shots. Perhaps he was 'too busy' with official Lamp-building business to pay any mind to the missing Nessa problem, and Manwë takes charge of organizing the search parties. Melkor thinks of that as the 'lesser' task and his work with the Lamps as the 'greater' task, but the others value people over creative tasks, so see Nessa going missing as a perfectly valid excuse to halt the Lamp project and go find her. Melkor and his proto-balrogs continue working while some of the others 'ditch' the task, making Melkor feel like the Lamps are really his moreso than belonging to the other Valar.... If we go that route, we have to decide if Aulë, Sauron (Mairon) and Curumo (Saruman) stay or go. Arien is firmly in Melkor's camp and following his orders...for now.

A lot of what I just wrote is super cheesy. I don't feel I've managed to subvert the damsel-in-distress trope, so I'd have to give it more thought.
 
So....tropes.

We want to capture some of the 'you see this in every story' because we are talking about the Valar, and they're all archetypes, and this is the beginning of the world and a time of myth. But....we don't want to descend into cheesy clichés, either. There should be something fresh or surprising about the various forms the story takes. It sound really ring true, rather than feel set up or hokey. We also want to be careful of what wider message some of the tropes send. Even if *we're* not explicitly making that point, what with being an archetype and all, there's baggage to deal with.

So, to begin: The Captivity Narrative
This is the story where an innocent European woman is captured by savages (of the Indian variety in North America, and of the Muslim variety in medieval Europe), and must hold true to her own culture and faith in the face of hardship.

By having our captive be female (Nessa), and by having a spiritual component to the captivity, we may possibly evoke these stories whether we want to or not. Ungoliant's 'culture' is pretty nebulous, and nothing seems very tempting about it. The sexual desire component is being nixed like crazy here, in part because of the implications. I realize that Ungoliant *is* an evil uncivilized cannibal who wants to eat Nessa...but because of that, we do have to tread carefully. Ungoliant, for instance, should *not* look like a Pacific Islander in her 'human' form. I'm not saying she has to be white, just that we want to avoid certain...unfortunate implications that the historical baggage of this type of story already has.

Bringing us to....the Damsel in Distress

Obviously, there are lots of ways of doing this, but what we are both going for (and trying to avoid like the plague) is Rescue Romance.
We are quite clearly trying to set up Tulkas and Nessa for a wedding in the next episode, so romance has to result. But just as clearly, we *don't* want Nessa to be all 'my hero!' about the whole thing. We want to give their relationship a solid basis in mutual respect aside from the 'big strong dude rescued a princess Chained to a Rock.'

(All of the links have examples of stories that have used or played with or changed or in some way show these particular tropes.)

To be very clear here - Tolkien does *not* use the damsel in distress trope straight-forwardly. Ever. There is always something else going on, something different about it. Luthien saves Beren from the dungeon (after Huan helped). Maedhros is chained to a rock (quite literally), but he is a prince, not a princess, and he is rescued by his (half-)cousin. Finduilas is captured by orcs under Turin's nose, and she's already in love with him...but we know how that ends. So if we have Tulkas save Nessa and then get happily married...that might sound like a classic fairy tale, but it's *not* going to sound like a story Tolkien wrote.
 
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Now ... just a thing here. What if Tulkas' arrival is a direct result to a distress call from Nessa, not to the other Valar, but to Eru himself. This way, it is Nessa's trust in 'God' that saves her, not her Holding Out for a Hero. (Good to see someone else uses TVTropes.) In the meanwhile, it would be good to see Ungoliant as completely unable to corrupt Nessa, which is her initial hope. I have to reference Lewis' The Silver Chair here:

Rilian has been under the thrall of the Green Lady for quite some time. And while he is stronger and more combat capable than Jill, Eustace, or Puddleglum, they are the ones rescuing him. The Green Lady first assaults them with logic, attempting to enchant them, presumably as she did to Rilian. They fall to her logic until she attempts to convince them that Aslan cannot be real. It is Puddleglum, who typically has a rather dismal outlook, who refuses to succumb to her power and actually puts out the fire that is manifest as the spell she has over Rilian. The spell is broken, and Rilian remembers himself. With her magical arts overcome, the Lady resorts to brute force, shapeshifting into an immense serpent. Now, Rilian's martial power becomes more important, and it is he who slays the serpent and 'saves the day'.

It would be interesting to see something like this. Nessa is well-equipped to resist Ungoliant's attempts to consume her magically. Possibly through her Art. Could we depict a battle similar to the one referenced on the podcast from the second 'Hobbit' film. Nessa's dance creates an expanding bubble of light that pushes back Ungoliant's darkness. Ungoliant, enraged at not being able to overpower the Vala that way, makes her transformation into the massive spider that we all know and love. Nessa is undaunted, despite the obvious disadvantage she is at. She is firm in her belief that Eru has the situation under control. And he does. He sends Tulkas who handily drives off Ungoliant. The exchange that would follow is the tricky part. What I am seeing now is Nessa and Tulkas both making light of the whole thing. Nessa remembers Tulkas from the pre-Arda days. Maybe she chides him a bit. "You almost missed all the fun..." He looks confused for a second before he breaks out in a he breaks out into the full laugh that we will hear from him over and over again. "Welcome to Arda, friend Tulkas," she'd say, moving off with a grin, "Come, the others will want to greet you."

We can show the danger in the worry of the other Valar over her disappearance, but maintain her bright smile and confidence that Eru knows exactly what he is doing. It doesn't mean that she was never in any danger, just that she believed that Eru's will was going to be done no matter what.
 
I'd just like to clarify a bit. What exactly are we after with the story of Nessa and Tulkas? Primarily two things: that Tulkas and Nessa join in some sort of union because of the events of this story, and that Ungoliant is presented as a threat. These are the basic elements. Right?
So, first we present Ungoliant as a threat. We seem to lean towards her using dark web traps and prone to using some kind of energy drain? (Sorry for being blunt) Her main interest and ultimate goal is to consume. So, one or more of the Ainur are trapped, or attacked and drained. Or both. Maybe some poor Maia is depleted.
And then we have Nessa, who somehow becomes a victim. I think this idea of having Nessa trusting Eru to intervene is really interesting, Nicholas. That may be the way to go. And I like the idea of having Tulkas showing up now, and that Nessa and he know each other from before. That's good stuff. But I am for some reason becoming increasingly hesitant about the suggestion of a battle. I don't know, maybe it's because I've just watched The Battle of Five Armies extended version (it forces you to think about fighting and how it can be portrayed), but I feel that Tolkien treats battle and fighting in a very special way. Every battle has dire consequences. Somebody loses something. Something is destroyed. A step is taken and you cannot go back. I feel that there is a risk with this story, that we create a fight that is too easy. And if we can't make the fight really important, then I think we should reconsider. I don't know, I find it's hard to explain exactly what I mean. I'll get back. :)
 
I think I see where you're coming from. Perhaps the other Valar are initially suspicious of this violent newcomer, but beyond that, I gotta put my thinking cap on. This is a premise we've been operating under for quite some time now, so ...
 
As do I. It's one of the reasons I never get anything done. I've done a first episode outline for our project about four times now. :)

Ok. I'm having a thought, so I'll throw it on the stoop and see if the cat licks it up. Bear in mind that I don't see the fight between Tulkas and Ungoliant as much of a battle. But what if Melkor throws it in their faces when fingers start pointing his way following the destruction of the lamps.

"So now you will cast me bodily from your midst as you did Ungoliant?"

The suggestion being that the Valar are in a way guilty of violence by proxy, and therefore in no position to sit in judgement over Melkor.
 
I'm not sure it's necessary to have the Valar be suspicious of Tulkas. If he shows up and scares Ungoliant away (and by the way, this resembles his entrance in Arda in the published Silmarillion) after she has been catching people in black, sticky webs and draining them, it will seem natural to like him.
Ok, so there won't be much of a fight. Good. And if Nessa and Tulkas know each other from before, wouldn't that kind of disarm the damsel problem?
My only remaining problem then seems to be "why Nessa?" Why is she Ungoliant's main target? Or did we answer that? I forget....
 
I don't know if there is a complete concensus on that, but my feeling is that she's the one out dancing and running in the Wild by herself. Also, to clarify, I don't think she is as certain that Eru will intervene. as that his plan will be completed, no matter what happens. I reference Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and the 'Fiery Furnace'.
 
Alright, I see. She believes in Eru's plan, and isn't overly concerned about her own fate.

So she's in the wrong place, basically. Ok.

Do people agree with me that we might have less of a damsel problem if the two know each other from before?
 
Hmmm, I like this! Nessa trapped, but able to fend off (to a point). Calling out to Eru (rather than the other Valar), so we see his first 'intervention' in the history of Arda - that is *hugely* significant, so has to be handled very carefully. His only other interventions are going to be to allow Luthien to change her fate, to reshape the world at the fall of Numenor, and then to send Gandalf back after his death....well, as far as direct, visible interventions go. He's also going to have a little talk with Aulë and wake up the elves and send the Children in general. But most of his working is very subtle, and should only be hinted by playing a theme from the music when 'fate' comes into play. Since this is not Eru intervening directly, but (apparently) informing Tulkas, 'Hmm, thy friend Nessa seems to be in dire straits...' it 'fits' his mode of intervention - he isn't zapping Ungoliant with lightning or anything.

I completely agree with Nicholas that her trust should not be 'Eru will save me!' but rather, 'I know that it was Eru's will that I came into Arda in the first place, so I trust that he has a plan and I will follow it to whatever end.'

We chose Nessa as a target because we need to introduce her before she marries Tulkas :p. Ungoliant chose Nessa because (she liked her - NIXED) she was there and available. Weak, perhaps, but Ungoliant's hunger is indiscriminate and therefore her crimes are wholly ones of opportunity. So, it fits.

I very much like the 'You would have missed all the fun!' of being in Arda comment Nessa makes to Tulkas, making it almost as if she 'saved' him from missing out, as much as he saved her from a tight space. And if they greet each other as old friends, 'You! I didn't think to see you again, until I returned to the Halls of Iluvatar!' -- that would establish a deeper basis to their relationship than the 'action hero saves the kidnapped princess' trope we strayed into. It would also 'explain' why Nessa has remained single while many of the other Valar and Maiar have paired off. Her 'other half' didn't enter into Arda with her, so now that he is here, they can be reunited. Much more...wholesome...story, I think, and something I'm much, much more comfortable with.


I also think we have a valuable opportunity here. We have various Maiar who are 'targets' of Ungoliant. They can be seen as weak, sickly, and non-glowy after their run-in with her. Perhaps the Valar urge them to spend time in the light of the Lamps, hoping that will 'revive' them, but not much progress/improvement is seen. So, we have the rather disturbing image of maimed immortals. But the Valar don't really know what to do about that, as they themselves can just insta-heal or change their shapes as needed.

Then, they all go to Valinor, and meet Irmo and Estë for the first time. Perhaps others were injured when the Lamps came crashing down as well. So, Lorien sees its first patients! There, in the Gardens, the injured Maiar are healed and restored to health. We see them again in the light of the Trees, hale and well.

We were looking for a Fëanturi subplot.....
 
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