Session 1.8

Phillip Menzies

Phillip Menzies

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Staff member
The questions for the next session to air on Friday 20th November 2015 are:
  1. How will the crisis come? What should precipitate the destruction of the lamps?
  2. How exactly should Melkor be involved in the destruction of the lamps? Should he throw them down himself? Should his followers do it?
  3. How significant should the breach between Melkor and the Valar be? Should this be an act of open conflict, or should Melkor's responsibility for the destruction be unknown at this time?
Check the notes for the last session at http://silmfilm.mythgard.org/episode-1-7-creating-the-lamps-distressing-the-damsel/ and the plot overview for season 1 at http://silmfilm.mythgard.org/episode-1-1-plot-overview/
 
This is how I see it happening:
While most of the Valar finish preparing for a feast in Almaren (and actually shaping the island of Almaren itself), Melkor has realised that the Lamps will not be his own and not add to his power. So he speaks to his followers (the fire spirits) and either instructs them to attack the Lamps or makes them feel they must destroy them. He then joins Sauron at the feast, to watch. So they mingle and have fun like the others. Then the fire spirits attack. Initially there is something like fireworks around the Lamps, which both are far to the north and south, but then the ground starts to shake, and Manwë and Varda realise that something is very wrong. And then the Lamps start to fall, and as the Valar are filled with horror (or something), Melkor's triumphant joy is so obvious that it is clear that he is behind this. So he has to flee. Meanwhile, the fire spirits, enraged and filled with the excitement of destruction, lose their beautiful forms and wings and take the shapes of fire and shadow that we know as balrogs.
 
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I like all of this. I was actually thinking somewhere along the same lines. One thing I might suggest. It'd been discussed that Arien could be one of the proto-balrogs. It would be interesting to see her engage them over the lamps, and perhaps she performs some kind of Phoenix-like explosion which disfigures the others and changes them into their final forms. It would also be interesting if she limped back to Almaren and is the one who bears witness against Melkor.
 
Great, I forgot about Arien! She could absolutely bear witness against Melkor. That would be really good.
 
I'm not sure I like the idea of Melkor giving himself away with his reaction. It doesn't seem his style, and it doesn't seem quite dramatic enough to cause a significant breach between Melkor and the Valar. I do like the idea of Arien bearing witness against them. Perhaps we can prepare for this earlier in the episode by introducing some seeds of doubt among the Valar as to Melkor's intentions, which Arien then confirms at the end of the episode.

Should the transformation of the balrogs be a punishment for their actions, or a natural consequence in some way? I lean more towards the latter. Perhaps the balrog form is one they adopt for the purpose of destroying the lamps, and are then unable to change from it? Something along those lines, anyway.

Also, I think Melkor should somehow attempt to shift the blame for the destruction of the lamps onto the balrogs. He should keep his hands clean, and let his followers do the dirty work. Then he'll turn on them and attempt (probably unsuccessfully) to blame them for the whole attack.
 
If Arien is to arrive during (or after) the attack and reveal that Melkor is behind the destruction of the Lamps, it makes most sense if he has been able to keep a poker face before that.

I prefer to have the balrog forms coming as an involuntary transformation. An effect of their aggression, if you will.

Should we bring Ungoliant into this? To my knowledge she is not mentioned in any text about the attack, but isn't it logical that she should come to the Lamps and drink light?

Or Melkor tries to blame her for the attacks.

A question: as I understand the session notes, it was said that there are stars above Arda at this point. This confused me, mostly because the Silmarillion says Varda made the stars just before the awakening of the Children of Ilúvatar - and she did so because it was so dark, and, well, now I wonder why there should be stars up already (besides I love the part when Varda makes the stars just after the meeting when Mandos speaks of the awakening...)...
 
What if the Balrogs' transformation happens as a result of the destruction of the lamps. What if they are unable to get out of the way of the falling pedestals and are buried beneath it under all of that liquid fire we were talking about. Then we would get to see them clambering out of the rubble like the Huns from Mulan. (I can make no predictions as to where my references come from, don't judge me.) They could attempt to stop Arien from rushing to Almaren, but she takes off flying and they cannot follow.
 
Considering the issue of how Ainur are vulnerable to physical damage, I think perhaps it would be best if the transformation is a result of a non-physical change, like their anger taking over and marring their moral compasses or something.
 
Also, there is some good in making the transformation something fantastic. If the balrogs change form because they are crushed and burned in the collapse of the Lamps, that is of course a process which we all can understand, and maybe the viewers don't understand exactly what is happening if it is a change that starts in the fire spirits themselves, but I think that the more we have the Ainur behave in ways that are only barely understandable, the more we getthe feeling that they are something different from us, and from the Children of Ilúvatar in the story.
 
As to the issue of a transformation due to physical damage, I am reminded of the reason that Sauron could no longer take fair form, when he was crushed beneath the waves that sank Numenor. As to making the shift more difficult to understand, I do like that idea, but it comes with the obvious problem of making it inaccessible to viewers.
 
Ok good point about Sauron. I'm not sure it would be inaccessible, just a bit mysterious.
Another thing that I think is really important is that the transformation into balrogs shouldn't be their own idea, and not an accident. I mean, it shouldn't be voluntary, as we've said, but I also think that we should consider having Melkor being the one starting the process. He might do something to the fire spirits, kind of pouring gasoline on their fires, so to speak, and that process continues until they have become balrogs. It might be that it is just some words he speaks to them, not a physical thing, but it should be clear I think that he starts it. I say this because he is the evil one, not the fire Maiar. They become evil under his influence. This does not necessarily mean that he knows from the start exactly what is going to happen to them, that they are going to become balrogs. It just means that he is marring them as well as everything else.
 
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Getting 'locked' into a physical form for the Ainur seems to have a combination of causes.

Melkor can appear fair (in the beginning), but after he takes the evil warlord in Utumno guise on, he....gets stuck. He loses his ability to shift into a fair form again, or into any different form. This doesn't happen until the destruction of the Trees and the theft of the Silmarils (if I recall correctly), so until that time, he can go from monstrous to fair at will. The monstrous form wasn't *necessarily* a consequence of his fall (he chose it willingly, at the time), but the loss of choice is definitely a consequence. His face really did get stuck that way! (On a related note, that's why his scars stay with him as well - the silmarils burned his hand, Fingolfin made him walk with a limp, and Gwaihir clawed his face...he can't undo any of this.)

Sauron has particular skills as a shapeshifter, as his stint as a werewolf reveals, and he can maintain his fair form (when desired) all the way until the destruction of Numenor. In both those stories, it is brought up that his power is greatly diminished if his physical form is destroyed/killed - if he has to flee as an unclad spirit, it will take him a long time to rebuild himself. That's why he chooses not to escape Huan, and instead yields the fortress. And the drowning of Numenor would have been the end of him, but for that magic Ring......

Both Gandalf and Saruman are slain in Lord of the Rings. True, Gandalf's battle with the balrog is hardly recounted in a way that makes it clear what really happened. But it sounds very much as if his spirit left his body abandoned on the mountainside for a time, and after healing, he was sent back to it (himself?) Saruman's spirit dissipating in the wind isn't unlike the death of Sauron. But the Istari seem to have been locked into the forms of old men for their mission to Middle Earth.

Melian, in choosing to marry Thingol and give birth to Luthien, locks herself into that form as well. It's not just a fall that takes away the choice...it can come of investing strongly in the physical realm of Arda, so.....


In the case of protobalrogs (angels) --> balrogs (demons), I'm not sure what would be best. Showing the transformation as a natural consequence of their choices is important (rather than an external punishment afterwards). But whether they willingly assume these forms for stealth/destructive power in preparation for taking out the Lamps or they get caught up in the destruction and burned/marred perhaps depends on personal preference. Or perhaps a combination, where we seem them burning from the inside out, and then caught in an avalanche of molten fire.
 
I haven't listened to the last two sessions but: My opinion is that the process of becoming balrogs should be initiated by the protobalrogs themselves as a response to something Melkor does. As an expression of them giving themselves to the lust of destructive power. If they also are damaged by molten lava, that's OK by me, but I don't really see why since they are spirits of fire. How could lava damage them? It seems more logical to my mind that it's just a matter of their flames being corrupted.
 
I don't know if the liquid fire would damage them so much as alter them. I missed this session though, so we'll have to see what came out of it.
 
The session went all Thomas a Beckett with it. Morgoth as instigator: 'Who will rid me of these troublesome Lamps?' and then the balrogs deciding to take out the lamps (sort of) on their own. I forget what was said about Arien. I think something about her only witnessing part of it, as the 'who is loyal to Melkor?' question is up in the air at this point (possibly even to the viewers).

The idea was that Melkor has to definitely be the enemy of the Valar at this point, but the Valar have to delay declaring War on him for quite a few more episodes, so there has to be some ambiguity left. Some reasons for (some) of the Valar to think he's not all bad, or that the rift can be healed, etc.

The other thought was that the 'flaw' with the Lamps was the very idea to concentrate light in the first place. Meaning, the Lamps are good and beautiful, but the strife that results is a direct consequence of deciding to build them. Melkor doesn't despise them in the beginning - he's on the contrary very possessive and considers them to be his achievement. The other Valar view it more as a group effort. And so, a lack of 'respect' for Melkor and the proto-balrog construction crew and then 'If I can't have them, no one can' (a very narcissistic Melkor view).
 
As to getting locked into physical form, I think it will be important for the "viewers'" understanding of this concept if the opposite is also shown. I was reading the thread thinking that I was getting more confused as to who can change form and when. Then I stopped and thought "what does it not look like and what would the experience be for valar or maiar who do not get locked in to physical form?" So I imagined some scenes, an audience with Manwe, but the person has to wait because he is off with the winds somewhere and when he returns he takes a physical form, or Yavanna morphing from tree form into humanoid to interact with someone or Ulmo taking the form of a great fish or sea monster to travel through his domain. I think it will be as important to show some valar and maiar changing form regularly and commenting that they are tired of that form and are giving another form a try to bring across the idea that it is the fixation with the physical and the time spent in a particular form that makes a bond which reinforces a state of permanence and therefore the risk of harm to that form. This is the sort of thing that never has to be stated but if enough examples are shown the "viewers" can work it out for themselves.
 
Yes, definitely, show don't tell for sure in this case....and with an entire season devoted to Valar/Maiar, we should be able to find plenty of opportunities to demonstrate the fluidity of their forms.
 
How do we reconcile the idea we're working with now, which is that the Lamps are an example of the Valar concentrating light mostly for Almaren, with the text, which says the Lamps actually lit all of Arda: "In that time the Valar brought order to the seas and the lands and the mountains... [and] there was need of light, Aulë at the prayer of Yavanna wrought two mighty lamps for the lighting of the Middle-Earth... and the light of the Lamps of the Valar flowed out over the Earth, so that all was lit as it were in a changeless day [emphasis mine]." - Chapter 1 paragraph 2
 
There would still be deep canyons and places of shadow where the light does not reach, but I agree that this version (concentrated vs diffused light) is not really based on the source text.
 
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