Session 2.03

I really wanted to try and get in there as quickly as possible after the fact, but I think that probably this is indeed the best course of action.

Barring my learning how to edit audio and volunteering to do the job myself, that is.

Which maybe I should think about doing.
 
I'm late to the party, but wanted to give my thoughts after listening to 2.03:

The race thing could be tricky, especially if you want to avoid racial politics altogether. My thought was to have the elves either be multi-racial, and never mention the distinction, or to have them all be white, and never mention the uniformity, even once multi-racial men come along. I think the most effective way would be having them be fully integrated among themselves, with all the real world's various ethnicities fairly represented, and oblivious to it, but then fully aware of how different the race of men are from them, and racist about that (Thingol, at least, was a complete racist, you can't deny.)

Rather than focusing on physical appearance in differentiating Vanyar from Noldor from Teleri from Avari, make the singular reason for their clumping themselves into groups be their outlook on life, and their cultural interests. I think that could be readily established in the first episode before they meet Orome. Their external conflicts will be the dangerous beasts of the wild, and even Melkor/Sauron's agents causing trouble, so we can see how they're different by how they respond to the threats they face. We could see the Avari and some Teleri taking shelter in the trees, and other Teleri taking refuge on the hypothetical island you mentioned. We'd see the Noldor being more proactive, creating rudimentary stone fortifications to protect themselves, and even inventing the first weapons, or ingenious traps for the beasts that hunt them. The Vanyar, I can only imagine, would react to danger by singing it away, or by trusting in their faith in goodness, or even Eru (would they have a sense of him, yet?)
 
After listening to this session I am taking up the host's challenge on how to demonstrate the changes in language. Now I'll say from the outset I do not know my quenya from my sindarin so this is just ideas, not specifics. I'll start by saying that I did sort of like in the movies the way that Tolkien's languages were included in the script even to the extent that in the Hobbit movies they used the word mellon (friend) without translating it because that had been done in the Fellowship of the Ring outside the gate to Moria. So I think the inclusion of specific words throughout the series and the use of them rather than the English word would make a good strategy. Despite what Corey said about the languages not being able to change until the Vanya and Noldor reach Valinor, I think the changes can start before that. Consider that from the point where the Noldor and Vanyar leave Cuivienen the races are sundered (apart from Elwe flitting back and forth) and during the long journey there will be new things like vegetation and land-forms that are different to Cuivienen, so each race as they come to it will need to invent their own word for it. I would propose that during the season strategic words are introduced for both the races that reach Valinor and the Teleri and are used rather than the English word throughout. Then when they do finally meet in season 3 or 4 they can greet each other using their own words (that the audience will understand) and then will say (in English) to their companions "did you understand a word of that?"
There are many words or fragments of words that Tolkien and LOTRO fans will already know such as "Dol", Ered", "Mith", "Luin" "dagor", Mae Govannen". We should use these words that already appear in the world of middle earth as names or quotes from the movies as the starting point and as I said with strategic sentences we can lead up the initial encounter and then have them haltingly speaking to each other al teh while grasping for words they may have in common, saying things like, "I didn't realise how much our language had changed over the thousands of years we have been separated". I think it can be dealt with much more effectively in the story rather than in the frame, otherwise it just becomes people talking about language. I believe this is the difference between "showing" it and "telling" it.
 
Great! I think this is an important discussion :) [And not just because you suggested using my name in it ;)]

We have some of the language stuff started here:
http://forums.signumuniversity.org/index.php?threads/how-do-the-characters-talk.49/

But (so far) that focuses more on how to represent the languages on screen, and less on how to work them into the story. After all, the challenge here is that we must have two different Elvish languages, and the audience has to understand that.

I think the 'show don't tell' version of this will happen in Season 3 when the Noldor return to Middle Earth and meet the Sindar. The audience will need to be prepared for that in Season 2. I really do like your idea of starting to use key Sindarin words now to familiarize the audience with them. We will have to figure out which words we'll need later, and work to introduce those. Some of the greetings and geography terms should come up fairly naturally, and of course it will be helpful to the audience to know what they mean for later place names. We can have hints of the growing distance, even something as subtle as Elwë blinking in confusion when he goes back and forth between the two groups.

The Frame is useful for teaching the audience, so we should use it. I realize that talking about elvish languages for too long will not be wise. The first Star Wars film has been criticized for 'wasting' time on Obi-wan explaining the history of the lightsaber to Luke when Luke was never going to use the thing in combat. Obviously, this critique was made before Empire Strikes Back came out, but within the context of that film, the exposition might have seemed a little lengthy and unnecessary. The critic claimed that Obi-wan went on for '20 minutes' talking about this, which...I *highly* doubt was the case. But it's easy for exposition to feel long and tedious even when it's not all that long. The 'endless camping trip' of the last Harry Potter novel is another case of the audience perceiving something to drag on and ON, while the author might be baffled by this, since it's not really *that* long....

For those reasons, I think we can only bring this up in the Frame if it serves the story of the Frame. The story of the frame is meant to be Arwen coming to terms with the meaning of Elvenhome, and ultimately choosing Middle Earth over Valinor (while at the same time accepting that her mother made the other choice). So, the language differences between Valinor (Quenya) and Middle Earth (Sindarin) can be brought up in that context, with Arwen trying to figure out which of these is the 'true' elvish language, and ultimately coming to realize that they both represent some aspect of elvish culture significant to each group (the Noldor and the Sindar, to stay focused here). Basically - I am relying on the Frame to inform the audience that all of the 'elvish' in the show is not the *same* language. We need to help them figure that out within Season 2, so that Season 3 and 4 make sense.
 
I think one example of invented language to consider as we evaluate our options here is Lapine, the language of the rabbits in Watership Down*. Of course, we are not given enough to decipher a grammar or anything like that - there are two pages of vocabulary words and translation of some names. The entire story is, of course, in English. But particularly 'rabbity' things that pertain to rabbit life and culture are given in Lapine, and used often enough that the reader learns the meaning and understands what is meant.

As a few examples... Rabbits can only count to four. Any number over four is 'a thousand'. It's used to generically mean 'many'. So, the author could keep saying 'a thousand' all the time...or teach us the word hrair. There is a generic word for all the predators that eat rabbits - elil. And -rah is a suffix for the leader. Thus, the trickster rabbit folk hero, El-ahrairah, is 'the Prince with a Thousand Enemies'.

These words can come up in conversation. The rabbits can ask if there is any sign of elil, rather than asking about particular predators such as foxes. By giving the names for the Sun (Frith) and the Moon (Inlé), we get a 'rabbit' flavor to any time-of-day talk...and also an easy connection when they tell the folk stories about 'Lord Frith' or 'The Black Rabbit of Inlé'.

We could do something similar with our elvish - figure out what words are particular to elven culture, and then use and teach the audience the meaning of these words, which can be sprinkled into English dialogue. An obvious example is elen 'star'. In season one, we taught the audience the meaning of 'Estel' (Hope) [though I do not think we distinguished it from Amdir]. But concepts like 'sea-longing'** are obviously peculiarly elvish, so if we used the elvish word for them consistently, it would help to develop our sense of elvish culture. I'm not sure what the best elvish words are, but stuff like tree, star, mountain, hope, king/queen....

I don't know that we'll ever have an excuse to count things out in 12s, or to use elvish names for seasons or days of the week or units of measure, but touches like that can help to build a culture...or make it more remote/foreign for the viewer. It depends how it is handled, and how naturally the ideas can be introduced without being bogged down with explanations. Obviously, this requires that we be both clever and intentional about our use of elvish in the script, which is why I bring it up :).


*My copy of Watership Down is on a different continent, so I apologize for any errors. Here's the complete vocabulary of Lapine: http://cs.ulm.edu/~pdw/rabbit/lapine.html
**I don't actually know if Tolkien coined this word or not, but in Quenya he did give us hroafelmë (bodily desires) and fëafelmë (spiritual desires/emotions), as well as lengwë, meaning 'desire for what is lost or absent' - a very elvish concept! The Adûnaic word for 'longing' is zâir.
 
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