Session 2.13 for S2E09

[ouzaru]

Did we really just ask, 'Why should we bother showing the creation of the silmarils in a show called The Silmarillion'?

No, I understand that if we show Fëanor disappear into his workroom and later appear with these glowing jewels, they will be introduced to the audience. The process is meant to explore Fëanor's reason for making them, and allows us to avoid exposition on what they are.

I like tears better than blood. I think the tie-in to the creation of the Trees is a positive connection. I think 'spirit of fire' needs to be part of this, somehow, as well.

We don't know what 'silima' is: we could treat it like some sort of synthetic diamond, but it's not something you could shatter with a hammer (unlike real diamonds, which are extremely hard, but also brittle). It could have the optical properties of quartz. The process of making it could involve extreme heat and pressure (we know the silmaril isn't going to be destroyed by falling into a pit of lava, unlike a certain gold ring). The tie-in to water is a good one. Galadriel's ring of adamant in Nenya, the ring of water, and explains her Mirror (the way Gandalf's ring of fire Narya explains his fireworks). People expect fire-stuff to be red, but the silmarils are clear, like water. Or we could go the fire opal route......
http://www.gemstone.org/index.php?o...&id=125:sapphire&catid=1:gem-by-gem&Itemid=14

Of course I did. Not for nothing, but the forging of the Silmaril's doesn't feature in the book of the same name! Highlighting the process without making it do something within the narrative is cruft, unnecessary filler. So maybe the better question was "what do we want it to do?", but that still begs the question "why do we need this?". And as a show of good faith, I'm sitting here diligently trying to answer that question constructively!

Look at me, I'm helping!

 

[Haakon]

It's a really good question to ask. If we can't come up with a good answer, we shouldn't show it. A bad idea could kill the whole project.

EDIT: Perhaps a slight exaggeration.

 

[Haakon]

Did we really just ask, 'Why should we bother showing the creation of the silmarils in a show called The Silmarillion'?

No, I understand that if we show Fëanor disappear into his workroom and later appear with these glowing jewels, they will be introduced to the audience. The process is meant to explore Fëanor's reason for making them, and allows us to avoid exposition on what they are.

I like tears better than blood. I think the tie-in to the creation of the Trees is a positive connection. I think 'spirit of fire' needs to be part of this, somehow, as well.

We don't know what 'silima' is: we could treat it like some sort of synthetic diamond, but it's not something you could shatter with a hammer (unlike real diamonds, which are extremely hard, but also brittle). It could have the optical properties of quartz. The process of making it could involve extreme heat and pressure (we know the silmaril isn't going to be destroyed by falling into a pit of lava, unlike a certain gold ring). The tie-in to water is a good one. Galadriel's ring of adamant in Nenya, the ring of water, and explains her Mirror (the way Gandalf's ring of fire Narya explains his fireworks). People expect fire-stuff to be red, but the silmarils are clear, like water. Or we could go the fire opal route......
http://www.gemstone.org/index.php?o...&id=125:sapphire&catid=1:gem-by-gem&Itemid=14

I really like look of the first of these opals. If we could have a perfectly round one, it would be great.

 

[ouzaru]

It's a really good question to ask. If we can't come up with a good answer, we shouldn't show it. A bad idea could kill the whole project.

EDIT: Perhaps a slight exaggeration.

Now I won't rest until I come up with an idea dumpster-fire enough to kill the project and put Professor Olsen off of Tolkien for the remainder of his career.

This is your fault, Haakon for giving me the idea. I'm just an amoral (devastatingly handsome) force of nature!

Edit: Holy cow, what an autocorrect.

 

[Haakon]

I've never been mistaken for a province of Iran before. Well, there's a first time for everything.

 

[MithLuin]

Round white or clear fire opals, coming up:

The silmarils will likely be too large to use a real opal anyway, so the prop could be made with the characteristics we want. You'll note that opals aren't faceted, due to their structure. Do we want the silmarils to be faceted or not?

 

[Haakon]

Do we want the silmarils to be faceted or not?

Not!

 

[ouzaru]

Round white or clear fire opals, coming up:

The silmarils will likely be too large to use a real opal anyway, so the prop could be made with the characteristics we want. You'll note that opals aren't faceted, due to their structure. Do we want the silmarils to be faceted or not?

I would personally prefer faceted.

But then a faceted Opal ought to be just impossible enough to be mythological.

Not!

So, you have chosen... death.

Edit: In all seriousness (oh, now I can't get the italics to go away), the Silmaril's do need something that gives them additional depth, I think. I'd like to feel like I could get lost staring at them, like properly lost in their depths, rather than dazzled by just their shininess. Facets would be one way to achieve that, but there are certainly others.

 

[Ray Burns]

I think that we need to show that the tears that Feanor sheds are not cathartic, as Nienna would have imagined that they would be. Although his tears show genuine sadness and remorse for Miriel's departure, there should also be a sense that there is a hint of selfishness and bitterness in the tears. Perhaps he has several templates that he is working on, and as he cries genuine tears over three of them, they blaze into light and glory. However, as his emotions turn from sadness and catharsis to a more covetous nature, they do nothing to the other templates.

So, because of Feanor's nature, he truly cannot create more silmarils because he knows he no longer has the capacity for tears of true sadness (although that would seem to me more self-aware than I would give Feanor credit for). And this is why he hoards them, because he realizes that he poured much of the true love for his mother into them and without the Silmarils, all he has of her memory is bitterness and anger.

 

[Ray Burns]

So, you have chosen... death.

I prefer, "So it is doomed" with a Mandos emoji next to it. ;-)

 

[Haakon]

I'd prefer shapes within the stones rather than having facets. That would give them a hypnotic quality. Something within forces one to look into them, something you can't quite get.

 

[Ray Burns]

We could avoid the whole shape question by making them so brilliant that you never see a defined shape, just a glow in Feanor's hand.. but that's sort of cheating.

Do the silmarils always glow with the bright burning light, or are they subdued at times? I don't imagine that its the sort of thing like the Phial of Galadriel where you can call for the brilliance at command; but do they wax and wane like the light from the Trees? This is a factor in how we depict them onscreen.

 

[Haakon]

I really like the idea that they should wax and wane.

 

[MithLuin]

They are not meant to wax and wane, but to always be brilliantly bright. At least, that is my recollection of the passage where they are described. Let me go find that....

And the inner fire of the Silmarils Fëanor made of the blended light of the Trees of Valinor, which lives in them yet, though the Trees have long withered and shine no more. Therefore even in the darkness of the deepest treasury the Silmarils of their own radiance shone like the stars of Varda; and yet, as were they indeed living things, they rejoiced in light and received it and gave it back in hues more marvellous than before.​

It's vague enough that it could be read as waxing/waning, but I would say rather that it changes and is more 'living' then you would expect from a gem, and that is what it takes from the Trees, rather than waxing and waning over time.


Silmarils in Art:

Tolkien's heraldic device for the silmarils is shown here. I think this could be used as an argument for facets, but of course it's not meant to be a photographic representation, either! I don't know if the 8-pointed star of Fëanor is meant to, in any way, relate to the silmarils, or if that is more meant to be Fëanor + seven sons. But again...edges.

Anke Eissmann's painting of Beren cutting the silmaril from Morgoth's crown
http://anke.edoras-art.de/anke_illustration.html

Marask on Deviant Art

Steamy on Deviant Art "Fëanor with Silmaril"
http://steamey.deviantart.com/art/Feanor-with-silmaril-343464622

Ted Nasmith's "Maedhros Casts Himself into a Chasm" and "Maglor Casts a Silmaril into the Sea"

...and a very light-hearted commentary by Dawn Felagund on the drawbacks of totally blinged out glowing elvish jewelry.
http://themidhavens.net/heretic_loremaster/2009/09/move-over-feanor/

 

[Haakon]

Good, living, that's really good.

I dunno, I think edges make them look kind of cheap....

 

[ouzaru]

I think that we need to show that the tears that Feanor sheds are not cathartic, as Nienna would have imagined that they would be. Although his tears show genuine sadness and remorse for Miriel's departure, there should also be a sense that there is a hint of selfishness and bitterness in the tears. Perhaps he has several templates that he is working on, and as he cries genuine tears over three of them, they blaze into light and glory. However, as his emotions turn from sadness and catharsis to a more covetous nature, they do nothing to the other templates.

So, because of Feanor's nature, he truly cannot create more silmarils because he knows he no longer has the capacity for tears of true sadness (although that would seem to me more self-aware than I would give Feanor credit for). And this is why he hoards them, because he realizes that he poured much of the true love for his mother into them and without the Silmarils, all he has of her memory is bitterness and anger.

They can't really get bright and shiny until they are in the presence of the trees. They can glow ambit maybe, or have a flickering, inconstant glow like that of a candle; whatever light source he's go in his workshop,

 

[MithLuin]

but the forging of the Silmaril's doesn't feature in the book of the same name!

REALLY, now? Did we read the same book? It quite clearly tells us that Fëanor forged the silmarils, and Varda blessed them, and all of Valinor made a big to-do about them. Soooo....nope, not going to let that one slide.

Yes, I realize we didn't get a step-by-step instruction manual, like Luthien teaching Beren how to walk like a wolf before they attempt deceiving the guards of Angband in the Lost Tales version of the Tale of Tinuviel. But to suggest that the chapter “Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor” doesn't include the forging of the silmarils is...a bit...off.

And yes, I know it has to be included for a reason, not just because. But I think that showing the process gives us the opportunity to see a bit about how Fëanor works.

 

[MithLuin]

They can't really get bright and shiny until they are in the presence of the trees. They can glow ambit maybe, or have a flickering, inconstant glow like that of a candle; whatever light source he's go in his workshop,

They have the light of the Trees trapped inside of them. So, presumably, that is one of the steps in this process - how does Fëanor get the treelight into the gem?

 

[Ray Burns]

We can assume that they are more than the dews and rain from Telperion and Laurelin that are collected in Varda's vats, correct? Although they could be the base element of the assembly of the silmaril (and their intensity might be the default brightness setting for the silmarils as well), Feanor has to add something that makes them even more stupendous.

 

[MithLuin]

I would imagine that Fëanor either had to capture the light as it shone from the trees, or use the dews that contain the light. Either is an option, and the light of the Trees can shine into his workshop, so it's not like we have to show him going to 'fetch' light.