Session 4.06 - Overarching Storylines, Continued

MithLuin

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Session 4.04 focused on the Noldor storylines, High Kingship, and the reveal of the Kinslaying
Session 4.05 will be held on Friday December 14th and will focus on Celeborn and Galadriel.

Please post all commentary on Kinslaying, High Kingship, and the relationship of Celeborn and Galadriel in the Session 4.04 and 4.05 thread, continuing the discussions there.


As we continue our pre-planning for Season 4, it has become clear that we will need to devote some time to planning out some season long arcs before we discuss individual episodes.

The Silm Film Project will resume in the New Year on January 11th with Session 4.06, to discuss the following topics:

The Dwarves and the Petty-dwarves
Eöl
: What has he been doing since Cuiviénen? His role in Season 4?
Villains: Especially the catch-and-release elf captive program, but also Morgoth's actions in Hildorien and the creation of dragons (This will likely have to wait until Session 4.7 on January 25th)​

Save for the end:

If we don't manage to touch on these in the other discussions, we may need to include them in their own separate discussion. They are listed here as a reminder not to forget about them.
Círdan - rebuilding of the Falas? Círdan was discussed frequently during Session 4.04, and will thus not likely need additional time devoted to his storyline.
Green Elves in Ossiriand
Lúthien
- what is she doing?​
 
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Catch-and-release: maybe starts after the Mereth Aderthad with Sauron trying to find out more?
 
Maybe in a conversation between Gothmog and Sauron, we hear of what Morgoth has been doing. Maybe something like Gothmog is wondering where Morgoth is and is getting impatient for a battle. Sauron replies that Morgoth is looking for the Second Children of Iluvatar. He also says that he is sowing discord amongst the Eldar to set up an opportunity for a battle as a means of placating Gothmog.

This scene may be the episode after the Mereth Aderthad, which is presumably where the rumors about the Kinslaying spread.
 
Dragons: After the Dagor Aglareb, Morgoth will debrief with Sauron and Gothmog, and decide that they need a new weapon, because sheer numbers of Orcs are not enough to defeat the Noldor and the Sindar, and even with them divided (my current narrative for Season 4 places the Ban before the Dagon Aglareb to create some tension amongst the Noldor and the Sindar since the Noldor are capable of slaughtering Orcs by the dozen, what tension is there for the Dagor Aglareb if we already know how capable the Noldor are?).
 
How can Morgoth possibly be the one in Hildorien tempting the Mortals? He is unbearably hideous and people run screaming at the sight of him. It doesn't make any sense to put Morgoth in Hildorien. He can't do anything there except make the Mortals hate him. They certainly won't worship him.

Edit: About Eol, I think we can and should stick to what happened in the book, only moving it to occur when the Sun rose. He is already in Beleriand, and already in Nan Elmoth, before the Sons of Feanor get there, and objects to them invading "his" territory. I really do not want him living in Nargothrond instead of Nan Elmoth. Nor arriving in Beleriand after the Noldor have all established themselves. That is too drastically changing the character. He just wouldn't be the same character anymore.
 
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How can Morgoth possibly be the one in Hildorien tempting the Mortals? He is unbearably hideous and people run screaming at the sight of him. It doesn't make any sense to put Morgoth in Hildorien. He can't do anything there except make the Mortals hate him. They certainly won't worship him.

Edit: About Eol, I think we can and should stick to what happened in the book, only moving it to occur when the Sun rose. He is already in Beleriand, and already in Nan Elmoth, before the Sons of Feanor get there, and objects to them invading "his" territory. I really do not want him living in Nargothrond instead of Nan Elmoth. Nor arriving in Beleriand after the Noldor have all established themselves. That is too drastically changing the character. He wouldn't be the same person at all anymore.
Maybe not corrupt them yet, but he’s looking for them. That’s Sauron’s job to corrupt them, but neither Sauron nor Morgoth can be in two places at once. Say after Dagor Aglareb, Sauron is sent to corrupt Men.
 
I think the corruption most likely had to happen pretty early (before the Dagor Aglareb) because the humans set out from Hildorien very early. They have to, to get to Beleriand so soon.

I think Sauron has to be in Hildorien, and then return and conduct the spying and rumormongering after the Fall of Men is complete. Or Morgoth can order the initial spying and then Sauron can take over the rumormongering while Morgoth starts making Dragons. I think Morgoth is capable of handling spy operations. It is probably a specialty of Sauron... but Morgoth's still capable of it.

If the Fall of Men is completed in time for Mereth Aderthad, Sauron can still do both.
 
Fear can be a very strong motivator. I recognize that certainly beauty is more tempting than hideousness, but to think that no one would worship raw power out of abject terror is...probably a mistake. But are we aiming for a horror show or a seduction, here? Sauron seducing Men to worship Morgoth is the story of the Akallabeth. It *could* be the story of Hildorien...but it could be something quite different here as well.

We do have to decide the basics of what happens at Hildorien, even if it's mostly off-screen and vague. How much are we trying to preserve the Garden of Eden story? How much are we drawing from the two versions Tolkien wrote? What is our goal in alluding to the Fall of Men at all?

The Dagor Aglareb happens in year 60 of the First Age; Men won't arrive in Beleriand until 200 years later. So the real question is, how motivated are they to flee? The more motivated, the faster the progression, and the sooner they reach Beleriand. I don't think a factor of +/- 50 years will have significant impact on their ability to migrate.


As far as I can see, we want the audience to go 'oooooh' when Bëor tells Finrod that there is a darkness behind them that they do not wish to speak of. It should sound an awful lot like the Noldor's reluctance to say anything about the Kinslaying. But the nature of that darkness is maybe not super important.

Can Morgoth convince some new-born human beings to worship him? Probably, even if he does look like the Tyrant of Angband. He's just a terrible god that makes people fall to the ground in fear and trembling...in a bad way.
 
How long would Men be under Morgoth before emigrating westward into Beleriand?

This was always one of my two main timeline complaints. I feel like there should have been more time between the awakening of Men and their emergence in the West. Like, hundreds of years longer. I'd want at least 10 more generations, at the apparently extended lifespan of early Men. Long enough for them to completely forget their awakening in anything other than the most mythological terms, and split into distinct groups with sundered languages (see below haha) and skin colours and such.

Like, how many generations from the awakening is Beor the Old? 3 maybe? Would his lifetime have overlapped with any of the first generation of Men? That this is even a question I don't instantly know the answer to means it is toooo close.

(My other main timeline complaint is how (relatively) quickly Elven languages shift within the lifetimes of the speakers. I reckon I'd need to be around longer than a few hundred years to forget English more-or-less entirely. Much longer for me than if you're talking about my descendants - I could easily imagine a scenario where my great-grandchildren would have as much understanding of English as I have of my own great-grandparents' native Norwegian (ie. none to speak of), but if it was me still alive at the time, having still been speaking to the same people and sharing a common language throughout? Boy, that's a hard one. Like, if after 500 years my beard is now a glorb instead of a beard, and I don't even remember the word "beard" or that my glorb was ever anything other than a glorb.)
 
Tolkien certainly considered adding more time to this part of the timeline when he was doing his revised myths, and part of that was precisely because there are too few generations. I think that having this all happen 'next season' after some major cities have been built should help the audience to feel the passage of time. But I also recognize that having only (roughly) 13 generations from Awakening until the arrival in Beleriand is...cutting it rather close. (A human generation is considered to be ~20 years, and you would interact with the 2 generations before and after you....we don't get longer lifespans until we go to Numenor, probably.)
 
You're right, we can probably make it work by not putting too much emphasis on the exact amount of time. It will be a couple seasons of time in the show, for starters, and the previous seasons have covered some big years/ages/epochs. And we'll be marveling over how much the Noldor have built in Beleriand. And we haven't actually been watching over the Men - we might see some flashbacks (I think the general feeling on that has been "No" so far, but we haven't really battled it out yet), but otherwise we're getting the Edain without any real backstory other than what little Beor and later Andreth have to say, am I right? And some hints from the villains about their Men project that I don't think we're planning to show any of.
 
Tolkien certainly considered adding more time to this part of the timeline when he was doing his revised myths, and part of that was precisely because there are too few generations. I think that having this all happen 'next season' after some major cities have been built should help the audience to feel the passage of time. But I also recognize that having only (roughly) 13 generations from Awakening until the arrival in Beleriand is...cutting it rather close. (A human generation is considered to be ~20 years, and you would interact with the 2 generations before and after you....we don't get longer lifespans until we go to Numenor, probably.)
We could do it for symbolism: Wandering for 40 years before reaching a new land isn’t exactly a new concept.
 
How much are we trying to preserve the Garden of Eden story? How much are we drawing from the two versions Tolkien wrote?
The Eden-like story in the Tale of Adanel is the most detailed, but it's also a Round World story. It tells of the Men awakening long before the fall of Utumno, and Morgoth coming to them in a beautiful guise, deceiving them, and offering them bribes of new technology, telling them the Voice of God is a large monster who wants to eat them. So, simply because we use the Flat World story with Men awakening after Morgoth returns from Valinor, we can't use the Tale of Adanel 100% as-is.

Men, before their Fall, had moral instincts just as good as Elves, plus they supposedly could talk directly to Eru. I don't think they'd want to worship an openly evil monster whom they knew was evil. They hadn't experiened death or disease yet, and unless Morgoth brought armies with him they could just run away from him instead of worshiping him, and most would survive without Falling. Most Elves didn't become Orcs because they were afraid of the Hunter and didn't want to worship it. Feanor was tricked, but still despised Morgoth even before the Darkening.

I think it's easier to use Annatar the deceiver for this. I could be convinced to use Morgoth if I saw a believable enough proposal. What's a scenario in which Morgoth, obviously evil to everyone who sees him, and not equipped with the torture chambers of Utumno, convinces unfallen people who can talk to God to worship him instead?


I think that having this all happen 'next season' after some major cities have been built should help the audience to feel the passage of time.
It's what we can do, without rewriting the story, since we've used the Flat World chronology with Men awakening with the first Sunrise. I think it'll be fine. I'm OK with skin colors and hobbits appearing with accelerated speed when Men move to different climates, and their languages splitting up super-fast like in the Tower of Babel story. The Bible gives humanity even fewer years to get to their current diversity*, and as a mythic-scale story about sacred and supernatural events it works.

A way to add a feeling of time is for Aredhel, when arguing with Turgon and running away from Gondolin, tells him "We've been cooped up in this narrow little valley for 200 years of the Sun." It would show it's been longer than a couple decades.

*The Bible puts the creation of Mankind 6000 years ago. Tolkien put the Lord of the Rings 6000 years ago, making the first Sunrise ~13,150-13,200 years ago.


My other main timeline complaint is how (relatively) quickly Elven languages shift within the lifetimes of the speakers.
Yeah, that's a weird one. The rising of the Sun makes change happen quicker than it did under the stars? I dunno. Luckily we can mostly ignore it in SilmFilm.
 
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Tolkien tried to deal with the changes in Elvish tongues in Etymologies, and basically wound up arguing that elves have a very strong aesthetic taste associated with language, so as something 'better' comes along, it is adopted and replaces the old version.

The Shibboleth of Fëanor deals with one such shift happening in Valinor, and Fëanor took it personally and considered everyone who adopted it to be uneducated heathens. But the shift still happened anyway (a s-->th situation).

I realize that it's still wild to think that elves would forget their own mother tongue and be unable to speak with an individual they used to have a common language with. There probably isn't really a good way for linguistics to take immortality into account.



The Garden of Eden story is one of temptation/seduction. If we wanted to use Morgoth for that, could he make his appearance so blindingly bright that the humans can't even look at him directly, so it's just his voice that they hear? He's the Vala of extremes of heat and cold, so he could drastically impact the environment when he shows up, and then offer to save them from the blight he created (or something like that).
 
Tolkien tried to deal with the changes in Elvish tongues in Etymologies, and basically wound up arguing that elves have a very strong aesthetic taste associated with language, so as something 'better' comes along, it is adopted and replaces the old version.

The Shibboleth of Fëanor deals with one such shift happening in Valinor, and Fëanor took it personally and considered everyone who adopted it to be uneducated heathens. But the shift still happened anyway (a s-->th situation).

I realize that it's still wild to think that elves would forget their own mother tongue and be unable to speak with an individual they used to have a common language with. There probably isn't really a good way for linguistics to take immortality into account.
Plus there’s the runes of Gondolin, which evolved independently. It isn’t related to Quenya or Sindarin, since Gandalf, who would know either language, cannot read the runes on Glamdring.
 
Plus there’s the runes of Gondolin, which evolved independently. It isn’t related to Quenya or Sindarin, since Gandalf, who would know either language, cannot read the runes on Glamdring.
I'm going to put that one down to "Tolkien didn't know who or what Gandalf was, or how old he was, when he wrote the Hobbit" and assume Elrond was educating Thorin rather than Gandalf. (Also Tolkien had 'Gondolic runes' at the time he wrote that, and abandoned them later.)

The Garden of Eden story is one of temptation/seduction. If we wanted to use Morgoth for that, could he make his appearance so blindingly bright that the humans can't even look at him directly, so it's just his voice that they hear? He's the Vala of extremes of heat and cold, so he could drastically impact the environment when he shows up, and then offer to save them from the blight he created (or something like that).
I'm not feeling convinced... if he made himself that hot I feel like he would cause a lava flow and still be visibly the Prince of Darkness, or at least Something Horribly Wrong. Like... Balrogs are apparently made of fire or filled with fire, but surrounded by shadows and psychic terror anyway, for no reason a modern physicist could justify. I also suspect that Morgoth's voice and singing (and Songs of Power) are just as horrible as his appearance by now.


About Elf captives, here's my proposal:

Rog: escapes, becomes a fiercer opponent against Morgoth
Orodreth: escapes, but becomes weaker – will not be a collaborator
Eldalotë: put under the Spell of Bottomless Dread, and let go – will be a collaborator at some point
Rog and Orodreth escape together, with some extras.
Some extras also get put under the Spell of Bottomless Dread, along with Eldalotë, because the people who escaped with free will should be a fluke, they shouldn't outnumber those put under the spell. Also for that reason Ecthelion shouldn't be captured.
 
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I thought Eldalote was still in Valinor.

I had an idea for Rog tearing through Orcs in his escape, kinda like Darth Vader in Rogue One.
 
Beor was 48 years old when he came to Beleriand, he would have been the great-grandchild or great-great-grandchild of one of the firstborn.he easily is 4th or 5th generation i think, as the edain seem to have an average lifespan of ca. 80.Does Morgoth meet the firstborn or already the secondborn?
 
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