Session 4.09 & 4.10- Overarching Storylines: Hildorien, Dragons, and Lúthien

MithLuin

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We need to do the following 'homework' from the 2/15 session (4.08):
  • We need a Noldo who will be made captive and become a slave working in Morgoth's mines indefinitely. This person should be a renowned artisan who should be considered an 'asset' by Angband, and the beginning of the Noldor slave labor. A woman (wife/daughter of character who already has a role) is an acceptable candidate.
  • Special effects for the Spell of Bottomless Dread? Recall that we are meant to show Morgoth using up his own power when he does what he does...and we have to show how the elves are not in total control of their own mind/actions, that links to Sauron's use of the Ring to overpower wills.

Session 4.09 was held on Friday February 22nd. We discussed the Fall of Men in Hildorien.

March 8th (Session 4.10) will be where we discuss the creation of Dragons, and the role of Lúthien in this season. IF time permits, we will also begin to address the question of the overall Season Outline.

Quick reminder that this project uses an Executive Producer model. That means that all creative output/ideas/suggestions are run by the Execs, and they decide yea/nay as to whether or not that is the direction they want this project to go. Remember the behind the scenes shots from the Lord of the Rings films where they had to show everything to Peter Jackson and get him to sign off on it? It's like that. That's how this works. We make suggestions here on the boards, but *nothing* is actually decided here.


Edit: To correct the schedule in light of today's session. Please continue to use this thread to discuss Dragons and Lúthien.
 
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A female Noldo who is captured and works as a slave in the mines... Curufin’s wife? He’s the crafty one of Feanor’s sons, and his son Celebrimbor is one of the greatest Elven-smiths. We could have this Noldo sometimes fighting on the inside, since someone has to slip Gwindor a sword that he uses to escape.

Special Effects for the Spell of Bottomless Dread... unhealthy pallor, monochromatic, mind-control eyes? Or the eyes of Morgoth staring back through someone’s face?

Dragon project: Morgoth starts on this shortly after the Dagor Aglareb. I’ve suggested that he has a failure at least once.
 
We need to do the following 'homework' from the 2/15 session We need a Noldo who will be made captive and become a slave working in Morgoth's mines indefinitely. This person should be a renowned artisan who should be considered an 'asset' by Angband, and the beginning of the Noldor slave labor. A woman (wife/daughter of character who already has a role) is an acceptable candidate
i though of rumil here... but a female? Why not...

We need to do the following 'homework' from the 2/15 session

Quick reminder that this project uses an Executive Producer model. That means that all creative output/ideas/suggestions are run by the Execs, and they decide yea/nay as to whether or not that is the direction they want this project to go. Remember the behind the scenes shots from the Lord of the Rings films where they had to show everything to Peter Jackson and get him to sign off on it? It's like that. That's how this works. We make suggestions here on the boards, but *nothing* is actually decided here.
I know its the way its always been and its a realistic model... but often not very encouraging or motivating...
 
With Luthien, I imagine everything she does will be at an unprecedented standard. I think we are dealing with a nuclear bomb and I would argue against using her much. I know the host like the idea of having Luthien much more involved, but she would just accomplish too much. I don't think Luthien is any less potent than Melian, but possibly more charismatic and relate-able to Elves.

As for dragons, I think they should be Morgoth's version of werewolves, but with even more of his power put into them.
 
I know it's not what we are planning, and the Silmaril adventure later is so fantastic, but this is my nightmare for pre-Beren Luthien:
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I know it's not what we are planning, and the Silmaril adventure later is so fantastic, but this is my nightmare for pre-Beren Luthien:
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Luthien's problem is the exact opposite of that though. She is just too powerful, charismatic and loved to get involved.

Why aren't all the Sindar and the Noldor going to agree with Luthien?
What other types of powerful magic can she use in a battle? She put everything in Angband to sleep. Balrogs, dragons, werewolves and Morgoth himself.
When Luthien has the Silmaril unprotected the Sons of Feanor don't attack.

I would prefer to have her heavily involved in Doriath and be Thingol's right hand woman. Apart from teaching her younger cousins she could play an important role in ruling Doriath. Thingol should have no problem delegating the rule to her, when he goes on holiday with Melian.
 
Luthien's problem is the exact opposite of that though. She is just too powerful, charismatic and loved to get involved.

Why aren't all the Sindar and the Noldor going to agree with Luthien?
What other types of powerful magic can she use in a battle? She put everything in Angband to sleep. Balrogs, dragons, werewolves and Morgoth himself.
When Luthien has the Silmaril unprotected the Sons of Feanor don't attack.

I would prefer to have her heavily involved in Doriath and be Thingol's right hand woman. Apart from teaching her younger cousins she could play an important role in ruling Doriath. Thingol should have no problem delegating the rule to her, when he goes on holiday with Melian.
Maybe Thingol gets way paranoid about letting her interact with the Noldor for very long and doesn’t allow her to get involved much, thinking the Noldor will take Luthien away from him? He expected Beren to die trying when he sent him to retrieve a Silmaril from Morgoth.

But we definitely should have her doing something of use other than baking.
 
So, my opinion on the Spell of Bottomless Dread is that it be signified to the audience through musical cues. Any visual effect begs the question of why the characters on screen can't see it. And no, having the eye color change whenever someone's back is turned doesn't solve the issue. It leads us to ask why that is happening in that way. There is a case to be made that the effect is merely an abstraction for the benefit of the audience, just like the music. Modern audiences, however, are trained to understand that the characters on the screen cannot hear the music, while visual effects are assumed to be visible internally.

As to the making of dragons, it certainly starts out as a breeding program, but eventually the spirit of Glaurung is introduced. My vote is that Glaurung is not visible to the audience until the season finale, or at least the penultimate episode. I do, however, like the idea of Glaurung going to work on Gothmog, manipulating him. It lands Glaurung right into the fray of the intra-Angband politics, and he is a much bigger political threat to Sauron than Gothmog is, ultimately.
 
I guess the overarching question is: from what point should the audience be able to know that escaped Elf A is under the SoBD, while escaped Elf B is not? Right from the start? Never for certain? Something in between?
 
I guess the overarching question is: from what point should the audience be able to know that escaped Elf A is under the SoBD, while escaped Elf B is not? Right from the start? Never for certain? Something in between?
When we hear the music play?
 
Even then, we'd have to somehow explicitly link the music to the effects of the SoBD, otherwise potentially all the audience knows is that a character's musical cue has changed.

Like I was saying. Rog and Eldalote. One is a SoBD victim, the other isn't. How early do we want the audience to know this? Right from the start? Only when Eldalote acts under that influence, and then it's always hanging over Rog until he dies? Or maybe once Eldalote is deomonstrated to be a SoBD story, we can deduce somehow from musical cues that Rog isn't?
 
Even then, we'd have to somehow explicitly link the music to the effects of the SoBD, otherwise potentially all the audience knows is that a character's musical cue has changed.

Like I was saying. Rog and Eldalote. One is a SoBD victim, the other isn't. How early do we want the audience to know this? Right from the start? Only when Eldalote acts under that influence, and then it's always hanging over Rog until he dies? Or maybe once Eldalote is deomonstrated to be a SoBD story, we can deduce somehow from musical cues that Rog isn't?
Perhaps we hear the SoBD theme for Eldalote, but not for Rog?
 
True, but that still doesn't mean anything without some other indication. All it is is, is a changed musical cue until there is some exposition linked to the music.

And, I think it is probably up to our Execs exactly how much we want the audience to know, vs. how much we want them to guess, vs. how much we want to have them surprised by. It's probably one of the critical decision points for the upcoming session.
 
True, but that still doesn't mean anything without some other indication. All it is is, is a changed musical cue until there is some exposition linked to the music.

And, I think it is probably up to our Execs exactly how much we want the audience to know, vs. how much we want them to guess, vs. how much we want to have them surprised by. It's probably one of the critical decision points for the upcoming session.
Well, @Nicholas Palazzo brings up a point that if we have a visual cue for the SoBD, we have to have a reason why the audience can’t see it. The image of monochromatic eyes at the beginning of the thread on the SoBD of Viktor Crum pulling his wand on Harry while under the Imperius Curse in the Goblet of Fire is something that was added in the film; the book is explicit that it is almost impossible to distinguish between someone who is under the Imperius Curse and this caused a lot of trouble for the Ministry of Magic during the First Wizarding War.
 
So, the SoBD is kind of an ultimate tension-creating tool. Imagine the following. We have someone captured by Angband, and we see Melkor put the whammy on them. (This can be done through music, with visuals accompanying which illustrate that the mind of the captive is being broken.) Later, we show the captive, now escaped, betraying the protagonists, and we play a reprise of that music.

Let us also say that we have another captive who is not shown initially to be under the SoBD betray the protagonist, while playing the SoBD music. We are now telling the audience that there could be many who have been brainwashed in this way, and we can't no for certain who they are.

Finally, another member of the captives does something causing us to suspect him/her, but the protagonists are unaware of it. We play the BoSD music again. "Oh no!" the audience cries, "He/She is going to betray them, too!" We even get one of the protagonists suspicious. In the end, the suspicion proves to be unfounded, but the damage is done. Neither the Elves, nor the audience, know who can be trusted.
 
I agree that a musical cue would be great. Let's see what Phillip comes up with for this!
 
Maybe Thingol gets way paranoid about letting her interact with the Noldor for very long and doesn’t allow her to get involved much, thinking the Noldor will take Luthien away from him? He expected Beren to die trying when he sent him to retrieve a Silmaril from Morgoth.

But we definitely should have her doing something of use other than baking.
This still makes Luthien look like a litte girl. It's one of the hundreds of things that annoyed me about the Peter Jackson film. They made Arwen act like a child, instead of a 3,000 year old queen (not the crying there should have been a lot more crying by men and women in the films).

Luthien is already at a greater stage than even Galadriel in LOTR or Feanor in Silmarillion. In fact age wise she is probably older than any of the Noldor including Fingolfin. She has no peers. Sending Luthien out to interact with the Noldor is only slightly lesser than writing Melian performing the same role. As Thingol finds out Luthien is not the sort of Elf, that can be controlled. She has a will of iron and when she sets her mind to it nothing will change it. An example of this is after choosing Beren, she refuses to ever speak Sindar to him, but instead uses the Beorian tongue. She hands out threats to Sauron, puts Carcharoth down with a word and is prepared to face Morgoth on his throne.

Others may disagree, but Thingol and Luthien don't seem to have a relationship where he forbids her from doing things. He is her father and king, she respects and they tend to be in agreement, much like Melian and Thingol are in agreement. Beren coming into the picture throws a wrench in the relationship.
 
This still makes Luthien look like a litte girl. It's one of the hundreds of things that annoyed me about the Peter Jackson film. They made Arwen act like a child, instead of a 3,000 year old queen (not the crying there should have been a lot more crying by men and women in the films).

Luthien is already at a greater stage than even Galadriel in LOTR or Feanor in Silmarillion. In fact age wise she is probably older than any of the Noldor including Fingolfin. She has no peers. Sending Luthien out to interact with the Noldor is only slightly lesser than writing Melian performing the same role. As Thingol finds out Luthien is not the sort of Elf, that can be controlled. She has a will of iron and when she sets her mind to it nothing will change it. An example of this is after choosing Beren, she refuses to ever speak Sindar to him, but instead uses the Beorian tongue. She hands out threats to Sauron, puts Carcharoth down with a word and is prepared to face Morgoth on his throne.

Others may disagree, but Thingol and Luthien don't seem to have a relationship where he forbids her from doing things. He is her father and king, she respects and they tend to be in agreement, much like Melian and Thingol are in agreement. Beren coming into the picture throws a wrench in the relationship.
So then why is Luthien practically absent for most of the First Age? There has to be a reason and I tried to suggest one. I also made a suggestion about her being a healer with the intention of concealing the power that she is capable of by putting her into a non-combatant role until she comes into the limelight.
 
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