Session 5-02: Scope of the Season

Regarding the link between Bëor and Bereg, why not have some possibly trivial but recognisable family heirloom? PJ uses this in the films for Aragorn (the ring of Barahir and Arwen's necklace), and there are similar devices in the Silmarillion, though more significant ones. It would be a cultural fit for Bereg to have something small, durable and meaningful of Bëor's so it is clear to the audience there is a connection. Given his fate is unknown (so Tolkien Gateway tells me) this heirloom could have passed out of the written tradition and/or lost, thus isn't something that turns up centuries later.
 
Regarding the link between Bëor and Bereg, why not have some possibly trivial but recognisable family heirloom? PJ uses this in the films for Aragorn (the ring of Barahir and Arwen's necklace), and there are similar devices in the Silmarillion, though more significant ones. It would be a cultural fit for Bereg to have something small, durable and meaningful of Bëor's so it is clear to the audience there is a connection. Given his fate is unknown (so Tolkien Gateway tells me) this heirloom could have passed out of the written tradition and/or lost, thus isn't something that turns up centuries later.
Is he that close that he would be worthy of such an heirloom?
 
Regarding the link between Bëor and Bereg, why not have some possibly trivial but recognisable family heirloom? PJ uses this in the films for Aragorn (the ring of Barahir and Arwen's necklace), and there are similar devices in the Silmarillion, though more significant ones. It would be a cultural fit for Bereg to have something small, durable and meaningful of Bëor's so it is clear to the audience there is a connection. Given his fate is unknown (so Tolkien Gateway tells me) this heirloom could have passed out of the written tradition and/or lost, thus isn't something that turns up centuries later.
I really like this idea! What could this heirloom be? A weapon? A piece of clothing or jewelry? A staff or scepter of some kind?
Is he that close that he would be worthy of such an heirloom?
That depends on what the heirloom is. If it is something that means "chieftain of the whole House of Beor," then no, that should be passed to Bereg's cousin Boromir. If it is something that means "chieftain of the House of Beor in Estolad," then I think it plausible that Bereg would have it.

Maybe the heirloom could be something that Beor brings with him over the mountains into Beleriand then leaves with his son when he goes to Nargothrond to live with Finrod. Beor could get some fancy new symbol of office from the Elves, which we would later see with Boromir, and Bereg would have the original heirloom.
 
I really like this idea! What could this heirloom be? A weapon? A piece of clothing or jewelry? A staff or scepter of some kind?

That depends on what the heirloom is. If it is something that means "chieftain of the whole House of Beor," then no, that should be passed to Bereg's cousin Boromir. If it is something that means "chieftain of the House of Beor in Estolad," then I think it plausible that Bereg would have it.

Maybe the heirloom could be something that Beor brings with him over the mountains into Beleriand then leaves with his son when he goes to Nargothrond to live with Finrod. Beor could get some fancy new symbol of office from the Elves, which we would later see with Boromir, and Bereg would have the original heirloom.
What sort of artifacts will we have to signify the head of the House of Bëor? It's going to be a full season before the Ring of Barahir shows up.
 
I will imagine we will put something on their heads to denote leadership. Alternatively, some sort of staff.

Is he that close that he would be worthy of such an heirloom?

Yeah, like Rhiannon said, it depends what the heirloom is. I have a rosary that belonged to my great great aunt. It was given to me because I was the oldest daughter in my family. You know, the oldest daughter of the second son of the second son of her brother. I have 10 first cousins on that side of my family, and four younger siblings. I don't honestly know how many second cousins I have on that side of the family off the top of my head. My grandfather's older brother had three children and seven grandchildren, and his younger sister had six kids, and most all of them have kids, so, as you can see....there were a lot of potential recipients of any heirlooms in that family tree!

My mom was named after an unrelated family friend. That family friend gave her one of her possessions as a keepsake, which my mother still has. It's a little porcelain statue of an angel giving a dog a bath.

So basically we can choose any item that Bereg could reasonably have on his person in the scene we need him for, and make sure there are earlier scenes with that item on Bëor's person. Probably not a ring, but it could be a brooch. That would be prominently displayed on his chest, so easy to work into a camera shot.
 
Last edited:
Well, we should decide what sort of artifact this is.

If it is a staff of some kind, it would be pretty easy to hand off and very obvious when it reappears. It would also be different from the crowns that symbolize authority among the Elves.
 
If it is a staff of some kind, it would be pretty easy to hand off and very obvious when it reappears. It would also be different from the crowns that symbolize authority among the Elves.
Should there be two, one for the House of Beor and one handed down to Bereg?

This sounds similar to how in Black Panther, T’Challa’s grandfather had two rings; one was given to T’Challa’s father T’Chaka who inherited the throne and the title of Black Panther, the other to his second son N’Jobu. The second ring was inherited by N’Jobu’s son Erik, better known as Killmonger. T’Challa recognizes this ring when he encounters Killmonger in Busan and confronts Zuri, leading to the revelation about N’Jobu’s fate.

Also, what should happen to the staff inherited by the House of Beor? Would it be lost in the Dagor Bragollach?
 
Last edited:
Should there be two, one for the House of Beor and one handed down to Bereg?

This sounds similar to how in Black Panther, T’Challa’s grandfather had two rings; one was given to T’Challa’s father T’Chaka who inherited the throne and the title of Black Panther, the other to his second son N’Jobu. The second ring was inherited by N’Jobu’s son Erik, better known as Killmonger. T’Challa recognizes this ring when he encounters Killmonger in Busan and confronts Zuri, leading to the revelation about N’Jobu’s fate.

Also, what should happen to the staff inherited by the House of Beor? Would it be lost in the Dagor Bragollach?
I don't think the House of Beor would have two staffs if they didn't expect their house to split up when they met the Elves. I was thinking that Beor's passing down of this heirloom would symbolize that he is leaving the lifestyle of Men before they met the Elves behind. Bereg, on the other hand, remains in Estolad and then leaves Beleriand because he does not want to work with the Elves, so it is fitting that he has the staff.

If Beor takes up a new symbol of office that then would signify leadership of the House of Beor, this could be something given to him by Finrod, kind of like how Hador gets the Dragon-helm when he becomes leader of the House of Hador. Whatever this object is (maybe a crown?), it would probably be lost when Bregolas dies in the Dagor Bragollach.
 
I don't think the House of Beor would have two staffs if they didn't expect their house to split up when they met the Elves. I was thinking that Beor's passing down of this heirloom would symbolize that he is leaving the lifestyle of Men before they met the Elves behind. Bereg, on the other hand, remains in Estolad and then leaves Beleriand because he does not want to work with the Elves, so it is fitting that he has the staff.

If Beor takes up a new symbol of office that then would signify leadership of the House of Beor, this could be something given to him by Finrod, kind of like how Hador gets the Dragon-helm when he becomes leader of the House of Hador. Whatever this object is (maybe a crown?), it would probably be lost when Bregolas dies in the Dagor Bragollach.
Well, the idea I had with two staffs was that the one remaining in Beleriand would be part of the scepter for the Kings of Numenor.

But maybe a sword? Beren has a sword called Dagmor, that could be an heirloom. Nobody else in the House of Bëor has a named weapon.

Also, Beren's grandfather Bregor has a bow. How does a bow survive for thousands of years, since it's an heirloom of Numenor?
 
I don't think the House of Beor would have two staffs if they didn't expect their house to split up when they met the Elves. I was thinking that Beor's passing down of this heirloom would symbolize that he is leaving the lifestyle of Men before they met the Elves behind. Bereg, on the other hand, remains in Estolad and then leaves Beleriand because he does not want to work with the Elves, so it is fitting that he has the staff.

If Beor takes up a new symbol of office that then would signify leadership of the House of Beor, this could be something given to him by Finrod, kind of like how Hador gets the Dragon-helm when he becomes leader of the House of Hador. Whatever this object is (maybe a crown?), it would probably be lost when Bregolas dies in the Dagor Bragollach.
So why should Bereg have the staff if he's not the leader? He seems rather far down the line, past Boromir's children at least.
 
So why should Bereg have the staff if he's not the leader? He seems rather far down the line, past Boromir's children at least.
He could be the leader of the members of the House of Bëor that remain in Estolad. The others are in Dorthonion.
 
Look. The point is, Bereg is a very minor character. His entire role is so that, after the council with Fake!Amlach, there is a Man present to lead others back east over the mountains. We're not gonna spend any time developing him as a character - he's a device and a plot point. Amlach is the one who gets to be a character.

So, the question was raised, how do we show that he's a descendant of Bëor, since he's unlikely to just walk into frame and announce his genealogy. There were two possibilities raised - one is that, in making his arguments at the council, someone contrasts his view with his ancestor Bëor's view, and points out how he is departing from the founder of his House on this issue. The other is that there would be a physical object to tie the two characters together (prop or wardrobe), so that the connection between them would be made visually.

We *really* don't need to decide details at this stage of the game. Keep in mind that no one has convinced the Hosts that Bereg, Boromir, or Bregolas would ever be named on screen at this point.
 
I'm with @amysrevenge on this. This is probably a job for the arts department. Let's say for example that the three houses have three distinct cultural looks (just two here, to give a couple of examples, I'm not actually getting into the design bit here):
27782779

The leaders of each of the houses should have several easily spotted specific equipment details, which could be seen again - or not - when we see descendants and other leaders of the house. These items are distinguishable both by their general cultural look and by their function as ruler insignia, so that, even if the viewers didn't catch each and every one of them or don't remember them all, they can draw the correct conclusions about the person carrying them.
 
Here's the timeline again with the episodes marked.

View attachment 2760

I really do like this method of visually representing the timeline with storylines and the episodes. It helps to specify what is going on at a glance.

I do have a few concerns about pacing, but of course this was a very preliminary attempt at dividing out the season, and we had to start somewhere!

My first issue is how densely packed the episodes in the middle of the Season are.

In Episode 6, by combining the Fake!Amlach at the Council incident with the Battle at the Stockade incident in a single episode, we would be forcing both Amlach and Haleth to be more minor characters than we would like by making them share screentime for their 'major' events. I would prefer if they each got to shine as the 'primary human storyline' of the episodes where those events occur. After all, the build up to Annael's revealed treachery works well to make the audience anticipate this. We would therefore consider Annael the A plot, Amlach the B plot, and Haleth the C plot. That's just...not okay, since we get only one more episode with a Haleth storyline in it at all.

A similar issue occurs in Episode 7, where the culmination of Aredhel's story - her escape, return to Gondolin, murder, and Eöl's execution - is sharing screentime with the romance of Aegnor and Andreth. This, naturally, makes the story of Andreth and Aegnor a more minor note in the season, and I'm not entirely comfortable with relegating them to a B-plot. Also, this is the episode where we introduce Maeglin, and we probably would want to have at least some earlier glimpse of Aredhel raising child-Maeglin in Nan Elmoth, and Eöl taking him off to visit the dwarves and such. Probably room for that in Episode 5 (as 6 is already crammed full). So, this could be the first time we see the nearly-fullgrown-Maeglin actor, but probably shouldn't be the character introduction.

We have traditionally had a 'hinge' episode for the Season around Episode 8 - something that changes the direction of where things are going. The Trial of Melkor in Valinor during Season 2. The Shipburning in Season 3. The Dagor Aglareb wasn't until Episode 9 in Season 3...but the Kinslaying reveal is what the entire first half of the season was building up to. I think that the death of Aredhel is a good 'hinge' event for a central episode this season....is there another alternative for that 'hinge' point?



Episode 11 is currently pretty empty, which is a problem. We definitely need to spend time with Hador there, probably a young Barahir as well. So I agree with that. And tying up the Dwarf storyline makes sense. I recognize that the reason this episode feels so nebulous is that we haven't yet come up with Hador's storyline. So it's not so much that it's empty, as that it's undefined/unwritten. I imagine that if we include the double wedding of Hador's kids with the Haladin, it will be in this episode.

I do want to include the incident at the Pass of Aglon, but I'm not very convinced that we want that to happen in FA 402. I think it will probably work better much earlier, possibly in Bëor's lifetime. Having it so late - after the Stockade battle with Haleth - means that it is no longer answering the question of how Men fare in battle against Orcs, which was part of the point of it. I do like the opportunity to show Hador fighting, but I don't think we need to show Andreth's father fighting - we have already answered the question that the House of Bëor will fight beside the elves. Having it not seem like a time of war to Andreth is part of the point of her bitterness. Yes, she lives in a borderland, but she could quite easily go her entire life with no actual warfare occurring. The 'time of war' viewpoint of the elves doesn't match her timeline. Also, what the heck would Hador be doing at the Pass of Aglon? Let's make his storyline revolve around Fingolfin, Fingon, and Dor-lomin.

I think that Bëor in Episode 1 (Man-centric) and other two Edain Houses in Episode 2 (Laiquendi-centric) is a good plan. It gets all the players on the board quickly, and introduces the tension between Men and Elves in interesting ways. Just as we have some elf subplots in Episode 1, we would want some Men subplots in Episode 2 - I think we can probably manage to get through Bëor's story in the first 4 episodes, not waiting until Episode 5 for him to die. But, that's the kind of detail that is easy enough to shift around as the rest of the episodes take shape. I'm more concerned with the densely-packed Amlach-Haleth-Andreth episodes, and naturally the solution to that is to let them expand into the Bëor and Hador episodes (which there are currently plenty of).

I feel that waiting until Episode 3 to introduce Aredhel's storyline would be a grave error. She's a major character throughout this season (or well, at least the first half of the season). We do want Aredhel's death somewhere around mid-season, probably, but if so, then we *definitely* need to show her restless in Gondolin in Episode 1. Sure, it would be a minor subplot compared to the major 'Bëor and Finrod meet' plot, but we need to see her right away. Fingolfin, too, needs to appear in Episode 1 - so either he or Aredhel is the C-plot, but they should both be on screen.

I guess that brings up the point of how we want to handle Aredhel's storyline - if it's going to be told in 'small bits and pieces' throughout each episode of the first half of the season, or if we're going to have 2-3 Aredhel-centric episodes broken up by episodes in which she does not appear at all. Because, in the outline you have given, Episode 3 focuses on her decision to leave Gondolin, Episode 4 is her adventures in Nan Dungortheb and meeting Eöl, and Episode 7 is her escape and death. Is that...going to be enough?
 
Last edited:
I've been looking at the timeline and I'm not sure if Amlach should be the leader bringing the House of Hador into Beleriand. By the time we reach the fake!Amlach plot, Amlach is going to be ancient if he's a contemporary of Bëor (and bear in mind Bëor is already dead).
 
I really do like this method of visually representing the timeline with storylines and the episodes. It helps to specify what is going on at a glance.

I do have a few concerns about pacing, but of course this was a very preliminary attempt at dividing out the season, and we had to start somewhere!

My first issue is how densely packed the episodes in the middle of the Season are.

In Episode 6, by combining the Fake!Amlach at the Council incident with the Battle at the Stockade incident in a single episode, we would be forcing both Amlach and Haleth to be more minor characters than we would like by making them share screentime for their 'major' events. I would prefer if they each got to shine as the 'primary human storyline' of the episodes where those events occur. After all, the build up to Annael's revealed treachery works well to make the audience anticipate this. We would therefore consider Annael the A plot, Amlach the B plot, and Haleth the C plot. That's just...not okay, since we get only one more episode with a Haleth storyline in it at all.

A similar issue occurs in Episode 7, where the culmination of Aredhel's story - her escape, return to Gondolin, murder, and Eöl's execution - is sharing screentime with the romance of Aegnor and Andreth. This, naturally, makes the story of Andreth and Aegnor a more minor note in the season, and I'm not entirely comfortable with relegating them to a B-plot. Also, this is the episode where we introduce Maeglin, and we probably would want to have at least some earlier glimpse of Aredhel raising child-Maeglin in Nan Elmoth, and Eöl taking him off to visit the dwarves and such. Probably room for that in Episode 5 (as 6 is already crammed full). So, this could be the first time we see the nearly-fullgrown-Maeglin actor, but probably shouldn't be the character introduction.

We have traditionally had a 'hinge' episode for the Season around Episode 8 - something that changes the direction of where things are going. The Trial of Melkor in Valinor during Season 2. The Shipburning in Season 3. The Dagor Aglareb wasn't until Episode 9 in Season 3...but the Kinslaying reveal is what the entire first half of the season was building up to. I think that the death of Aredhel is a good 'hinge' event for a central episode this season....is there another alternative for that 'hinge' point?



Episode 11 is currently pretty empty, which is a problem. We definitely need to spend time with Hador there, probably a young Barahir as well. So I agree with that. And tying up the Dwarf storyline makes sense. I recognize that the reason this episode feels so nebulous is that we haven't yet come up with Hador's storyline. So it's not so much that it's empty, as that it's undefined/unwritten. I imagine that if we include the double wedding of Hador's kids with the Haladin, it will be in this episode.

I do want to include the incident at the Pass of Aglon, but I'm not very convinced that we want that to happen in FA 402. I think it will probably work better much earlier, possibly in Bëor's lifetime. Having it so late - after the Stockade battle with Haleth - means that it is no longer answering the question of how Men fare in battle against Orcs, which was part of the point of it. I do like the opportunity to show Hador fighting, but I don't think we need to show Andreth's father fighting - we have already answered the question that the House of Bëor will fight beside the elves. Having it not seem like a time of war to Andreth is part of the point of her bitterness. Yes, she lives in a borderland, but she could quite easily go her entire life with no actual warfare occurring. The 'time of war' viewpoint of the elves doesn't match her timeline. Also, what the heck would Hador be doing at the Pass of Aglon? Let's make his storyline revolve around Fingolfin, Fingon, and Dor-lomin.

I think that Bëor in Episode 1 (Man-centric) and other two Edain Houses in Episode 2 (Laiquendi-centric) is a good plan. It gets all the players on the board quickly, and introduces the tension between Men and Elves in interesting ways. Just as we have some elf subplots in Episode 1, we would want some Men subplots in Episode 2 - I think we can probably manage to get through Bëor's story in the first 4 episodes, not waiting until Episode 5 for him to die. But, that's the kind of detail that is easy enough to shift around as the rest of the episodes take shape. I'm more concerned with the densely-packed Amlach-Haleth-Andreth episodes, and naturally the solution to that is to let them expand into the Bëor and Hador episodes (which there are currently plenty of).

I feel that waiting until Episode 3 to introduce Aredhel's storyline would be a grave error. She's a major character throughout this season (or well, at least the first half of the season). We do want Aredhel's death somewhere around mid-season, probably, but if so, then we *definitely* need to show her restless in Gondolin in Episode 1. Sure, it would be a minor subplot compared to the major 'Bëor and Finrod meet' plot, but we need to see her right away. Fingolfin, too, needs to appear in Episode 1 - so either he or Aredhel is the C-plot, but they should both be on screen.

I guess that brings up the point of how we want to handle Aredhel's storyline - if it's going to be told in 'small bits and pieces' throughout each episode of the first half of the season, or if we're going to have 2-3 Aredhel-centric episodes broken up by episodes in which she does not appear at all. Because, in the outline you have given, Episode 3 focuses on her decision to leave Gondolin, Episode 4 is her adventures in Nan Dungortheb and meeting Eöl, and Episode 7 is her escape and death. Is that...going to be enough?
Thanks for the feedback on the timeline! I really was just trying to get something out there because I thought picturing the episodes like that would be helpful. I agree with most of the points you've made about the pacing, and I'll try to put together a few different timelines this evening that address them.
 
I really do like this method of visually representing the timeline with storylines and the episodes. It helps to specify what is going on at a glance.

I do have a few concerns about pacing, but of course this was a very preliminary attempt at dividing out the season, and we had to start somewhere!

My first issue is how densely packed the episodes in the middle of the Season are.

In Episode 6, by combining the Fake!Amlach at the Council incident with the Battle at the Stockade incident in a single episode, we would be forcing both Amlach and Haleth to be more minor characters than we would like by making them share screentime for their 'major' events. I would prefer if they each got to shine as the 'primary human storyline' of the episodes where those events occur. After all, the build up to Annael's revealed treachery works well to make the audience anticipate this. We would therefore consider Annael the A plot, Amlach the B plot, and Haleth the C plot. That's just...not okay, since we get only one more episode with a Haleth storyline in it at all.

A similar issue occurs in Episode 7, where the culmination of Aredhel's story - her escape, return to Gondolin, murder, and Eöl's execution - is sharing screentime with the romance of Aegnor and Andreth. This, naturally, makes the story of Andreth and Aegnor a more minor note in the season, and I'm not entirely comfortable with relegating them to a B-plot. Also, this is the episode where we introduce Maeglin, and we probably would want to have at least some earlier glimpse of Aredhel raising child-Maeglin in Nan Elmoth, and Eöl taking him off to visit the dwarves and such. Probably room for that in Episode 5 (as 6 is already crammed full). So, this could be the first time we see the nearly-fullgrown-Maeglin actor, but probably shouldn't be the character introduction.

We have traditionally had a 'hinge' episode for the Season around Episode 8 - something that changes the direction of where things are going. The Trial of Melkor in Valinor during Season 2. The Shipburning in Season 3. The Dagor Aglareb wasn't until Episode 9 in Season 3...but the Kinslaying reveal is what the entire first half of the season was building up to. I think that the death of Aredhel is a good 'hinge' event for a central episode this season....is there another alternative for that 'hinge' point?



Episode 11 is currently pretty empty, which is a problem. We definitely need to spend time with Hador there, probably a young Barahir as well. So I agree with that. And tying up the Dwarf storyline makes sense. I recognize that the reason this episode feels so nebulous is that we haven't yet come up with Hador's storyline. So it's not so much that it's empty, as that it's undefined/unwritten. I imagine that if we include the double wedding of Hador's kids with the Haladin, it will be in this episode.

I do want to include the incident at the Pass of Aglon, but I'm not very convinced that we want that to happen in FA 402. I think it will probably work better much earlier, possibly in Bëor's lifetime. Having it so late - after the Stockade battle with Haleth - means that it is no longer answering the question of how Men fare in battle against Orcs, which was part of the point of it. I do like the opportunity to show Hador fighting, but I don't think we need to show Andreth's father fighting - we have already answered the question that the House of Bëor will fight beside the elves. Having it not seem like a time of war to Andreth is part of the point of her bitterness. Yes, she lives in a borderland, but she could quite easily go her entire life with no actual warfare occurring. The 'time of war' viewpoint of the elves doesn't match her timeline. Also, what the heck would Hador be doing at the Pass of Aglon? Let's make his storyline revolve around Fingolfin, Fingon, and Dor-lomin.

I think that Bëor in Episode 1 (Man-centric) and other two Edain Houses in Episode 2 (Laiquendi-centric) is a good plan. It gets all the players on the board quickly, and introduces the tension between Men and Elves in interesting ways. Just as we have some elf subplots in Episode 1, we would want some Men subplots in Episode 2 - I think we can probably manage to get through Bëor's story in the first 4 episodes, not waiting until Episode 5 for him to die. But, that's the kind of detail that is easy enough to shift around as the rest of the episodes take shape. I'm more concerned with the densely-packed Amlach-Haleth-Andreth episodes, and naturally the solution to that is to let them expand into the Bëor and Hador episodes (which there are currently plenty of).

I feel that waiting until Episode 3 to introduce Aredhel's storyline would be a grave error. She's a major character throughout this season (or well, at least the first half of the season). We do want Aredhel's death somewhere around mid-season, probably, but if so, then we *definitely* need to show her restless in Gondolin in Episode 1. Sure, it would be a minor subplot compared to the major 'Bëor and Finrod meet' plot, but we need to see her right away. Fingolfin, too, needs to appear in Episode 1 - so either he or Aredhel is the C-plot, but they should both be on screen.

I guess that brings up the point of how we want to handle Aredhel's storyline - if it's going to be told in 'small bits and pieces' throughout each episode of the first half of the season, or if we're going to have 2-3 Aredhel-centric episodes broken up by episodes in which she does not appear at all. Because, in the outline you have given, Episode 3 focuses on her decision to leave Gondolin, Episode 4 is her adventures in Nan Dungortheb and meeting Eöl, and Episode 7 is her escape and death. Is that...going to be enough?
For Men subplots: would we have some discontent amongst them right then and there after Beor departs for Nargothrond to foreshadow the Fake Amlach plotline? I have an idea to tie in with the "Catch and Release" program and the Fake Amlach, but perhaps it's not the time.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top