The goal of this adaptation is to make the story of the Silmarillion accessible to people who have not read the Silmarillion (though some familiarity with Lord of the Rings is presumed in the audience), and thus to tell Tolkien's stories in an episodic television series style rather than in a plot summary history book style (which most of the published Silmarillion is).
When reading this section of the book, there is a lot of 'and then these people moved here' and there's always a new name of the lord of the people when that happens. Is it possible to follow? Sure. But it is passages like this that make people compare The Silmarillion to the Old Testament unfavorably - it's just a list of names! Each person does, like, one thing, and then they die!
I agree that later on we are going to gloss over generations of Men to get to the characters we want to get to. I think that the desire not to do that here is in part because this is the Season where Men are introduced. We've caught glimpses of them thrice before, but this is the first time they speak up and we get to know them. We want some time to settle in and get to know them, rather than killing each one off in the episode where they are introduced. Skipping from Bëor directly to Bëor's great-grandson will feel jarring to the audience. Do we want them jarred? That's another question. It's certainly possible to argue that that will feed into the story we are trying to tell of the passage of time and the difference between the immortal and mortal perspectives. But it does mean that whoever was on screen in any prior episode needs to....be dead soon.
Some characters can get away with having an unclear place in the genealogy - we've already called out Adanel as one such character. She needn't be from the line of the chieftain, she needn't be anyone's mother or sister. We can connect her to other characters - make her Amlach's cousin and Emeldir's grandmother, that's fine. But we don't have to make any effort to fit her into a particular generation or a particular year. Her main role is as a wise woman who is a mentor to Andreth. Her role as supporting character to Andreth will make sense without much explanation of family trees, outside of pointing out that she married into the House of Bëor.
For other characters - we run into trouble. The House of Hador from Hador on is fine; the House of Hador in the time before Hador can likely be left murky. How many generations exist between Amlach and Hador, and what is their relationship? The viewer will likely never know. But can we actually hold that council without calling out who is whose son, and what their relationships are to one another? That's probably...more difficult. We know we will want Bereg and Fake!Amlach to speak. We will likely use Adanel there as well. I hear you, Alcarohtar, that there can be an excuse for the chieftain to be 'off with the elves' at the time, but...why wouldn't the chieftain be at the council? If you hold a council without him or his heir present, are you really planning a rebellion/coup? Either way, at this point, you now have a lot of voices to introduce, and even if Amlach and Bereg are the main ones, we'll have to establish anyone else who isn't just standing around murmuring. And...every single one of those characters introduced will be dead and history by the next episode. To my mind, it might be easiest if there is no clear chieftain; if each 'clan' has their own leader, and they're a not-so-cohesive group. That would explain the 'dithering' thing - there are actually multiple voices and none of them is in charge. So, sure, we can have Malach, and he rules his own house...but maybe he doesn't get to speak for Amlach's house? Or something like that.
When I said that I wanted characters' stories to overlap, mostly what that means is that I want all of our 'main character' Men to get at least 3 episodes of screen time (if their story justifies this). Is there a way to do that while following the existing timeline and merely 'skipping ahead' at points? Perhaps. We could introduce Bëor, tell Haleth's and Amlach's stories, and then come back to a dying ancient Bëor because so much time has passed. I'm hardly suggesting that such an adaptation is impossible. I am saying that if Bëor enters Beleriand in 310 and the Dagor Bragollach is in 455, we are going to run into issues with characters dying off in a more condensed fashion, though. The story is going to feel choppy and frantic if it has to cover more time. It will seem like it has more time to breathe if we shorten the years/generations a bit. I am not okay with trying to tell Haleth's entire story in one episode. I want Haleth to have 3 episodes. And that means...that time can't just be skipping ahead 50 years whenever we want it to.
'Creating more work for us' is not actually a reason to avoid making an adaptation choice. Just using what is already there is fine - if it works the way it is. Putting in the effort to create something new over the course of an adaptation project is both expected and desired. In this case, there are a handful of rules to keep in mind while constructing family trees (namely, that people are the appropriate age to be related to the people we want them to be related to), and I am pretty sure we can come up with some good working ones if we need to. Tolkien inserted about 200 years into the First Age, in order to get Men having enough generations. We can keep that...I'm just asking that we shift 50 of those years into the 'pre-Beleriand' days, and keep the remaining family trees in the FA 360-455 range. That allows for the following characters to all be alive at the mid-season point: Haleth, Boromir, Bereg, Amlach, Andreth, and Hador.
The goal of our adaptation this Season is for the audience to really get to know Bëor, Haleth, Andreth, and Hador. There will be other people - they all get supporting characters, of course! And sure, generations could be born and die off screen. But we want to connect our Men to each other in the least confusing way possible. Multiple silent generations offscreen...is not the least confusing option.
When reading this section of the book, there is a lot of 'and then these people moved here' and there's always a new name of the lord of the people when that happens. Is it possible to follow? Sure. But it is passages like this that make people compare The Silmarillion to the Old Testament unfavorably - it's just a list of names! Each person does, like, one thing, and then they die!
I agree that later on we are going to gloss over generations of Men to get to the characters we want to get to. I think that the desire not to do that here is in part because this is the Season where Men are introduced. We've caught glimpses of them thrice before, but this is the first time they speak up and we get to know them. We want some time to settle in and get to know them, rather than killing each one off in the episode where they are introduced. Skipping from Bëor directly to Bëor's great-grandson will feel jarring to the audience. Do we want them jarred? That's another question. It's certainly possible to argue that that will feed into the story we are trying to tell of the passage of time and the difference between the immortal and mortal perspectives. But it does mean that whoever was on screen in any prior episode needs to....be dead soon.
Some characters can get away with having an unclear place in the genealogy - we've already called out Adanel as one such character. She needn't be from the line of the chieftain, she needn't be anyone's mother or sister. We can connect her to other characters - make her Amlach's cousin and Emeldir's grandmother, that's fine. But we don't have to make any effort to fit her into a particular generation or a particular year. Her main role is as a wise woman who is a mentor to Andreth. Her role as supporting character to Andreth will make sense without much explanation of family trees, outside of pointing out that she married into the House of Bëor.
For other characters - we run into trouble. The House of Hador from Hador on is fine; the House of Hador in the time before Hador can likely be left murky. How many generations exist between Amlach and Hador, and what is their relationship? The viewer will likely never know. But can we actually hold that council without calling out who is whose son, and what their relationships are to one another? That's probably...more difficult. We know we will want Bereg and Fake!Amlach to speak. We will likely use Adanel there as well. I hear you, Alcarohtar, that there can be an excuse for the chieftain to be 'off with the elves' at the time, but...why wouldn't the chieftain be at the council? If you hold a council without him or his heir present, are you really planning a rebellion/coup? Either way, at this point, you now have a lot of voices to introduce, and even if Amlach and Bereg are the main ones, we'll have to establish anyone else who isn't just standing around murmuring. And...every single one of those characters introduced will be dead and history by the next episode. To my mind, it might be easiest if there is no clear chieftain; if each 'clan' has their own leader, and they're a not-so-cohesive group. That would explain the 'dithering' thing - there are actually multiple voices and none of them is in charge. So, sure, we can have Malach, and he rules his own house...but maybe he doesn't get to speak for Amlach's house? Or something like that.
When I said that I wanted characters' stories to overlap, mostly what that means is that I want all of our 'main character' Men to get at least 3 episodes of screen time (if their story justifies this). Is there a way to do that while following the existing timeline and merely 'skipping ahead' at points? Perhaps. We could introduce Bëor, tell Haleth's and Amlach's stories, and then come back to a dying ancient Bëor because so much time has passed. I'm hardly suggesting that such an adaptation is impossible. I am saying that if Bëor enters Beleriand in 310 and the Dagor Bragollach is in 455, we are going to run into issues with characters dying off in a more condensed fashion, though. The story is going to feel choppy and frantic if it has to cover more time. It will seem like it has more time to breathe if we shorten the years/generations a bit. I am not okay with trying to tell Haleth's entire story in one episode. I want Haleth to have 3 episodes. And that means...that time can't just be skipping ahead 50 years whenever we want it to.
'Creating more work for us' is not actually a reason to avoid making an adaptation choice. Just using what is already there is fine - if it works the way it is. Putting in the effort to create something new over the course of an adaptation project is both expected and desired. In this case, there are a handful of rules to keep in mind while constructing family trees (namely, that people are the appropriate age to be related to the people we want them to be related to), and I am pretty sure we can come up with some good working ones if we need to. Tolkien inserted about 200 years into the First Age, in order to get Men having enough generations. We can keep that...I'm just asking that we shift 50 of those years into the 'pre-Beleriand' days, and keep the remaining family trees in the FA 360-455 range. That allows for the following characters to all be alive at the mid-season point: Haleth, Boromir, Bereg, Amlach, Andreth, and Hador.
The goal of our adaptation this Season is for the audience to really get to know Bëor, Haleth, Andreth, and Hador. There will be other people - they all get supporting characters, of course! And sure, generations could be born and die off screen. But we want to connect our Men to each other in the least confusing way possible. Multiple silent generations offscreen...is not the least confusing option.
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And Prof. Olsen's case that we avoid the things that cause people to put the Silmarillion down forever seems to indicate the latter is valid.