Session 5-17: Season 5 Frame Story

To be honest, I don't really know how this has to do with the frame at this point. That the character becomes the Mouth seems kind of irrelevant to the frame story and will only pay off in the far future...If we don't make him the Mouth but a generic priest of Sauron what would have to change about the frame story idea? It'd be an easy fix if that's the only cause for concern.
 
Well I just read what you guys who participated in the session have written, I wasn’t there. If you say this idea isn’t part of the idea, of course it matters to me. But as I have said, under certain circumstances, it can make sense to me. I’m confident that it’ll work out fine in the end.
 
Well it is part of the idea, but so tangential that disliking it doesn't necessitating the frame story idea in my opinion ^^ If there's a problem with it we should see if we can resolve it before preferring to start from scratch. I'm not really attached to the whole Mouth of Sauron thing, it won't pay off before it is as good as forgotten.
 
I still think that there are some things that I need to understand about this Black Numenorean Bilbo becoming The Mouth of Sauron idea before I feel I can like it. ...
Back to the first idea, he suffers from memory loss. He's turned into some kind of robotic version of a man (not with cyborg machinery, just without a free mind). If we want to go this way, I suggest that the antagonist of this season's frame, the female Mouth of Sauron, displays similar flaws. She should be a puppet, her strings pulled by Sauron, someone who doesn't know her own identity. Perhaps someone in the story knows her real identity but it's clear that she has left it behind years ago. If we do this, I think it could work. Ok so I've talked myself into supporting the idea.

I definitely like this idea!

One of the key details about the Mouth of Sauron in the text of RotK is that he has no name of his own, and has perhaps even forgotten it. That detail, however, is in the narration, not the dialogue. When we get to that part of the story, there will be no straightforward way to convey that onscreen. We can't just have someone say, 'by the way, no one knows this guy's name - he doesn't even know it himself!' Sure, he can introduce himself as the Mouth of Sauron, but beyond that, how will we show the loss of identity? One of the clearest ways...is if the audience has seen him in his pre-Mouth of Sauron days, and can see the stark loss of identity for themselves (though obviously, few would recognize him or realize who he is, so it's a rather subtle way to include that detail).

Showing that now, in this frame, with the 'original' Mouth of Sauron/high priestess...that will establish a parallel. That way, we will see the possibility. If we see our 'Bilbo character' go from Gandalf's pupil to the Mouth of Sauron's pupil, we can guess about the effects of that choice...but when he rides out of the Black Gate in 70 years, it will be more stark. So, yes, I do agree that the Mouth of Sauron character in the Frame needs to be giving the 'pretty speeches' that Gandalf mentioned in his conversation with Saruman, but also we should portray this person as someone consumed by the role, lacking a personal identity. I think that's a very good angle to take. And perhaps we will even find an opportunity to comment on that in this frame, as we do have several episodes focused on identity and choice - from Bëor moving to Nargothrond, to the Council of Estolad, to Andreth and Aegnor's failed romance.

One of the things that Corey Olsen discussed was how Sauron needs to corrupt Men to get them to not only join his cause, but to march in armies alongside Orcs. That's not just a matter of swaying someone's political opinion - that is a whole process of corruption, which has steps like human sacrifice along the way. In this frame, we are at the early stage of that corruption; the high priestess is not sacrificing political opponents on an altar...yet. Showing the beginning of the corruption of Gandalf's friend, and the 'end stage' corruption of the priestess who has lost her own identity and merely parrots Sauron. . .that is the story we are trying to set up here, I think.
 
We will be discussing the Frame, and laying out specific frame scenes, in the Script Discussion session this Sunday at 8:30 PM Eastern Time. At a minimum, we we develop the Frame Story for the first three episodes of the Season.

Please see the thread in the Script Forum here:

If you have any suggestions of scenes to introduce the Harad storyline, please post them there!

Also, Session 5-18 will be dedicated to discussing Season 5 Episode 1, the story of the people of Bëor coming into Beleriand. The podcast will be held on Thursday November 19th at 10 PM Eastern Time. Both the script outline and the first draft of the script have been posted on the thread in the Script forum (see p. 3). If you have the opportunity, please consider reading over the script prior to the podcast, and do let Rhiannon know what you think!

 
Thank you very much for your efforts! Much appreciated :)

For Season 5, these materials are available:



I do not think a similar document existed for Season 4, so thank you for compiling that!
 
Thanks for pointing these out. I won't reinvent the wheel then! What I might do build/collect frame story materials into a single document and submit it to Octoburn for posting on his gDrive site.
 
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