I find it really hard to approach Beren and Luthien with the idea that there should be zero character development. ... I just can’t see how telling the Beren and Luthien story and having there relationship not develop would be anything less than boring. Surely that is the core of the season? Am I alone in that.
No? Obviously the entire point of this season is to tell their stories, and they will have character arcs? Their stories go from meeting to marriage to death to afterlife (not necessarily in that order), so there is some alteration in how they interact with one another over time! (Even if much of the story is 'Lúthien saves Beren again'). They each have starting points prior to this season, so Lúthien at least has an established character - the audience already knows what she is passionate about, and what type of stance she is likely to take on questions. Her 'childlike' nature has been presented in a way that is meant to avoid accusations of naivety. Beren is a fairly new character, but he is not being introduced in Season 6. We did show scenes of young Beren with his mother. We saw him fighting beside his father Barahir in the Dagor Bragollach, so seeing him with the outlaws when Season 6 opens is a continuation of that story. So, a fierce sense of family loyalty and defending his people and his land is his starting point. He then...loses that. So he goes from having a tight-knit community to being utterly alone, and then meets Lúthien.
Beren is born in FA 432. So, he is a young man of 23 years of age during the battle. He will be meeting Lúthien within about 5 years of the battle (depending on how closely we keep to the timelines of the betrayal of Barahir's band and how long we leave Beren in Dorthonion alone). So, he's roughly 28 when he meets her, and it's been roughly 5 years since he has seen the rest of his people (including the women).
I've always read the interaction when he's chasing her as having subtle and not-so-subtle flirting on the behalf of Luthien (maybe not the BoLT one, if that's where she runs away scared. Too lazy to check rn). Giving Luthien agency is the important thing here. If she's leading him on, deliberately, and the audience can see she's clearly into it, then "rough man from the woods starved of female company chasing beautiful single girl" is not hopefully not the first thing that pops into people's minds. Having Beren happy to see an eruhin, any eruhin, not just a pretty woman, would tone down the stalker-ness of it all. And she could challenge him in some way that makes him stop and think, not sure what atm.
Yes, exactly! I wouldn't want to go so far in the other direction that she is then viewed as an enticing temptress, but the general idea that she is a participant is important to the optics. And I also think this is strongly implied by Tolkien in the dialogue he gives her - she challenges Beren to dance with her, teasing him about not being fleet enough to catch her. I don't think it will be too difficult to convince the audience that Lúthien has allowed herself to be caught, and is pleased with that development. I don't think the story is creepy the way Tolkien wrote it - but I think we have to be very careful not to MAKE it creepy. Because, without some interjection of playfulness and back-and-forth, it could come across as very one-sided.
I like the idea of her healing him for compassionate reasons as part of this initial interaction as well.
I suppose the whole Daeron dynamic is relevant here, but I can't recall how their relationship was framed in the past. "Just good friends"? "Like a brother/sister"? Or was he a spurned suitor?
Lúthien and Daeron are good friends, and everyone assumes that someday they will get married. Apparently, including Daeron, though he was not a suitor so was not spurned.
