Supporting Characters

Do the Feanoreans have any notable associates?

Not especially, which has been a cause for concern with me. It means that we would either need to invent reasons for them to be together any time we need to get individual Feanorians at home, or we need to invent characters for them to talk to.
 
I am fine with having them visit one another. Obviously there are other elves present, so if a single brother needs someone to talk to, we can do that.
It’ll probably tie into the Second Kinslaying; do Celegorm’s servants take it upon themselves to dispose of Dior’s sons or does Celegorm order it in the event of his death?
 
It’ll probably tie into the Second Kinslaying; do Celegorm’s servants take it upon themselves to dispose of Dior’s sons or does Celegorm order it in the event of his death?
I don't think Celegorm was planning to die in the Second Kinslaying, so his servants probably saw taking Dior's sons as revenge on Dior for killing Celegorm. The servants may not get named, though, because I assume they'll die pretty soon afterwards, before Maedhros can ask them exactly where they put Elured and Elurin.
 
It could be kinda cool to give the servants and the rescuer a bit of a backstory... just as supporting characters who are always somewhere around but whose time has yet to come... that would be a surprise i think.I mean that should not mean to enlarge their roles or give them much dialogue... or one could try to tie them kind of in with other lesser or unnamed support characters to give some continuacy... i don't know... just thinkig of the idea if there are any similar characters in movies i know.. characters who seem unimportant and do not even play much of a role until at one point they get a key scene that is important, not for the characters but for the storyline.
 
Well, he'll have Ancalagon the Black and the surviving balrogs, so I wouldn't say 'alone' per se.... And while Sauron may go east, he might also be in Angband with Morgoth at that time. I don't think we've decided on a fate for Tevildo or Boldog yet, but I agree that they will die before the host of the Valar shows up. And...named orcs won't give Morgoth anyone to talk to or interact with. They're way too far down the food chain and not part of the 'court' of Angband in any way.

I have no problem with introducing minor orcish characters (in the model of Ugluk, Grishnakh, Shagrat, and Gorbag) for scenes that require speaking roles for orcs. I'm...maybe less concerned than Peter Jackson was to have a 'named' orcish character kill off the heroes. Lurtz exists because of Boromir's death scene. He wasn't going to have Boromir killed by anonymous orc arrows, and he wanted to show Aragorn duel and decapitate Boromir's killer. Which is fine and all, but less necessary from my viewpoint.

We're killing off practically all of our characters eventually. So, while some of them can have very significant death scenes or duels or whatnot, some are also going to have anonymous deaths where there's a battle or an accident and *boom* someone's dead. As a 'for instance', we'll likely be killing off three of the Sons of Fëanor in the sack of Doriath. I'd be okay with not even showing one of those death scenes, and just having the surviving Fëanoreans come across the dead body of one of their brothers in the aftermath. It will still be plenty jarring, and we'll know what happened, but it's not important to know which Sinda killed him. I wouldn't want all three of the deaths to go that way (Dior vs Celegorm seems a must to show on screen), but it's okay if one of them isn't even shown.
Looking forward, how about having Caranthir killed as the Second Kinslaying begins and Celegorm, as Dior’s nemesis, is killed in single combat, while Curufin is found dead after the battle?
 
Looking forward, how about having Caranthir killed as the Second Kinslaying begins and Celegorm, as Dior’s nemesis, is killed in single combat, while Curufin is found dead after the battle?
It's funny, I was just thinking about the Second Kinslaying earlier today. I imagine it similar, though with Caranthir and Curufin's roles reversed. The way I picture it, Curufin catches an arrow in the throat as the Feanorians are riding through the woods to Menegroth, which sets Celegorm on a rampage. He charges ahead of the rest of the Feanorians, and Maedhros charges after him but cannot catch him. The rest of the Feanorians get separated in the ensuing battle. At some point, Celegorm finds himself alone at the grave of Huan and has a moment of near repentance there, but he continues kinslaying instead. He mortally wounds Nimloth when she refuses to tell him where the Silmaril is then faces Dior in single combat. When Maedhros finally catches up to Celegorm, he finds Celegorm and Dior dead, having slain each other, and Nimloth, perhaps not even recognizing who Maedhros is, tells him with her dying breath to find her sons, which Maedhros sets out to do. Later, he comes upon Maglor and Amras with Caranthir's body, and all three affirm that they will stick together because they do not want to lose any more of their brothers.

The reason I was thinking of this was that I had a really awful idea for Amras' character arc: what if Amras kills Dior's twin sons? The way I imagine that happening is Amras runs into the group of Doriath Elves trying to escape with Elured and Elurin. He kills all the adults and one of the twins. The other twin then comes through the doorway or out of hiding or something and goes immediately to his brother's body. Amras talks kindly to the remaining twin and learns their names and that they were twin brothers. Maybe he even bends down to the remaining twin and wipes the tears off his cheeks then says something like, "I will spare you the pain of having to live without your twin brother," and stabs him. When Amras runs into Maedhros searching for Elured and Elurin, he just tells Maedhros that he sent servants out to abandon the twins in the forest.

Amras' killing of the twins is then his point of no return; he realizes that he has become an irredeemably awful person, so he just devotes himself to fulfilling the oath and leads the Third Kinslaying.
 
A twin killing the twins. I like that. But omg how cruel...
Just to be clear: are there any other versions of the story other than the one where the twins are left to starve in the woods by Celegorm's servants?
 
I just read an interesting fanfic where one of them survives and makes it to Thranduil's kingdom where he adopts a new identity and has a child. Exactly how this happens I don't recall, since the child is the focus of the story, but as a device it's not unreasonable.

The fanfic is "The Sun Sets In The West" if anyone's interested: it is obvious that the writer is not a native English speaker, but it's not unpleasant like some I could mention :p
 
Sometimes i like fanfic! Most of the times i just like their basic ideas though, and not exactly their literature style or narrating skills
 
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A twin killing the twins. I like that. But omg how cruel...
Just to be clear: are there any other versions of the story other than the one where the twins are left to starve in the woods by Celegorm's servants?

There are about 5 different versions of the death of the twins - who is responsible and who goes looking for them, etc. But the upshot of all of them is (I think) that they were left in the forest to starve. I'd have to go back and check to see. This is a part of the story that Tolkien never wrote out in anything more detailed than 'plot summary notes,' so it's just a bunch of different versions without comment as to why they were changing. CJRT remarks on all the variations in HoME, of course.
 
To take this in another direction:
Are there any other characters from History of Middle-Earth, the Lays of Beleriand, or Lost Tales? @Haerangil wanted to have Rog (now renamed Rhogrin) appear, Boldog was cast last year (it might be almost 2 when we start nominating), and I would like Gorgol. Do we want any of the Lords of Gondolin aside from Ecthelion, Glorfindel, and Rhogrin to play roles larger than spear carrier (Maeglin and Tuor are not born yet)?
 
To take this in another direction:
Are there any other characters from History of Middle-Earth, the Lays of Beleriand, or Lost Tales? @Haerangil wanted to have Rog (now renamed Rhogrin) appear, Boldog was cast last year (it might be almost 2 when we start nominating), and I would like Gorgol. Do we want any of the Lords of Gondolin aside from Ecthelion, Glorfindel, and Rhogrin to play roles larger than spear carrier (Maeglin and Tuor are not born yet)?

I'm sure that we will want to flesh Gondolin out a bit more, probably when we get to Hurin and Huor.
 
To take this in another direction:
Are there any other characters from History of Middle-Earth, the Lays of Beleriand, or Lost Tales? @Haerangil wanted to have Rog (now renamed Rhogrin) appear, Boldog was cast last year (it might be almost 2 when we start nominating), and I would like Gorgol. Do we want any of the Lords of Gondolin aside from Ecthelion, Glorfindel, and Rhogrin to play roles larger than spear carrier (Maeglin and Tuor are not born yet)?
I would love to see all the Lords of Gondolin and their houses at least get named in the story before the Fall of Gondolin. Will they all have been lords in Valinor before they came to Middle-earth? Are they all Noldor, or are some Sindar?
 
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