The Challenge of Sundering the Elves

Alex Long

Alex Long

Active Member
Prof. Olsen has given us forum folk the task of coming up with ideas for ways to clarify the different elf factions that populate Middle-earth. This topic has been touched on previously in a couple of threads across the forum, but these other discussions never went far past the proposition post. Also, most of these other threads focus on a particular aspect or idea. I'm starting this new thread under the "Across the Series" category to both pool together and broaden the ideas on this subject. In this first post I just want to explain where we currently stand, and some overarching avenues that we could take on this subject.

First of all, as was stated in the the podcast Session 2-1, the divisions of the elves is a topic in The Silmarillion that confuses many people (*cough* everyone *cough*) but having the audience understand who these different factions are will be important for the SilmFilm. Some of these divisions are "familial", but it doesn't help that every time there is some sort of conceptual division, everyone gets a new title. In fact, most of the terms applied to a group of elves have nothing to do with genetics even if the majority of the elves under a certain term are in fact related. For being created by a devout Catholic, the elves are surprisingly denominational.

Anyway, here's a picture of major sunderings that I stole from Tolkien Gateway.
Elven_Kindreds.jpg

To summarize:
Quendi: All Elves.
  • Avari: The elves who stay behind in Cuiviénen
  • Eldar: Those who follow Oromë across Middle-earth towards Valinor
    • Vanyar: The Fair-elves; The people of Imin; Lead by Ingwë; Smallest in number; All go to Valinor
    • Noldor: The Wise/Deep-elves; The people of Tata; Lead by Finwë; Half leave for Valinor (the others are Avari)
    • Teleri: Also called Sea-elves; The people of Enel; Lead by Elwë (Thingol); Largest in number; Only about a third leave for Valinor (the others are Avari)
      • Falmari: Teleri who reach Valinor; Lead by Olwë; Live on Tol Eressëa
      • Sindar: Grey Elves; Teleri who abandon the Great Journey in Beleriand
        • Iathrim: The Grey-elves of Doriath; Lead by Elwë (Thingol)
        • Falathrim: The Grey-elves of the Falas; Lead by Círdan
        • Mithrim: The Grey-elves of northern Beleriand; Mostly wiped out by Morgoth; Remnants intersperse among the returning Noldor
      • Nandor: Teleri who abandon the Great Journey along the Anduin in Middle-earth
        • Silvan Elves: Wood-elves; Nandor who remain east of the Misty Mountains
        • Laiquendi: Green-elves; Nandor who latter make their way into Beleriand
Conceptually:
  • Calaquendi: Light-elves; High Elves; Elves who had entered Valinor* (Vanyar, Noldor, [Elwë,] Falmari)
  • Moriquendi: Dark-elves; Elves who had never entered Valinor (Sindar, Nandor, Avari)
  • Úmanyar: Elves who started the Great Journey to Valinor but did not complete it; (Sindar, Nandor, Elwë)
*Technically, elves who have seen the light of the two trees.


So now the question becomes "How do we represent these divisions?" J.R.R. Tolkien could get away with just talking about these concepts because that's how books work. Unfortunately, our characters will need to represent these ideas consistently and clearly in an audio-visual medium. Here are ways (off the top of my head) that these types of differences could be separated.

Visual
-Ethnicity
-Physical Size
-Fashion
-Clothing (Hair, Make-up, Jewelry/Accessories, Tatoos/Body Art)
-Technology (Gadgetry, Weaponry, Armor)
-Symbols (Crests, Flags, Cultural Color Coding [Russia; Ireland; America])

Audial
-Languages
-Accents
-Vocabulary/Slang
-Pitch
-Timbre (references: Galaxy Quest, Jackson's orcs)

We could utilize one or some or all of these ideas. Please let me know if there is anything that I'm missing in the lists above, and I'll add it in. And please discuss obviously! If you have certain preference for an idea(s) listed above, then give reasons why that idea(s) should be used for The SilmFilm Project.
 
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One other thing I was thinking, is that during this season we could introduce a "representative(s)" for each faction, using that one character as a visual/audial model for the cultures that they will eventually spawn. For example, what ever we decide to do to represent the Vanyar, we emphasize with Ingwë. From the very beginning, Ingwë would then be the "voice" of the Vanyar culture that we only have time to glimpse at later in the season. We can have these major "representatives" be the major elf characters right at the beginning of the season starting in Cuivienen. We can have one for the six major factions that will eventually emerge (Vanyar, Noldor, Falmari, Sindar, Silvan, Green-elves.) Other elf characters can then be introduced in turn as the season progresses, but they will then have a preexisting "code" that they are fashioned after- "Oh, Galadriel is wearing the same color scheme and talks in the same accent as Finwë; She must be a Noldor" or whatever. This will even work far into future seasons- "Haldir kinda looks like Amdir [or whoever] from season two; he must be a Silvan elf."
 
Great! I would like to add the Falathrim, with Círdan (and perhaps Voronwë?). They are of course Teleri, perhaps I should call them Sindar, but they seem to be a specific culture. (Probably we will have to come up with a special set of cultural signals for the Gondolindrim as well, later on).
 
YES. While all of your suggestions (costume, language, ethnicity) will be a good way to differentiate cultures, having a representative spokesman for each group is definitely the way to go.

Vanyar = Ingwë
Noldor = Finwë
Teleri in Valinor = Olwë

Teleri at the Falas = Círdan
Sindar = Elwë/Thingol

Laiquendi = Denethor
Silvan = Dan/Lenwë

Avari = the three couples who are the 'eldest' of the elves at Cuivienen, though whether or not their names match the children's story is certainly fine to be up for debate
 
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Here's an idea for the Vanyar. They're narrative "representative" would be Ingwë. Visually, he starts out very 'humble' looking- a lot of beige/grey/brown, simple hair styles, little adornment. etc. He basically would look like a background Jedi. However, the idea is that he should actually stand out among the other elves because of how bland he looks. If you're eating at a nice restaurant and Old Ben Kenobi shows up, he's actually going to draw attention. Ingwë would remain like this all throughout the Great Journey. But when the elves reach Valinor, Ingwë and the other Vanyar start to change. The short version of the idea is that they get brighter. Beige/grey/brown slowly become gold/white/bronze. The Vanyar hair stylists discover Pinterest. They begin to use the symbols of the Valar to adorn themselves (wreathes and feathers and carved stone and whatnot- save gems and jewelry for the Noldor.) Audially, their speech patterns should again start out very plain. They use simple words (like Hobbits, not like small children) and we give then a very neutral accent with little inflection (possibly something associated with the romance languages, not abrasive and choppy like Germanic languages/accents.) Once they reach Valinor, the progressively add more syllables and more inflection becoming more singsong-y. By the end of the Valinor-located narratives, the Vanyar have acquired a sophisticated vocabulary and operatic rythme.
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On a more serious note...
The different elven cultures should reflect their interests. Perhaps the Noldor like to wear gloves, which they have become accustomed to from working in the smithy? The Teleri shipbuilders could use whistling as a means of communication. The Laiquendi could imitate all kinds of animal sounds.
 
Out of curiosity, how much will our story be focusing on the male characters, with the wives/daughters just in the background? I ask, because while I (quite naturally) went to the Ingwë/Finwë/Elwë (later Olwë) representative choices, all of those elves are married during this season. Of course Melian is going to be a character in her own right, and likewise Míriel. Will Ingwë's wife go with him to check out Valinor for everyone? Or is he a single young man during the journey, and only marries once they settle down in Valinor? Are we even going to notice that he has an (unnamed) wife?

Whereas the Avari will clearly be led by the 'elders' of the elves, who are couples, and thus I would expect that the decision to remain in Cuivienen is not made by just the men sitting around and talking. I immediately pictured the couples making that decision together. Is that a contrast we want to see?

Obviously in the source material, the vast majority of the characters who do anything at all are male. Galadriel is an exception (sort of), but she is specifically called out as one of the few female voices that spoke up in Tirion during the decision to return to Middle Earth (ie, when Fëanor made the Oath). I think if we try to make elvish society a bit more egalitarian, it will stand out that we are doing that. I wouldn't want to shoe-horn characters in or in any way make their cultures seem less like Tolkien's elves. But...we will have the opportunity to showcase more minor/background characters and give them a voice to have their own unique take on what is happening in the story, and I do expect some scenes that have the Upstairs/Downstairs dynamic of the servants or footsoldiers talking about what the 'high and mighty' are up to.

Which is just to say, do we want any of our representative voices to be female, and if so, which one(s)?
 
An obvious problem in Tolkien generally. I think we will have to have more than one representative for each group. The Noldor at least have some really interesting female characters.
 
Well, we will obviously have multiple characters in each subset, but for this second Season, the 'spokesman' should be the one establishing the basic viewpoint of that particular group. When the decisions to split come up, the representative is the one who makes the argument (to stay or go).

I don't think Tolkien's lack of female characters is necessarily a problem. I think most fantasy stories that try to correct this tend to put female characters into a role that would be unusual to find a female character in - in other words, they write a role for a male character, but instead put a female character in that role. That doesn't really get at what the women are doing all this time, nor does it feel 'real'. There are plenty of female 'characters' in history (ancient, medieval, more modern), and some of them do step into more traditionally male roles - like Joan of Arc leading France's army.
 
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MithLuin said:
I think if we try to make elvish society a bit more egalitarian, it will stand out that we are doing that. I wouldn't want to shoe-horn characters in or in any way make their cultures seem less like Tolkien's elves.
Click to expand...

I agree. First Age Elvish society in Middle-earth should not be 21st Century human society on actual earth. It think attempting to address 21st Century issues in a medieval-ish fantasy story is kinda missing the point of 'myth' (no offense to GRRM- I realize that this is fact the whole point of Ice and Fire. It's intentional therefore it's excused.)

However, I don't think that female characters need to be minor/background characters. One reason there are very few female characters mentioned in The Silmarillion is because most (all?) societies in the legendarium are patriarchal. But another reason could simply be that The Silmarillion is a summary; the ladies don't get mentioned/speaking roles because of page count. But this doesn't mean they weren't (theoretically) involved in the major tales or a part of the 'high and mighty' crowds.

I wouldn't as far as to say that we make any of the head representatives of the elf cultures female. But bringing in [positing the presence of] women (woelves?) among the named male characters gives us a really interesting creative opportunity with the elven cultures. Most (...all) of the elven societies are patriarchal, and I can't think of any good reason within the context of Tolkien's world to change this. However, there are different kinds of patriarchal societies, and I say we take this and run wild. But I think we should again use the cultural representatives to decide where this goes. (We can just explain that, subconsciously, the ABC elves elected ABC#1 because he best represented their collective cultural ideals or some smartish sounding crap like that.) For instance, the only places where we see elf women in notable, semi-active, ruling positions is in Doriath and Lothlorien. Now I realize that both Thingol and Galadriel are both Noldor, but the important point is that both of those societies are Teleri. It is the Iathrim and the Silvan elves that accept Melian's public political voice and Galadriel's co-regency with her husband, respectively. So we have at least circumstantial evidence to postulate that the Teleri, while still patriarchal, are less uneasy about women leaders than the other clans.

Also, Elwë is the only elf ambassador (I think... don't quote me on this) that we know was obviously single during the entire Great Journey and before. Do we use this to inform the Teleri and how that society views women and leadership? Or the fact that he falls in love with a Maia? I think Finwë is the only character in the legendarium we see remarry. Do we use this to inform gender roles in Noldor culture? Or the fact that Galadriel rejects Feanor and everyone seems fine with it (except Feanor obviously...) What are the 'facts' from the book that we can use to extrapolate and define these cultures and the roles women have in them. I think this is a safer basis for defining how we portray elven gender roles instead of just completely making things up as we need.
 
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I agree that the Teleri seem OK with women leaders. We should show that.

I'm not sure I understand your last paragraph exactly, Elwë is Teleri...

But generally I think the elven women are strong and respected. There are situations where we see exceptions to that, notably how Celegorm behaves, but that seems to be a rare exception.
 
Haakon said:
But generally I think the elven women are strong and respected.
Click to expand...

But what does "strong" and "respected" mean across the various peoples? Margaret Thatcher, Rhonda Rousey, and Laura Ingalls Wilder are (were) all well respected, strong women but for very different reasons. I think showing these being defined differently with different groups will help clarify the elven subdivisions without sacrificing verisimilitude. And frankly, we can have elven cultures that don't appreciate women. What the heck happened to Eol as a child that made so Eol-y?

(Also, if we do decide that women are treated relatively uniformly across all elven cultures, then it isn't a way to show the sundering of the elves and therefore might be best discussed on another thread.)

(Also also, let's not forget that not every female character on our show needs to be strong and respectable, just like not all actual woman are strong and respectable.)
 
I did bring this topic up on this thread for a reason - I thought that perhaps the role of elven women in each culture could be somewhat distinct, helping to differentiate between the different groups. And, since some of the groups of elves are essentially sir-not-appearing-in-this-film, Tolkien leaves their cultures very open to interpretation. But I want to make sure that this adaptation is within the context of First Age Middle Earth, and not 'the Green Elves are now stand-ins for the 21st century audience, haha, that's what you get for not describing them very well, Tolkien!'

But, yes, perhaps the society of Cuivienen is more...egalitarian. Everyone has a role, but 'leadership' hasn't been very important to this point. More group decisions and councils, and deference to the elders (male and female). Thus the Avari could be based on some real-world culture, but not a particularly patriarchal or stratified society. My defense of this would be the role of the Ambassadors, and how they assume leadership - they weren't the original leaders of their people.

The Silvan/ Green Elves/ Sindar/ Teleri are the ones who accept Melian and Galadriel in leadership roles, so perhaps cultures that focuses on individual achievements rather than strictly-enforced roles (of either gender or nobility) would fit.

The Calaquendi, of course, would be then more rigid in their expectations and roles. We know very little of the Vanyar - they're blond and beautiful, yes, but....ummm...characterization? All we know is that they march across Middle Earth more quickly than the others, and that they really like hanging out with the Valar. Indis marries Finwë and Amarië does *not* marry Finrod, and....that's about all we know about any of them. So, sure, they could be *extremely* patriarchal and have very fixed social strata and expectations. Not sure there would be a lot of opportunity to see or explore that - we're going to see a lot more of the Noldor, of course.

But you see what I've done, here - I've made it so that the elves who responded to the invitation of the Valar become more patriarchal, and the elves who remain in Middle Earth seem a bit more free of that. Is that a message we *want* to develop? It could be useful, but would tie into the question of whether the Valar's invitation is a good thing.
 
I don't think it makes sense that the elves who attach themselves to the Valar are super patriarchal seeing that the Valar are not super patriarchal. The Vanyar should ultimately mirror the Valar situation (in my opinion.) But if that's a part of showing the division of the elves then how does it show the division of the Vanyar?
 
I agree with that, but also see the elves of Valinor having a much more strictly structured society. The culture that develops in Valinor is highly elevated, as far as the arts go, but it's also one that (apparently) gives rise to Gondolin with its 12 houses. The changelessness might tend to lock everyone into their roles or something. Whereas the Green Elves decide, on the death of their king, to never have a king again...the Noldor evidently have some more involved inheritance laws for the crown. (Good luck figuring out what they are - it might be primogeniture, but...not necessarily).

I think we are agreed that our one representative 'spokesman' for each group will be male, and the female characters will be secondary. I would like to explore the cultural differences between the various groups of elves, and the role of women in society seemed one question worth considering. There are, of course, others. Will any of the groups of elves be, for instance, vegetarian?
 
I guess I don't see the 12 House structure of Gondolin as "strictly structured" as the houses are (presumably) ancestral in nature and not divided by income or social class or something along these lines.

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However, I do think it makes sense that the Noldor are the ones to develop a strictly structured society. I read somewhere that the Noldor are associated with and more readily use the sword and shield as weapons (the Vanyar- spears; the Teleri- bows.) As far as weaponry goes, the sword and shield are the best (pre-gunpowder) weapons to use when implementing attack formations. Extrapolating from this, I think we could easily portray the Noldor visually as more military than the other elves. Now don't misunderstand me, I am not suggesting we make the Noldor look like a Roman legion. But with their history (or in our case, future) of violence and war, the Noldor definitely have more reason to give off a military air. Perhaps Finwë could wear very simple "armor" like leather greaves and vambraces. After they reach Valinor and we become introduced to the other Noldor, they start to craft more intricate armor-like accessories (thematically foreshadowing the Kinslaying.) We can save metal armor for their return to Beleriand.

A strictly structured society that would later produce a militaristic structure could start out with more simple (and visual/audial) structures like production management, narrative storytelling, and organized runes. All of these things are associated with the Noldor. It would take only one bad day to turn a group of well-trained, well-managed, disciplined gem crafters into a kinslaying militia. We could even have the Noldorian outfits look a bit more uniform or have more uniform-like elements than the other elves' outfits. This would definitely help differentiate the Noldor from the others.

Purposefully bad examples:
-All the Noldor wear neckties. They could be different colors and styles depending on the individual characters' personalities, but every time an elf shows up in a necktie the audience knows that they are a Noldor.
-All Noldorian pants are made of corduroy fabric.
-All Noldor wear Addidas brand tennis shoes and only Addidas brand tennis shoes.

Again, not uniforms but possibly uniform-like.
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Perhaps it's time to revive the Politics thread.

In my mind, and from what you guys write I get the sense that you have similar thoughts, the Vanyar are the most difficult to come up with ideas about. But on the other hand, the most important thing seems to be to differentiate the various moriquendi. The difference between those elves and the calaquendi should be fairly easy to accomplish.
 
Hi.
I think that even if the husband is the "outward face" of the family, and thus get mentioned in the histories, he would debate with his wife. We can show scenes of the home where issues are discussed. If women weren't asked for counsel we wouldn't had the adage "Cold are the counsels of women". The saga-literature, which is one of the things that inspired Tolkien, have plenty of wives counseling their husbands.
 
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