The moral fibre of the Noldor

[cellardur]

I've recently listened to Silmfilm 3 episode 19 and there is one thing I strongly disagree with. I appreciate the work everyone is done and this is just my opinion. We all love the Silmarillion and the characters, but Cory brought up a point, I think needs to be addressed. The Silmarillion is not a novel and we don't go into detail about the characters. Simple lings in the Silmarillion are impregnated with lots of meaning. We've chosen not to in our story, but when Tolkien was developing the story; Fingolfin and Feanor are rivals fighting with words to be the King of the Noldor. Fingolfin makes lots of underhanded tactics to become king and it culminates in the burning of the ships. I want to repeat here, that this IS not about past decisions, but I think we should accept just how flawed the Noldor are for the benefit of the story. Among the Noldor princes there are no Aragorn's, Elrond's or Faramir's.

In another threat I brought up the Noldor have fallen.

I am going to give a couple of quotes to show just how far they had fallen.

The main body of the tale, the Silmarillion proper, is about the fall of the most gifted kindred of the Elves, their exile from Valinor (a kind of Paradise, the home of the Gods) in the furthest West, their re-entry into Middle-earth, the land of their birth but long under the rule of the Enemy, and their strife with him, the power of Evil still visibly incarnate. (Letter 131)

In him (Feanor) she (Galadriel) perceived a darkness that she hated and feared, though she did not perceive that the shadow of the same evil had fallen upon the minds of all the Noldor, and upon her own. (POME)

Glorfindel is an exception. His return is due to just how pure and good he was. The other Noldor are just not as noble as he is.

Gondolin was destroyed, and all his kin had perished and were still in the Halls of Waiting unapproachable by the living. (Last Writings)

Basically saying that Glorfindel was an exception and incredible noble spirit, but all the other dead Noldor even in Gondolin, including Turgon, Ecthelion are still not allowed out of the Halls.

All the Noldor princes should be proud and slightly power hungry. They should all be stubborn and wilful, desiring to do their own will.

I am not saying the Noldor princes are evil, but the majority of them should be closer to Denethor in personality than Aragorn, with the most noble being wiser more educated versions of Boromir. We are not writing a GOT story, but in some ways we are.

I watched the Cobra Kai series recently. I loved that the show took risks. The show was prepared to have all the main characters: Daniel, Johnny, Sam etc acting badly at times. I think we should do the same and not be afraid of it. I believe this is the story that Tolkien wrote. When Turin Turambar will be compared to the House of Fingolfin, I don't think it should be just in looks or martial prowess. The curse makes everything worse, but Turin's pride and stubbornness are hallmark characteristics of the Noldor.

I believe, when we look at the Noldor royalty, we shouldn't be thinking would Gandalf or Aragorn act like that and then making a decision. Rather I think it should be, 'would Boromir act like that?' 'Would Turin act like that?' If they would then so would even the best of the Noldor royalty.

 

[Ange1e4e5]

Glorfindel’s not the only one known to return. Finrod also returned from the Halls of Mandos, he’s described as such in the Published Silmarillion “But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar”.

 

[Nicholas Palazzo]

I've recently listened to Silmfilm 3 episode 19 and there is one thing I strongly disagree with. I appreciate the work everyone is done and this is just my opinion. We all love the Silmarillion and the characters, but Cory brought up a point, I think needs to be addressed. The Silmarillion is not a novel and we don't go into detail about the characters. Simple lings in the Silmarillion are impregnated with lots of meaning. We've chosen not to in our story, but when Tolkien was developing the story; Fingolfin and Feanor are rivals fighting with words to be the King of the Noldor. Fingolfin makes lots of underhanded tactics to become king and it culminates in the burning of the ships. I want to repeat here, that this IS not about past decisions, but I think we should accept just how flawed the Noldor are for the benefit of the story. Among the Noldor princes there are no Aragorn's, Elrond's or Faramir's.

In another threat I brought up the Noldor have fallen.

I am going to give a couple of quotes to show just how far they had fallen.

The main body of the tale, the Silmarillion proper, is about the fall of the most gifted kindred of the Elves, their exile from Valinor (a kind of Paradise, the home of the Gods) in the furthest West, their re-entry into Middle-earth, the land of their birth but long under the rule of the Enemy, and their strife with him, the power of Evil still visibly incarnate. (Letter 131)

In him (Feanor) she (Galadriel) perceived a darkness that she hated and feared, though she did not perceive that the shadow of the same evil had fallen upon the minds of all the Noldor, and upon her own. (POME)

Glorfindel is an exception. His return is due to just how pure and good he was. The other Noldor are just not as noble as he is.

Gondolin was destroyed, and all his kin had perished and were still in the Halls of Waiting unapproachable by the living. (Last Writings)

Basically saying that Glorfindel was an exception and incredible noble spirit, but all the other dead Noldor even in Gondolin, including Turgon, Ecthelion are still not allowed out of the Halls.

All the Noldor princes should be proud and slightly power hungry. They should all be stubborn and wilful, desiring to do their own will.

I am not saying the Noldor princes are evil, but the majority of them should be closer to Denethor in personality than Aragorn, with the most noble being wiser more educated versions of Boromir. We are not writing a GOT story, but in some ways we are.

I watched the Cobra Kai series recently. I loved that the show took risks. The show was prepared to have all the main characters: Daniel, Johnny, Sam etc acting badly at times. I think we should do the same and not be afraid of it. I believe this is the story that Tolkien wrote. When Turin Turambar will be compared to the House of Fingolfin, I don't think it should be just in looks or martial prowess. The curse makes everything worse, but Turin's pride and stubbornness are hallmark characteristics of the Noldor.

I believe, when we look at the Noldor royalty, we shouldn't be thinking would Gandalf or Aragorn act like that and then making a decision. Rather I think it should be, 'would Boromir act like that?' 'Would Turin act like that?' If they would then so would even the best of the Noldor royalty.

To be honest, I'm not sure where the point of disagreement here lies. While we are certainly not always going to look to the HoME series or the letters as our primary source material, we certainly want to demonstrate that the Noldor are flawed individuals. It was demonstrated in S02, and again in this season. Future episodes will likely do the same.

 

[MithLuin]

Certainly, there are many examples of bad behavior among the Noldor, and we have incorporated some of this into our story thus far. We have, for instance, shown the rivalry between Fëanor and Fingolfin play out in great detail, with the specific request that Fingolfin *not* be depicted as noble from the very beginning. We've also shown Finwë and Nerdanel at Formenos both (in their own ways) trying to rein Fëanor in to no avail. We have shown Fëanor strike his grandson Celebrimbor (who appeared as no more than a young teen at the time, perhaps a boy of 14), and we have shown the proud Noldor be disparagingly condescending towards the Teleri, the Vanyar, and even Melkor.

I think that Ange1e4e5 is on the right track - Finrod is clearly the noblest and best-liked of the Noldorin princes. And both Finrod and Glorfindel are re-incarnated fairly quickly, after just a brief stay in Mandos. Galadriel may become the wisest eventually, due in no small part to the tutelage of Melian, but she is likely more power-hungry than her elder brother (perhaps in part because leadership is denied her for a long time). Finrod Felagund is (in many ways) the Faramir-analogue of the First Age Noldor. He's not Faramir, of course, but he thinks deeply about things, and has that philosophical approach. He takes the time to get to know others (including other cultures), and doesn't rush into judgement. He'll also throw his life away on a suicide mission

I am very much in favor of showing nuanced characters. I don't mind someone behaving badly, but it has to be in character and for a good reason. Caranthir saying something obnoxious and insensitive? Sure, of course he would. But Fingon can't be substituted in for Caranthir's lines just because all Noldor are proud. All shows let their characters do bad things, because it creates drama. Some shows make sure to build up the *reasons* a character might behave in this way. Thus, in Grey's Anatomy, people are always doing all sorts of cheating back-stabby soap opera things to one another. And yet...they do try to keep characterizations consistent and well-drawn (with an underlying 'all surgeons are ruthless' vibe). In a show like The 100, they instead tend to pass the idiot-baton. So, someone will do something outrageously foolish or unhelpful or traitorous...because it is that person's turn to screw up. I don't mind someone having a lapse of judgement, or making the wrong call because they have bad information or they're retaliating emotionally for other things that have happened. But I do take issue with the character who has been the biggest voice of 'nonviolent solutions' and 'let's talk it out' turning around and, just because someone he cares about is missing/possibly in danger/maybe captured or dead, deciding that torture and later massacring a bunch of unarmed innocents for no reason (in frustration?) is the way to go. That's poor writing. I don't mind the about-turn being brought on by extenuating circumstances, but I do mind when a character completely abandons sincerely held beliefs...just so he can be written off a show dramatically. So, for our show, I don't want someone to do something awful simply because we've reached that part of the story and it's time for them to do the thing. I want to have developed and portrayed a character who could believably make those choices.



As to addressing the point about the 'fallen' nature of the Noldor, I will point out again that they are not fallen in the same way or to the same degree as Men are fallen after Morgoth corrupts them in the East in the Garden-of-Eden-substitute scenario at Hildórien. There is no fundamental change of their nature. They are not perfect beings, of course, but they were born into Arda Marred and weren't perfect to begin with. Their fall involves a loss of innocence and also a facing the music of the consequences of their actions, but they are not, as a people, fallen in the same way that Men or Orcs or Sauron is fallen. Some of them are quite villainous (no arguments here!), but they are not necessarily more villainous than other elves. One of the least sympathetic elvish characters of the First Age is Eöl, not one of the Noldor! (Sons of Fëanor whose names start with C may be a close runner-up, but still...Eöl wins that dubious honor.) Turgon, for instance, when faced with a nearly identical circumstance, behaves in a less flawed way than Thingol - he is very accepting of his daughter's choice of husband, and doesn't demand some proof that the mortal is worthy of her. So, yes, Turgon is proud and set in his ways...but so is Thingol. And if anything, Thingol is the one who comes across as more possessive and less willing to forgive.

It is not that we don't have any Aragorns or Faramirs in our story at this point, really - what we lack are hobbits. We don't have any down-to-earth simple folk with no interest in ruling or commanding armies. I am sure such characters exist. There are farmers and artisans in Gondolin, not just soldiers and a king. Hard-working folks who mind their own business, but will step up and behave heroically if called upon? We'll need to work hard to find that character in our story (perhaps Voronwë or Daeron). If you want to point out that no Prince of the Noldor is a Samwise Gamgee, I'll give you that one.

At the end of the day, I like these characters. I am willing to portray many of them sympathetically, so that while their flaws are quite visible, they can be liked and admired for their efforts to get it right. I am not interested in writing Game of Thrones. In that story, nearly everyone deserves to die a horrible death, except for all of the characters who do die horrible deaths, because the surviving characters are horrible people and killed them. There are exceptions - you can root for Tyrion and Danerys and Jon Snow and Arya. But...considering that cast of thousands? I know that the story of the First Age is in many ways harsher than the story of the end of the Third Age. There are perhaps fewer heroes who make the good and heroic choice, and more tragically flawed characters who eventually come to a terrible end. Audiences tend to like characters they know well, and be somewhat forgiving of their flaws. Readers of the Silmarillion tend to be rather unforgiving of the Noldor, in part because there is not as much time to get to know them as people before we are informed by a narrator that they are wrong and should not have done this thing. Spending a little bit more time with the characters, and with getting to the final destination, as we are doing in this project, allows us to bring out some of that nuance. At the end of the day, the audience should still want to go to Middle Earth after watching our show, even if it is a case of 'everybody dies!' writ large. Readers and viewers seldom want to go to Westeros - it's an unpleasant and depressingly awful place to live, apparently. But if the number of people who play LOTRO is any indication, the desire to go to Middle Earth seems pretty strong. Twelve-year-old-me certainly had a strong desire close my eyes and be in a forest in Middle Earth. There is something about Tolkien's world that has beauty and nobility amidst the harshness, and we should be careful not to lose that.


'Hero' Noldor characters include Finrod, Fingon, Galadriel, and Glorfindel. These people are going to be more-or-less unmitigatedly awesome. And we'll keep it up, we'll give lots of reasons for the audience and other characters to like them, but they won't be perfect. They'll make mistakes. They just won't make the kinds of mistakes that will make the audience think, 'yep, you earned that,' when they die. Audiences are going to, rather, be outraged when we kill them off (well, not in the case of Galadriel, but for the others).

'Complicated Hero' is more what we have with Fingolfin, Turgon, Aredhel, Maedhros, and Maglor. They very much do make choices that bring about their own deaths, and hurt others in the process. The audience is likely to be sympathetic (to varying degrees) to their struggles, though. (Again, no death for Maglor, but...) We will see them struggling, and then drop the ball in the end. Some members of the audience may like them, while others will dislike them. But overall, we expect to portray them in a mostly positive way, with some tragic flaws that eventually overwhelm their stories. But for a large chunk of the story, those flaws will merely be ominously in the background.

'Anti-Hero' is the territory we are crossing into with Fëanor. All of Season 3 is a long string of 'No, Fëanor, don't do it!' Sure, he's a main protagonist, but he's a Byronic Hero at best. He's clearly dragging his sons down with him, though how their characters develop after his death will be interesting to see play out. We will get something similar to this when Celegorm kidnaps Lúthien, as before that, he and his trusty dog will be much more sympathetic to the audience than you might expect. (Huan is going to be a much more present character on our show than he is to a first-time reader of the book.)

When some characters die, it is going to be a case of 'about time,' or 'that is your own fault, dude.' But *most* of the deaths on our show should be tragic, and some of them should make the audience quite angry that the character died. Some princes of the Noldor, like Amras, Aegnor, and Angrod, are so lightly sketched that how the audience views them will largely depend on how we choose to expand their stories. My guess is that, of the three, Angrod will be the most annoying/least sympathetic, but I could be wrong. We've barely seen him yet.

I think that one can talk about these characters as both proud and noble. That pride has a very ugly underbelly to it in many cases, but these characters are not all grasping/scheming, either.

 

[cellardur]

Glorfindel’s not the only one known to return. Finrod also returned from the Halls of Mandos, he’s described as such in the Published Silmarillion “But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar”.

I know and Finrod is clearly the best and most beloved out of the Noldor princes as said multiple times. He and Galadriel are the exceptions and the most noble, but even they are not perfect. However, we are not told when Finrod returns. We can imagine he is back by the 3rd age, but it's Glorfindel is brought back before even the War of Wrath. We are literally talking about at most a couple of decades and possibly a couple of years. His situation is different than even Finrod. In episode 3,19, Corey and Tony discuss the problems of having Galadriel (and it would be Finrod too) desire to rule a realm of their own. They believe it sounds 'sketchy' and it should. They have other reasons, but wanting to rule their own realm is not a particularly good one and it should be one of their faults.

To be honest, I'm not sure where the point of disagreement here lies. While we are certainly not always going to look to the HoME series or the letters as our primary source material, we certainly want to demonstrate that the Noldor are flawed individuals. It was demonstrated in S02, and again in this season. Future episodes will likely do the same.

I don't want to bring up past decisions, because they have been made, but I will use Fingolfin as an example of the decisions always whiten Fingolfin.

Case 1.
Fingolfin's reaction to Finwe's death.
Optina A
Fingolfin could be prideful and power hungry. He could claim the kingship and quite frankly spread lies that Feanor doesn't care about Finwe's death just the Silmarils.

Or
Option B
He could agree to accept Feanor as king and only decide to claim the kingship after Feanor burns the ship.

Option B obviously makes Fingolfin look more noble than option A. Option B was chosen.

Case 2.
Fingolfin's reaction the Kinslaying.

Option A
Fingolfin could rashly charge in and start killing Teleri without trying to find the cause or being attacked first.

Option B
The Teleri could shoot and kill Fingolfin's sister making him only then decide to attack.

Then there is the proposed Case Study 3.
Fingolfin's suicidal challenge of Melkor.

Option A
Fingolfin despairs and decides a 'death by Morgoth' end.

Option B
Fingolfin always thought the best chance to beat Morgoth was a one on one fight and challenges him immediately as he arrives.

The host put forward option B.

This is a consistent pattern. This is just my opinion and others probably disagree. These decisions could each individually be, because they make the story, but when they are all put together, I am seeing (or imagining I am seeing a pattern), which may even be subconscious.

If others disagree, then that's fine, but I think it's worth discussing whether we are whitewashing certain characters.

 

[Ange1e4e5]

I know and Finrod is clearly the best and most beloved out of the Noldor princes as said multiple times. He and Galadriel are the exceptions and the most noble, but even they are not perfect. However, we are not told when Finrod returns. We can imagine he is back by the 3rd age, but it's Glorfindel is brought back before even the War of Wrath. We are literally talking about at most a couple of decades and possibly a couple of years. His situation is different than even Finrod. In episode 3,19, Corey and Tony discuss the problems of having Galadriel (and it would be Finrod too) desire to rule a realm of their own. They believe it sounds 'sketchy' and it should. They have other reasons, but wanting to rule their own realm is not a particularly good one and it should be one of their faults.

I don't want to bring up past decisions, because they have been made, but I will use Fingolfin as an example of the decisions always whiten Fingolfin.

Case 1.
Fingolfin's reaction to Finwe's death.
Optina A
Fingolfin could be prideful and power hungry. He could claim the kingship and quite frankly spread lies that Feanor doesn't care about Finwe's death just the Silmarils.

Or
Option B
He could agree to accept Feanor as king and only decide to claim the kingship after Feanor burns the ship.

Option B obviously makes Fingolfin look more noble than option A. Option B was chosen.

Case 2.
Fingolfin's reaction the Kinslaying.

Option A
Fingolfin could rashly charge in and start killing Teleri without trying to find the cause or being attacked first.

Option B
The Teleri could shoot and kill Fingolfin's sister making him only then decide to attack.

Then there is the proposed Case Study 3.
Fingolfin's suicidal challenge of Melkor.

Option A
Fingolfin despairs and decides a 'death by Morgoth' end.

Option B
Fingolfin always thought the best chance to beat Morgoth was a one on one fight and challenges him immediately as he arrives.

The host put forward option B.

This is a consistent pattern. This is just my opinion and others probably disagree. These decisions could each individually be, because they make the story, but when they are all put together, I am seeing (or imagining I am seeing a pattern), which may even be subconscious.

If others disagree, then that's fine, but I think it's worth discussing whether we are whitewashing certain characters.

He was reincarnated before the War of Wrath. If he wasn’t of high moral fiber, why bother reincarnating him?

The problem is: make a character too unsympathetic, people start rooting for their demise. It’s why there’s heroes and villains. When you make the “heroes” too similar to the villains, the viewers stop caring who wins or loses. There’s a whole trope dedicated to this.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarknessInducedAudienceApathy

 

[cellardur]

Certainly, there are many examples of bad behavior among the Noldor, and we have incorporated some of this into our story thus far. We have, for instance, shown the rivalry between Fëanor and Fingolfin play out in great detail, with the specific request that Fingolfin *not* be depicted as noble from the very beginning. We've also shown Finwë and Nerdanel at Formenos both (in their own ways) trying to rein Fëanor in to no avail. We have shown Fëanor strike his grandson Celebrimbor (who appeared as no more than a young teen at the time, perhaps a boy of 14), and we have shown the proud Noldor be disparagingly condescending towards the Teleri, the Vanyar, and even Melkor.

The Feanorians are the worst of the Noldor and the villains of the piece no doubt. Perhaps I should be clearer and say apart from the Feanorians, the faults of the Noldor are being ignored. I think we are falling into the same trap Galadriel does in the story. We are seeing all the faults of Feanor and especially his darker sons, but ignoring that ALL the Noldor were like this and there is plenty of fault to go around.

I think that Ange1e4e5 is on the right track - Finrod is clearly the noblest and best-liked of the Noldorin princes. And both Finrod and Glorfindel are re-incarnated fairly quickly, after just a brief stay in Mandos. Galadriel may become the wisest eventually, due in no small part to the tutelage of Melian, but she is likely more power-hungry than her elder brother (perhaps in part because leadership is denied her for a long time). Finrod Felagund is (in many ways) the Faramir-analogue of the First Age Noldor. He's not Faramir, of course, but he thinks deeply about things, and has that philosophical approach. He takes the time to get to know others (including other cultures), and doesn't rush into judgement. He'll also throw his life away on a suicide mission

I agree Finrod is the best of immediate princes royalty. I have addressed in a post before, how Glorfindel is an even more special case.

I agree with everything you said about Galadriel. She is more power hungry than her brother and is a problem, but even then she is the clearly the 2nd most noble. That's the point I am not seeing. Galadriel with all her faults in the 2nd age, should clearly be standing out as more noble than any of the Noldor royalty, except for Finrod. We shouldn't try and ignore her faults, but the others are EVEN more flawed and I don't think we have seen that.

I am very much in favor of showing nuanced characters. I don't mind someone behaving badly, but it has to be in character and for a good reason. Caranthir saying something obnoxious and insensitive? Sure, of course he would. But Fingon can't be substituted in for Caranthir's lines just because all Noldor are proud. All shows let their characters do bad things, because it creates drama. Some shows make sure to build up the *reasons* a character might behave in this way. Thus, in Grey's Anatomy, people are always doing all sorts of cheating back-stabby soap opera things to one another. And yet...they do try to keep characterizations consistent and well-drawn (with an underlying 'all surgeons are ruthless' vibe). In a show like The 100, they instead tend to pass the idiot-baton. So, someone will do something outrageously foolish or unhelpful or traitorous...because it is that person's turn to screw up. I don't mind someone having a lapse of judgement, or making the wrong call because they have bad information or they're retaliating emotionally for other things that have happened. But I do take issue with the character who has been the biggest voice of 'nonviolent solutions' and 'let's talk it out' turning around and, just because someone he cares about is missing/possibly in danger/maybe captured or dead, deciding that torture and later massacring a bunch of unarmed innocents for no reason (in frustration?) is the way to go. That's poor writing. I don't mind the about-turn being brought on by extenuating circumstances, but I do mind when a character completely abandons sincerely held beliefs...just so he can be written off a show dramatically. So, for our show, I don't want someone to do something awful simply because we've reached that part of the story and it's time for them to do the thing. I want to have developed and portrayed a character who could believably make those choices.

No I am in complete agreement with your argument that we should not have characters acting contrary to their character. That's terrible writing.

However, all the Noldor princes are incredibly proud. They are all to a greater or lesser extent power hungry. They all to a greater or lesser extent back stab their cousins and try to gain more power. They all distrust each other. Virtually all of them disobey their king.

This is why I used the example of Boromir and Turin. They are good men, but they are overly proud and stubborn. In fact I imagine Boromir, is more open to be challenged than Noldor.

Is Fingon going to be obnoxious and rude to his cousin Aegnor? No. Is Fingon going to be arrogant, ignore advice and go with his own feelings despite warnings yes.

As to addressing the point about the 'fallen' nature of the Noldor, I will point out again that they are not fallen in the same way or to the same degree as Men are fallen after Morgoth corrupts them in the East in the Garden-of-Eden-substitute scenario at Hildórien. There is no fundamental change of their nature. They are not perfect beings, of course, but they were born into Arda Marred and weren't perfect to begin with. Their fall involves a loss of innocence and also a facing the music of the consequences of their actions, but they are not, as a people, fallen in the same way that Men or Orcs or Sauron is fallen. Some of them are quite villainous (no arguments here!), but they are not necessarily more villainous than other elves. One of the least sympathetic elvish characters of the First Age is Eöl, not one of the Noldor! (Sons of Fëanor whose names start with C may be a close runner-up, but still...Eöl wins that dubious honor.) Turgon, for instance, when faced with a nearly identical circumstance, behaves in a less flawed way than Thingol - he is very accepting of his daughter's choice of husband, and doesn't demand some proof that the mortal is worthy of her. So, yes, Turgon is proud and set in his ways...but so is Thingol. And if anything, Thingol is the one who comes across as more possessive and less willing to forgive.

I agree with a lot of this, but not the final conclusion. They are more flawed than other Elves, especially the Vanyar and Teleri. The Sindar too due to Thingol and Melian are less flawed than they are. They are not at the state of Men or Orcs. Men it seems had the honour and privilege of being spoken to directly by Eru and instead chose Morgoth. However, the Noldor too have rebelled from the rightful authority of Manwe. It's not as severe, but it's still a rebellion and a Fall.

It's interesting you bring up Thingol. Thingol has a strong dislike of Men, but the Noldor princes are prouder than Thingol. Thingol shouldn't come across as looking as worse than Fingolfin. Elrond the ultimate loremaster and a descendant of Fingolfin/Turgon and Thingol on the other side, prefers to trace his lineage through Thingol.

Eol is a real exception and an outcast. He chooses to distance himself the other Sindar. For the Noldor it's more of a rule.

Let's also not ignore that the Noldor in part will treat Men so well, because they will see them as cannon fodder to use against Morgoth. Even Galadriel, won't be above looking at the dwarves as her soldiers to use against Orcs.

Our disagreement is seen when you bring up the Sons of Feanor. For me it's easy to portray the Sons of Feanor as villains, they are for the most part. It's a lot harder to show the faults of the characters we like such as Galadriel (to a lesser extent), Fingolfin, Fingon etc.

It is not that we don't have any Aragorns or Faramirs in our story at this point, really - what we lack are hobbits. We don't have any down-to-earth simple folk with no interest in ruling or commanding armies. I am sure such characters exist. There are farmers and artisans in Gondolin, not just soldiers and a king. Hard-working folks who mind their own business, but will step up and behave heroically if called upon? We'll need to work hard to find that character in our story (perhaps Voronwë or Daeron). If you want to point out that no Prince of the Noldor is a Samwise Gamgee, I'll give you that one.

I don't agree with the first bit. Aragorn and Faramir aren't proud and are not power hungry. They rule, because it's their right (a different discussion) and they wish to serve. In fact Tolkien points out just how rare Aragorn is, in being majestic without pride. Aragorn has no desire to extend his realm or be king for his own glory and either does Faramir. They are similar to Finarfin. It's why they can reject the ring so relatively easily, but Galadriel (the 2nd noblest of the Noldor) even after many, many years still struggles. As I said if Galadriel, after thousands of years struggled so much, how do you think the rest of the Noldor would do?

Faramir and Aragorn would never have left Valinor to rule their own realms and they would certainly have returned with Finarfin. The Noldor princes are too proud to except correction to stubborn. Can you imagine Fingolfin spending his entire life serving and helping simple farmers; famers that insult and ridicule him?

At the end of the day, I like these characters. I am willing to portray many of them sympathetically, so that while their flaws are quite visible, they can be liked and admired for their efforts to get it right. I am not interested in writing Game of Thrones. In that story, nearly everyone deserves to die a horrible death, except for all of the characters who do die horrible deaths, because the surviving characters are horrible people and killed them. There are exceptions - you can root for Tyrion and Danerys and Jon Snow and Arya. But...considering that cast of thousands? I know that the story of the First Age is in many ways harsher than the story of the end of the Third Age. There are perhaps fewer heroes who make the good and heroic choice, and more tragically flawed characters who eventually come to a terrible end. Audiences tend to like characters they know well, and be somewhat forgiving of their flaws. Readers of the Silmarillion tend to be rather unforgiving of the Noldor, in part because there is not as much time to get to know them as people before we are informed by a narrator that they are wrong and should not have done this thing. Spending a little bit more time with the characters, and with getting to the final destination, as we are doing in this project, allows us to bring out some of that nuance. At the end of the day, the audience should still want to go to Middle Earth after watching our show, even if it is a case of 'everybody dies!' writ large. Readers and viewers seldom want to go to Westeros - it's an unpleasant and depressingly awful place to live, apparently. But if the number of people who play LOTRO is any indication, the desire to go to Middle Earth seems pretty strong. Twelve-year-old-me certainly had a strong desire close my eyes and be in a forest in Middle Earth. There is something about Tolkien's world that has beauty and nobility amidst the harshness, and we should be careful not to lose that.

I agree GOT goes too far and in the end, I personally don't care if the White Walkers win, because there is no one worth rooting for. I am not suggesting we go that far and it would be a betrayal of everything Tolkien stood for to do so. At the same time someone can be incredibly sympathetic and still very flawed.

Turin is a beloved character and he is flawed and so are Denethor, Boromir and Thorin. Characters being flawed shouldn't stop us loving them or wishing to visit these places, but ME is not a paradise. Gondolin's beauty should make us want to live there.

It's the last bit I disagree with. Readers of the Silmarillion tend to ignore the faults of the Noldor. It's Turin and Thingol who tend to be viewed the harshest and the reason is, because we see them up close. The early chapters of the Silmarillion covers so much time and is just a summary so it's easier to ignore the pride and arrogance of the Noldor.

'Hero' Noldor characters include Finrod, Fingon, Galadriel, and Glorfindel. These people are going to be more-or-less unmitigatedly awesome. And we'll keep it up, we'll give lots of reasons for the audience and other characters to like them, but they won't be perfect. They'll make mistakes. They just won't make the kinds of mistakes that will make the audience think, 'yep, you earned that,' when they die. Audiences are going to, rather, be outraged when we kill them off (well, not in the case of Galadriel, but for the others).

And this is the crux of where we disagree. Virtually all the Noldor are Heroes. They will all be brave heroic and do great things. For the most part we should be cheering them all on. However, they are also flawed. Those 4 are also not on the same scale, not even close to it.

Glorfindel is a unique special case, up there with Aragorn, Elrond, Faramir and Gandalf. Fingon on the other hand is a deeply flawed character, one of the foremost kinslayers. You can make mistakes and still be a hero. We can be amazed and love Fingon, but still face palm when he makes mistakes.

I am not the biggest fan of Peter Jackson's films, but does the audience say 'yep you earned that' when Boromir dies? From the casual viewers (not even fans) I have spoken to, that was one of the most heartbreaking scenes. I remember watching the film with a girlfriend that had no love for fantasy, but she was in tears when Boromir died. Even the Hobbit as badly done as it it, is particularly poignant when Thorin dies.

'Complicated Hero' is more what we have with Fingolfin, Turgon, Aredhel, Maedhros, and Maglor. They very much do make choices that bring about their own deaths, and hurt others in the process. The audience is likely to be sympathetic (to varying degrees) to their struggles, though. (Again, no death for Maglor, but...) We will see them struggling, and then drop the ball in the end. Some members of the audience may like them, while others will dislike them. But overall, we expect to portray them in a mostly positive way, with some tragic flaws that eventually overwhelm their stories. But for a large chunk of the story, those flaws will merely be ominously in the background.

'Anti-Hero' is the territory we are crossing into with Fëanor. All of Season 3 is a long string of 'No, Fëanor, don't do it!' Sure, he's a main protagonist, but he's a Byronic Hero at best. He's clearly dragging his sons down with him, though how their characters develop after his death will be interesting to see play out. We will get something similar to this when Celegorm kidnaps Lúthien, as before that, he and his trusty dog will be much more sympathetic to the audience than you might expect. (Huan is going to be a much more present character on our show than he is to a first-time reader of the book.)

When some characters die, it is going to be a case of 'about time,' or 'that is your own fault, dude.' But *most* of the deaths on our show should be tragic, and some of them should make the audience quite angry that the character died. Some princes of the Noldor, like Amras, Aegnor, and Angrod, are so lightly sketched that how the audience views them will largely depend on how we choose to expand their stories. My guess is that, of the three, Angrod will be the most annoying/least sympathetic, but I could be wrong. We've barely seen him yet.

I think that one can talk about these characters as both proud and noble. That pride has a very ugly underbelly to it in many cases, but these characters are not all grasping/scheming, either.

The pride definitely has an ugly underbelly, but does not diminish the heroism either. The Silmarillion is filled with heroic, flawed characters.

I think with the exception of Glorfindel, we should be thinking 'yeh he/she wasn't perfect, but they were great and for the most part good. They made their mistakes, but they redeemed themselves'

 

[cellardur]

He was reincarnated before the War of Wrath. If he wasn’t of high moral fiber, why bother reincarnating him?

The problem is: make a character too unsympathetic, people start rooting for their demise. It’s why there’s heroes and villains. When you make the “heroes” too similar to the villains, the viewers stop caring who wins or loses. There’s a whole trope dedicated to this.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarknessInducedAudienceApathy

I am not sure Finrod was, but I could be wrong. Glorfindel was notably mentioned as being reincarnated before the War of Wrath. Don't get me wrong, Finrod is an exceptionally moral and the best out of the princes, but even he is not say Faramir or Glorfindel.

I agree with the latter, but we shouldn't make all our heroes perfect. I believe we should trust our audience. I said GOT falls into the trap you mentioned, but even our villains are as noble as the heroes in that series. Heroes with faults can work if done well and two very recent examples are Cobra Kai and Marvel's Civil War.

I don't think we should shy away from doing something, just because it's difficult.

 

[Ange1e4e5]

I am not sure Finrod was, but I could be wrong. Glorfindel was notably mentioned as being reincarnated before the War of Wrath. Don't get me wrong, Finrod is an exceptionally moral and the best out of the princes, but even he is not say Faramir or Glorfindel.

I agree with the latter, but we shouldn't make all our heroes perfect. I believe we should trust our audience. I said GOT falls into the trap you mentioned, but even our villains are as noble as the heroes in that series. Heroes with faults can work if done well and two very recent examples are Cobra Kai and Marvel's Civil War.

I don't think we should shy away from doing something, just because it's difficult.

Well, some of them are not great in judging moral character. Turgon trusted Maeglin, and it led to the Fall of Gondolin. Orodreth trusted Turin, and it led to the Fall of Nargothrond. We could make Orodreth into a character too nice for his own good. Fingon is a bit of a Leeroy Jenkins, since he attacked during the first Kinslaying without bothering to learn what was going on.

 

[Nicholas Palazzo]

I just want to remind everyone that our depiction of Fingolfin has thus far been more negative than that in the published Silmarillion.

I'll give a more full response when I'm not driving home.

 

[Nicholas Palazzo]

Ok, there is a lot to unpack in this thread. The TL;DR of what I'm about to write basically boils down to: We've known the Noldor characters we are looking at are flawed. We've depicted them that way. We should, and likely will continue to do so.

Case 1.
Fingolfin's reaction to Finwe's death.
Optina A
Fingolfin could be prideful and power hungry. He could claim the kingship and quite frankly spread lies that Feanor doesn't care about Finwe's death just the Silmarils.

Or
Option B
He could agree to accept Feanor as king and only decide to claim the kingship after Feanor burns the ship.

Option B obviously makes Fingolfin look more noble than option A. Option B was chosen.

This is something of an oversimplified view of what has and could have been done. To my recollection, option B is what it says in the book, minus claiming the kingship following Feanor taking or burning the ships. Even option B has Fingolfin going back on his word to a degree. Still, our depiction has certainly been more negative than that. I would refer you to the outlines for S03E01, S03E07, S03E08, S02E010, and, S02E11 for examples. I would consider Option A to be a great departure from the Published Silmarillion, and suggest that it would make it difficult for Fingolfin to win back the audience over the next 1-2 seasons.

Fingolfin's reaction the Kinslaying.

Option A
Fingolfin could rashly charge in and start killing Teleri without trying to find the cause or being attacked first.

Option B
The Teleri could shoot and kill Fingolfin's sister making him only then decide to attack.

I can see how one could read this as a wholly positive take on Fingolfin, but you are omitting the fact that Fingolfin is leading a large group of armed soldiers towards the Teleri archers and thus is clearly prepared to use violence against them if necessary. Not exactly a peaceful move. Once again, I would consider both of these options are extremes, and our depiction lies between them. I remind you that the published Silmarillion doesn't even state that Fingolfin is at the Kinslaying, much less participating.

Fingolfin's suicidal challenge of Melkor.

Option A
Fingolfin despairs and decides a 'death by Morgoth' end.

Option B
Fingolfin always thought the best chance to beat Morgoth was a one on one fight and challenges him immediately as he arrives.

The host put forward option B.

In this I agree with you, though this decision is hardly one that is set in stone. We will see what the hosts think of our script outline for this season's finale.

This is a consistent pattern. This is just my opinion and others probably disagree. These decisions could each individually be, because they make the story, but when they are all put together, I am seeing (or imagining I am seeing a pattern), which may even be subconscious.

I can see how you are reaching this conclusion, but I would refer you the episodes I mentioned. Hopefully they might allay your concerns on that point.

The Feanorians are the worst of the Noldor and the villains of the piece no doubt. Perhaps I should be clearer and say apart from the Feanorians, the faults of the Noldor are being ignored. I think we are falling into the same trap Galadriel does in the story. We are seeing all the faults of Feanor and especially his darker sons, but ignoring that ALL the Noldor were like this and there is plenty of fault to go around.

I would consider lumping the rest of the Noldor entirely into the same category as the Feanorians, or Feanor himself is a bit far, but as stated above, there are many flawed examples among the Noldor and we should, and likely will continue to illustrate that.

I agree with everything you said about Galadriel. She is more power hungry than her brother and is a problem, but even then she is the clearly the 2nd most noble. That's the point I am not seeing. Galadriel with all her faults in the 2nd age, should clearly be standing out as more noble than any of the Noldor royalty, except for Finrod. We shouldn't try and ignore her faults, but the others are EVEN more flawed and I don't think we have seen that.

I think an important part of this is that we need to remember to give our characters some sort of arc over their extremely long lives. We have time to get Galadriel to the point she has reached at the end of the Third Age. Most of the other Noldor do not have that kind of time. We need the audience to be interested in their characters so that their deaths will have impact. This may mean, at times, that a more rapid arc is required for them, or we have to give them moments of likeability early on to encourage the audience to see them for what they are. Flawed protagonists. It is also important to note that Tolkien does not write of simple evil, but that everything is good in the beginning. This has been a running theme for our project from day one.

Our disagreement is seen when you bring up the Sons of Feanor. For me it's easy to portray the Sons of Feanor as villains, they are for the most part. It's a lot harder to show the faults of the characters we like such as Galadriel (to a lesser extent), Fingolfin, Fingon etc.

This, I think, is the crux of the whole matter. I think that what the Hosts are aiming for (and I agree with them) is a story where we feel for the tragic loss that is caused, not merely be the bad actions of the characters, but by the fall of those characters in and of itself. Manwe comments upon this very thing in regard to Feanor. If we, however, consistently portray our more sympathetic Noldor (with the exceptions of Glorfindel and Finrod perhaps) as having villainous intent, we will lose a lot of the impact of the tragedy that the text presents to us.

The pride definitely has an ugly underbelly, but does not diminish the heroism either. The Silmarillion is filled with heroic, flawed characters.

I think with the exception of Glorfindel, we should be thinking 'yeh he/she wasn't perfect, but they were great and for the most part good. They made their mistakes, but they redeemed themselves'

And here is where I think we all agree. I think that what we are disagreeing is on the nuances of execution presented thus far. Once again, I'd recommend giving the episodes I mentioned a glance. What I think we are going for is more of a sliding scale than trying to put people into 3-4 categories and saying that they must remain in those characters from introduction until death.

 

[MithLuin]

There are certainly places we agree in our interpretation, cellardur. While I see that some of what I post makes sense to you, before I veer off in a direction that loses you, likewise parts of what you say have me nodding in agreement. Such as this, for instance:

The pride definitely has an ugly underbelly, but does not diminish the heroism either. The Silmarillion is filled with heroic, flawed characters.

I think with the exception of Glorfindel, we should be thinking 'yeah he/she wasn't perfect, but they were great and for the most part good. They made their mistakes, but they redeemed themselves'

Sounds good to me! Pride leads people to dismiss/use/overlook others as 'beneath them', and certainly some of the Noldor do seem to write off the Sindar. How and when they accept Men as useful allies also demonstrates some of that. Caranthir seems almost surprised that Haleth's people were able to fight off the Orcs. And despite his friendship/close dealings with the Dwarves, he was unable to conceal his scorn for their unlovely (in his eyes) appearance. He is, admittedly, one of the worst offenders when it comes to pride, because he has so little mitigating charisma to smooth anything over.

And yet we are dealing with characters who are (for the most part) quite noble, so they are not going to have a lot of sneaky underhanded trickery going on. Occasionally, yes. (Certainly from a character like Curufin.) But political maneuvering is not the dominant theme of the story, either. Finrod works to build himself a kingdom; he does not on any level scheme to acquire one. At most, he overlooks any property claims from the Petty-dwarves.


I am a bit puzzled by your analysis of character choices regarding Fingolfin. That is (clearly) not how I saw those decisions happening. I'll have to take a closer look and go back to check some things, but I think there's some missing data here.

Case 1.
Fingolfin's reaction to Finwe's death.
Option A
Fingolfin could be prideful and power hungry. He could claim the kingship and quite frankly spread lies that Feanor doesn't care about Finwe's death just the Silmarils.

Or
Option B
He could agree to accept Feanor as king and only decide to claim the kingship after Feanor burns the ships.

Option B obviously makes Fingolfin look more noble than option A. Option B was chosen.

The Option that was actually chosen was this:
Fingolfin is extremely distrustful of Fëanor's leadership in the wake of their father's death, but considers himself bound to silence when it comes to opposing him because of the word he gave before the throne of the Valar trying to heal their feud: "Half-brother in blood, full brother in heart will I be. Thou shalt lead and I will follow. May no new grief divide us." Thus, when Finarfin urges him to do something about Fëanor's reckless leadership, he responds that his hands are tied.

Fëanor and Fingolfin's rivalry was a major plot point of the later part of Season 2, of course. Things escalated to the point of Fëanor putting a sword at his half-brother's throat (as in the book.) [We did make a point of showing Fingolfin's guilt in that escalation, by the way]. The question is, how seriously would a character like Fingolfin take his publicly-given word? What is his leeway for breaking it or going against it in spirit? That is where pride comes in; sure, keeping his word is noble, but pride reinforces that decision by not letting someone back down and lose face or look like a liar.

What we are told in the text is that, after the Oath, "Fingolfin and Turgon his son therefore spoke against Fëanor, and fierce words awoke, so that once again wrath came near to the edge of swords." We are not told what resolves this situation or shuts down the looming fratricide, other than Finarfin's and Orodreth's calm words. What we chose to use was to have Fëanor throw Fingolfin's words back at him, saying that he promised before Manwë's throne to follow him. Thus, if Fingolfin continues to argue against Fëanor, he's now faithless.

Fingolfin chooses to keep his word, despite his misgivings. This is the action of a leader with some flawed decision-making skills. True, he's not actively campaigning against his elder half-brother or claiming the crown since he was acting king of Tirion for the past few years. He's trying to fix things.

This does have the added benefit of getting the audience thinking about the seriousness of making and keeping an Oath, which is an important thematic concept in this story. We have to teach them that cultural significance in this episode. But...we made the decision to keep Fingolfin's character consistent with how he was before he got news of his father's death, not just to further a plot line.

While it is certainly possible that Fingolfin could start a whisper campaign of lies to discredit Fëanor, or openly accuse him of things that are not true, I do not think the text ever suggests that Fingolfin behaves in this way after their father's death? The quote I gave above was specifically in reaction to the Oath of Fëanor, and how it was a blasphemous Oath that no one should make. It was not over Fingolfin claiming the kingship.

Case 2.
Fingolfin's reaction the Kinslaying.

Option A
Fingolfin could rashly charge in and start killing Teleri without trying to find the cause or being attacked first.

Option B
The Teleri could shoot and kill Fingolfin's sister making him only then decide to attack.

Option C
Fingolfin does not take part in the Kinslaying at all.

Obviously, this is the option that the published Silmarillion goes with. While we know that Fingon drew his sword and rushed in, the text does not suggest that his father Fingolfin was even there. And yet, our story is about the rivalry of Fëanor and Fingolfin, so it seemed more important to involve Fingon's father at this point in the story. So, we made Fingolfin, later High King of the Noldor in Middle-earth, guilty of kinslaying and personally taking part. As part of the chaos on screen, we wanted to see the moment when he switched from 'What is happening? This is madness!' to the decision to kill, and thus witnessing a Noldo death was important. Note that in the book, part of the reason Fingon rushes in without ascertaining how the fight began is because he sees his kinsmen falling in battle and rushes to their aid.

Then there is the proposed Case Study 3.
Fingolfin's suicidal challenge of Melkor.

Option A
Fingolfin despairs and decides a 'death by Morgoth' end.

Option B
Fingolfin always thought the best chance to beat Morgoth was a one on one fight and challenges him immediately as he arrives.

The host put forward option B.

...and the Hosts will no doubt reconsider some things when we get there. The iconic duel between Fingolfin and Morgoth will no doubt proceed on screen almost exactly as it does in the book. This scene is like 'Eowyn fights the Nazgul' - you try to capture it as it is, because it's awesome. There is a question of how we foreshadow it, and it does matter a *lot* if Morgoth is standing outside within sight of Fingolfin when the Sun rises and his declaration of war is issued. Because, yes, if he can see him - he likely will address Morgoth personally in this scene. How much of a 'come down and fight me!' we include in his dialogue is up for debate, but Fingolfin is looking at the guy who murdered his father, and he's quite heady with the obvious advantage sunlight gives to Elves over all evil creatures. He might very well think a one-on-one duel could work right now...in the heat of the moment. And the later challenge could be pure despair. We can create a juxtaposition of the two scenes. We are still working on the script outline of the Season 3 Finale and the Hosts have not yet reviewed it, but as things stand now, Fingolfin most certainly does not set out to travel towards Angband for the purposes of issuing a personal challenge to Morgoth. He does not intend to do much more than find Angband (and figure out what happened between Fëanor and these strange monsters) when the Sun rises, causing Angband's forces to scatter and flee like cockroaches or turn to stone. Only at that point does he decide to issue challenges/declare war.

As a note, option B is more reckless/foolhardy. Thus, I would not view this suggestion as a 'whitewashing' of a character.

This is a consistent pattern. This is just my opinion and others probably disagree. These decisions could each individually be, because they make the story, but when they are all put together, I am seeing (or imagining I am seeing a pattern), which may even be subconscious.

If others disagree, then that's fine, but I think it's worth discussing whether we are whitewashing certain characters.

I think that the pattern you are seeing is a hesitance to portray the characters as significantly worse or less nuanced than they are portrayed in the published text. But yes, character arcs are worth discussing, because so much of this story is implicit rather than actually spelled out. Naturally, there will be a lot of interpretations/preferences/head-canon ideas of how we all see this playing out. It is quite possible that you have a dimmer view of the Noldor than most posters here, and would thus see the rest of us as wearing rose-colored glasses.

[Edit: Cross-posted with Nick.]

 

[Ange1e4e5]

I just want to remind everyone that our depiction of Fingolfin has thus far been more negative than that in the published Silmarillion.

I'll give a more full response when I'm not driving home.

Is it because he’s played by the same guy who played Loki?

 

[Nicholas Palazzo]

[Edit: Cross-posted with Nick.]

We do that a lot.

 

[Nicholas Palazzo]

Is it because he’s played by the same guy who played Loki?

Who was "cast" to play him never really entered my mind when I was thinking about how he should act. I cannot speak for any influence that decision had on others during Season 3. I can only say definitively that it had no impact on Season 2.

 

[Ange1e4e5]

There are certainly places we agree in our interpretation, cellardur. While I see that some of what I post makes sense to you, before I veer off in a direction that loses you, likewise parts of what you say have me nodding in agreement. Such as this, for instance:



Sounds good to me! Pride leads people to dismiss/use/overlook others as 'beneath them', and certainly some of the Noldor do seem to write off the Sindar. How and when they accept Men as useful allies also demonstrates some of that. Caranthir seems almost surprised that Haleth's people were able to fight off the Orcs. And despite his friendship/close dealings with the Dwarves, he was unable to conceal his scorn for their unlovely (in his eyes) appearance. He is, admittedly, one of the worst offenders when it comes to pride, because he has so little mitigating charisma to smooth anything over.

And yet we are dealing with characters who are (for the most part) quite noble, so they are not going to have a lot of sneaky underhanded trickery going on. Occasionally, yes. (Certainly from a character like Curufin.) But political maneuvering is not the dominant theme of the story, either. Finrod works to build himself a kingdom; he does not on any level scheme to acquire one. At most, he overlooks any property claims from the Petty-dwarves.


I am a bit puzzled by your analysis of character choices regarding Fingolfin. That is (clearly) not how I saw those decisions happening. I'll have to take a closer look and go back to check some things, but I think there's some missing data here.




The Option that was actually chosen was this:
Fingolfin is extremely distrustful of Fëanor's leadership in the wake of their father's death, but considers himself bound to silence when it comes to opposing him because of the word he gave before the throne of the Valar trying to heal their feud: "Half-brother in blood, full brother in heart will I be. Thou shalt lead and I will follow. May no new grief divide us." Thus, when Finarfin urges him to do something about Fëanor's reckless leadership, he responds that his hands are tied.

Fëanor and Fingolfin's rivalry was a major plot point of the later part of Season 2, of course. Things escalated to the point of Fëanor putting a sword at his half-brother's throat (as in the book.) [We did make a point of showing Fingolfin's guilt in that escalation, by the way]. The question is, how seriously would a character like Fingolfin take his publicly-given word? What is his leeway for breaking it or going against it in spirit? That is where pride comes in; sure, keeping his word is noble, but pride reinforces that decision by not letting someone back down and lose face or look like a liar.

What we are told in the text is that, after the Oath, "Fingolfin and Turgon his son therefore spoke against Fëanor, and fierce words awoke, so that once again wrath came near to the edge of swords." We are not told what resolves this situation or shuts down the looming fratricide, other than Finarfin's and Orodreth's calm words. What we chose to use was to have Fëanor throw Fingolfin's words back at him, saying that he promised before Manwë's throne to follow him. Thus, if Fingolfin continues to argue against Fëanor, he's now faithless.

Fingolfin chooses to keep his word, despite his misgivings. This is the action of a leader with some flawed decision-making skills. True, he's not actively campaigning against his elder half-brother or claiming the crown since he was acting king of Tirion for the past few years. He's trying to fix things.

This does have the added benefit of getting the audience thinking about the seriousness of making and keeping an Oath, which is an important thematic concept in this story. We have to teach them that cultural significance in this episode. But...we made the decision to keep Fingolfin's character consistent with how he was before he got news of his father's death, not just to further a plot line.

While it is certainly possible that Fingolfin could start a whisper campaign of lies to discredit Fëanor, or openly accuse him of things that are not true, I do not think the text ever suggests that Fingolfin behaves in this way after their father's death? The quote I gave above was specifically in reaction to the Oath of Fëanor, and how it was a blasphemous Oath that no one should make. It was not over Fingolfin claiming the kingship.



Option C
Fingolfin does not take part in the Kinslaying at all.

Obviously, this is the option that the published Silmarillion goes with. While we know that Fingon drew his sword and rushed in, the text does not suggest that his father Fingolfin was even there. And yet, our story is about the rivalry of Fëanor and Fingolfin, so it seemed more important to involve Fingon's father at this point in the story. So, we made Fingolfin, later High King of the Noldor in Middle-earth, guilty of kinslaying and personally taking part. As part of the chaos on screen, we wanted to see the moment when he switched from 'What is happening? This is madness!' to the decision to kill, and thus witnessing a Noldo death was important. Note that in the book, part of the reason Fingon rushes in without ascertaining how the fight began is because he sees his kinsmen falling in battle and rushes to their aid.




...and the Hosts will no doubt reconsider some things when we get there. The iconic duel between Fingolfin and Morgoth will no doubt proceed on screen almost exactly as it does in the book. This scene is like 'Eowyn fights the Nazgul' - you try to capture it as it is, because it's awesome. There is a question of how we foreshadow it, and it does matter a *lot* if Morgoth is standing outside within sight of Fingolfin when the Sun rises and his declaration of war is issued. Because, yes, if he can see him - he likely will address Morgoth personally in this scene. How much of a 'come down and fight me!' we include in his dialogue is up for debate, but Fingolfin is looking at the guy who murdered his father, and he's quite heady with the obvious advantage sunlight gives to Elves over all evil creatures. He might very well think a one-on-one duel could work right now...in the heat of the moment. And the later challenge could be pure despair. We can create a juxtaposition of the two scenes. We are still working on the script outline of the Season 3 Finale and the Hosts have not yet reviewed it, but as things stand now, Fingolfin most certainly does not set out to travel towards Angband for the purposes of issuing a personal challenge to Morgoth. He does not intend to do much more than find Angband (and figure out what happened between Fëanor and these strange monsters) when the Sun rises, causing Angband's forces to scatter and flee like cockroaches or turn to stone. Only at that point does he decide to issue challenges/declare war.

As a note, option B is more reckless/foolhardy. Thus, I would not view this suggestion as a 'whitewashing' of a character.



I think that the pattern you are seeing is a hesitance to portray the characters as significantly worse or less nuanced than they are portrayed in the published text. But yes, character arcs are worth discussing, because so much of this story is implicit rather than actually spelled out. Naturally, there will be a lot of interpretations/preferences/head-canon ideas of how we all see this playing out. It is quite possible that you have a dimmer view of the Noldor than most posters here, and would thus see the rest of us as wearing rose-colored glasses.

[Edit: Cross-posted with Nick.]

So if it’s not whitewashing, it’s... brainwashing?

 

[MithLuin]

It might be more accurate to say that Tom Hiddleston was considered for the role because the Hosts had requested a much more flawed younger Fingolfin who 'grows into' his heroic and kingly older self. At any rate, there were other actors considered at the time.

 

[Ange1e4e5]

It might be more accurate to say that Tom Hiddleston was considered for the role because the Hosts had requested a much more flawed younger Fingolfin who 'grows into' his heroic and kingly older self. At any rate, there were other actors considered at the time.

That might be it. I was the one who nominated him for Fingolfin.

 

[cellardur]

Thanks for the replies. I have not go the time to read the recommended season outlines tonight. Hopefully, I can do that tomorrow and then reply in detail.

 

[cellardur]

Ok, there is a lot to unpack in this thread. The TL;DR of what I'm about to write basically boils down to: We've known the Noldor characters we are looking at are flawed. We've depicted them that way. We should, and likely will continue to do so.



This is something of an oversimplified view of what has and could have been done. To my recollection, option B is what it says in the book, minus claiming the kingship following Feanor taking or burning the ships. Even option B has Fingolfin going back on his word to a degree. Still, our depiction has certainly been more negative than that. I would refer you to the outlines for S03E01, S03E07, S03E08, S02E010, and, S02E11 for examples. I would consider Option A to be a great departure from the Published Silmarillion, and suggest that it would make it difficult for Fingolfin to win back the audience over the next 1-2 seasons.

I have read the Season 2 outlines and reread the Season 3 outlines. First of all I want to praise the hard work and the quality.

I personally think the Season 2 outlines better capture the nature of the conflict and Fingolfin's personality. I am not a believer in trying to change decisions people have argued and come to conclusions about already.

I will say that the middle of the Silmarillion is written in VERY broad strokes, as you and Corey discussed. When Tolkien got down to writing interactions we get a fuller picture. The Silmarillion does not go into detail why Feanor abandoned Fingolfin and why Fingolfin was so meekly following his brother. We have chosen to use the oath as the reason and that's the decision, but in other writings Tolkien gives us a more in depth indication of Fingolfin's behaviour.

As expected with Tolkien a lot of these attempts to gain power begin with the use of language.

Fingolfin had prefixed the name Finwe to Nolofinwe before the exiles reached Middle Earth. This was in pursuance of his claim to be the chieftain of all the Noldor after the death of Finwe, and so enraged Feanor that it was no doubt one of the reasons for his treachery in abandoning Fingolfin and stealing away the ships.

I will quote the rest here, though it actually shows the infighting and desire for leadership amongst the other Noldor.

The prefixion of Finarfin was made by Finrod only after the death of Fingolfin in single combat with Morgoth. The Noldor then became divided into separate kingships under Fingon son of Fingolfin, Turgon his younger brother, Maedhros son of Feanor and Finrod son of Arfin; and the following of Finrod had become the greatest.

We can discuss what Finrod is implying, by changing his father's name, but it seems to be he is indicating that Finarfin not Fingon is the true king of ALL the Noldor.

Then there is this conversation the two brothers have.

Fingolfin is claiming the kingship and this is Feanor's repsonse.

As he(Feanor) said with some justice. 'My brother's claim rests only upon the a decree of the Valar, but of what force is that for those who have rejected them and seek to escape from their prison land?' But Fingolfin answered 'I have not rejected the Valar, nor their authority in all matters when it is just for them to use it. But if the Eldar were given free choice to leave Middle Earth and got to Aman, and accepted it because of the loveliness and bliss of that land, their free choice to leave it and return to Middle Earth, when it has become dark and desecrated, cannot be taken away. Moreover I have an errand in Middle Earth, the avenging of the blood of my father upon Morgoth, whom the Valar let loose among us. Feanor seeks first his stolen treasures.'

Now that exchange tells you a LOT about Fingolfin. Say what you want about Feanor and there's a lot of bad things to be said (all true), but he loved his father more than anything. Secondly we can see that Fingolfin puts the blame for certain things on the Valar and is picking and choosing when to accept the Valar's authority.

In this Feanor is wrong, but as the author says he is justified in rebuking Fingolfin. Fingolfin is picking and choosing when to listen to the Valar. When it suits him he accepts their authority, but when it does not he rejects it.

Christopher Tolkien does bring up how this does not really go well with the final version of Fingolfin saying previously 'Thou shalt lead and I will follow.'

So I am not questioning the decision, just saying that there was lots of evidence to take Fingolfin down a different path and I find it more consistent with his behaviour both in the Silmfilm and what we will later see him do. I will add I am sure there were excellent reasons to go down this path and I am not disputing them. I am just showing that there was enough evidence to go another way.

I can see how one could read this as a wholly positive take on Fingolfin, but you are omitting the fact that Fingolfin is leading a large group of armed soldiers towards the Teleri archers and thus is clearly prepared to use violence against them if necessary. Not exactly a peaceful move. Once again, I would consider both of these options are extremes, and our depiction lies between them. I remind you that the published Silmarillion doesn't even state that Fingolfin is at the Kinslaying, much less participating.

You are right we are not given a clear answer whether Fingolfin took part, but it's implied and Thingol forigves hime due to his penance and the suffering of the Noldor. I would say the depection lies far closer to making Fingolfin look heroic. This decision is fine, but I just wanted to discuss the pattern and the further implications.

In this I agree with you, though this decision is hardly one that is set in stone. We will see what the hosts think of our script outline for this season's finale.

I hope it will be changed, but will accept the decision.

I can see how you are reaching this conclusion, but I would refer you the episodes I mentioned. Hopefully they might allay your concerns on that point.

After looking at everything, I love the way Fingolfin is written in Season 2. I do think he is a bit out of character in the beginning of Season 3, but that can be put down to him feeling he must stick to the oath. What I am much, much more concerned with is we don't fall into the temptation (at least what I imagine) of not distorting Fingolfin from the character we see in Season 2.

I would consider lumping the rest of the Noldor entirely into the same category as the Feanorians, or Feanor himself is a bit far, but as stated above, there are many flawed examples among the Noldor and we should, and likely will continue to illustrate that.

And I would say keeping the Feanorians as this one flawed group of the Noldor ignores the faults of all the others. I am in agreement with you, that the Feanorians are the worse, but others are flawed too and I am glad you agree it should be portrayed.

I think an important part of this is that we need to remember to give our characters some sort of arc over their extremely long lives. We have time to get Galadriel to the point she has reached at the end of the Third Age. Most of the other Noldor do not have that kind of time. We need the audience to be interested in their characters so that their deaths will have impact. This may mean, at times, that a more rapid arc is required for them, or we have to give them moments of likeability early on to encourage the audience to see them for what they are. Flawed protagonists. It is also important to note that Tolkien does not write of simple evil, but that everything is good in the beginning. This has been a running theme for our project from day one.

I am not suggesting making any of the Noldor evil and agree there is a fine line between making characters unlikable, but other shows have towed this line and even Tolkien films.

I think a big problem with the character arc, is most of the Noldor princes have negative ones.

Fingolfin rebels against the Valar->leads his people into ME->becomes a wiser and good ruler->is overconfident and underestimates Morgoth, but still a wise ruler that has grown-> sees what he imagines is the destruction of the Noldor and despairs.

Turgon->rebels against the Valar->seems to be having a change of heart and listens to Ulmo-> realises the Noldor are doomed without the Valar so sends messages-> messengers fail and he seems to double down on his rebellion and refuses to listen to Ulmo.

The Silmarillion is a tragedy. We should be cheering our heroes on, but then heartbroken when they stay on their path.

This, I think, is the crux of the whole matter. I think that what the Hosts are aiming for (and I agree with them) is a story where we feel for the tragic loss that is caused, not merely be the bad actions of the characters, but by the fall of those characters in and of itself. Manwe comments upon this very thing in regard to Feanor. If we, however, consistently portray our more sympathetic Noldor (with the exceptions of Glorfindel and Finrod perhaps) as having villainous intent, we will lose a lot of the impact of the tragedy that the text presents to us.

I don't think desiring more power than is good for you is enough to make you a villain and neither is being jealous of your bother. As I said it's a fine line, but we are not just doing the Silmarillion. We are doing the entire history of ME. We also need to demonstrate how the Valar and Eru intervene when people remain true. I think we need to see that Gil-galad, Elrond, Elendil, Aragorn, Gandalf, Galadriel etc were more successful, because they resisted making the same mistakes as the Numenorean Kings, the Noldor kings and the Arnor kings.

And here is where I think we all agree. I think that what we are disagreeing is on the nuances of execution presented thus far. Once again, I'd recommend giving the episodes I mentioned a glance. What I think we are going for is more of a sliding scale than trying to put people into 3-4 categories and saying that they must remain in those characters from introduction until death.

I think we can be fluid with the change. Fingolfin can certainly become wiser, but his fatal flaw of pride remains. It's integral to the story that he never tries to turn back to the Valar. He is going to make some arrogant statements regarding the siege of Angband.

I think we can pull of making a character prideful, flawed, but charismatic and lovable. Tony Stark is a character that toes this line excellently. For all his flaws we still love, or at least I do.

I think we need to set up the heroes failing as foils for when they succeed. Ultimately, I think Gil-galad should proof to be the best King of the Noldor in ME. We can love the Noldor princes, but still see where they went wrong and made mistakes. In my opinion this is not only a more interesting story, but it will increase the joy when the likes of Gil-galad, Galadriel and Elrond make better choices.