I have addressed this in my reply to Nick, but even these noble characters fall victim to political manoeuvring and attempts for power.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.
Fingolfin is a hero, without any doubt and has an incredible last stand, but I will give you few quotes, which illustrate his faults for me.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.
Thus died Fingolfin, High King of the Noldor, most proud and valiant of the Elven-kings of old.
The mightiest and proudest was Ar-Pharazôn the Golden of all those that had wielded the Sceptre of the Sea-Kings since the foundation of Númenor
(Morwen)Eledhwen, proudest and most beautiful of mortal women in the days of old.
So perished Elendur......in his strength and wisdom, and is majesty WITHOUT PRIDE, one of the greatest, the fairest of the seed of Elendil
Now I am not comparing Fingolfin to Ar-pharazon (though it can be said he too leads his people into a ruinous campaign), but I think Morwen is a fit comparison. The language Tolkien uses when describing these characters shows they share similar traits and their biggest weakness being PRIDE.
I have addressed a lot of this in my response to Nick and I don't want to bring up long settled parts of the Silmfilm.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.
[QUOTE
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.][/QUOTE]
The bit in blue is vital and the way I try to flesh out the stories, is to look at what Tolkien wrote about them elsewhere and compare his use of language.
In his last writings, though he sometimes confused Turgon with Fingolfin, he wrote this about Turgon:
Turgon was one of the most determined and unrepentant supporters of Feanor's rebellion.
Too proud and too stubborn and he dies in his tower still refusing to back down.
I have stressed the Noldor had a Fall (though obviously not as bad as Men), because what they do is REALLY bad. They reject the authority of Manwe, King of Arda. People dislike the purification of Galadriel's character, but according to Christopher, the reason Tolkien was so keen to change Galadriel's history is because the rebellion was so bad. Tolkien began to feel it wasn't right for Galadriel to be a leader in the rebellion and still be held in such high regard in ME.
It arose from 'philosophical' (rather than a 'historical') considerations, concerning the precise nature of Galadriel's disobedience in Valinor on the one hand and her status and power in Middle Earth on the other.
In conclusion I feel we should be steering closer to Thingol, Turin and Morwen when expanding and fleshing out the story. I do have a dimmer view of the Noldor or at least the exiles than most here. I don't think it's a coincidence that apart from Galadriel, Glorfindel (brought back to life) and possibly (I am unsure, but think not) Finrod, every other exiled member of Noldor royalty is being cleansed in the Halls of Mandos, by the end of the First Age