Timeless Halls and the Void

[MithLuin]

If it makes you feel any better, it won't look like floating halls when you're in them. It will look like a building with a floor and a ceiling, and Void outside the windows. And the only time we'll see the Halls from outside is with Melkor in the Void.

 

[Haakon]

Ok, what if it's not floating in darkness. What if there is this kind of atmosphere (-ish) space all around it (having some nice colours?) and that, to get to the Void, you'll have to really mean to go there, it's not something you stumble upon by accident. There would be some kind of edge or border, I imagine.

But then - what would it look like when Melkor is in the Void? Perhaps more like a great, bright, cloudy wall..? We could still see him in the black, getting blurred. And we would still be able to show him going farther away.

 

[ouzaru]

Yeah, like, seeing the void in the Windows and watching the timeless halls floating away unsupported into the distance is exactly the kind of hokey silliness I'm worried about. It's kind of not mythic enough, if you take my meaning.

 

[MithLuin]

To be fair, the only example I can think of that involves a single hall being all that exists, just floating in the emptiness of space....is from the ending of the Neverending Story. Fantasia is destroyed by the Nothing, and Atreyu and the Luck Dragon are flying through asteroids until they come upon the last remaining building...which is the castle of the Childlike Empress, the Ivory Tower.

I don't think this is hopelessly hokey (unlike the dialogue, which has some wince-worthy moments), but rather a visually dramatic sequence. Sure, the special effects leave a bit to be desired (early 80s, quite forgivable), but it's not a disaster. But then...I did see this film a zillion times as a child, so I am used to viewing it with an extremely uncritical eye. Maybe I'd be less forgiving if I were seeing it now for the first time.


What do you think a more 'Mythic' design would be for the Timeless Halls and the Void? I mean, you have mentioned looking out the window and seeing a seashore, with the dark water and dark sky stretching as far away as you can go. I'm not opposed to this, really, though the dark water is really problematic, but don't know what you'll see when you look back at the Timeless Halls in this version.

 

[MithLuin]

Okay, let me see if I can do a reasonable, non-hokey version of this idea.

So, to start with, we have a 'base' that looks something like this:

\

A nebula-like disc, lit from within, perhaps colorful (no stars, of course).

In the center of this, we have a many-roomed structure full of domes, pillars, archways, etc. Not quite as mazy as an M.C. Escher painting, but certainly giving the impression that it goes on (well, not forever). So, when you look through an archway, you see another room, not nothing. It should not feel too closed in, but it is an 'indoor' space that is illuminated as if it were an outdoor space.

There are some rooms that look 'outside,' but they show this nebula-base structure, so the wall doesn't end on nothingness, but has a brightly-lit shoreline.

Beyond THAT is the Void, which is a blank nothingness, but the edges of the nebula rise up as mist and dissipate into it. We have a boundary, but not a hard boundary.

When Melkor ventures off into the Void, he looks back and sees the Timeless Halls on their disc-shaped base....from above. So, we never show the unsupported 'floating' Halls. When Iluvatar takes the Ainur 'outside' to look at the vision of Arda in the Void, they are all standing on the nebula-shore, so no one is floating in empty space (well, except for the vision, which is explicitly 'globed in the Void')


Would this be workable?

 

[ouzaru]

To be fair, the only example I can think of that involves a single hall being all that exists, just floating in the emptiness of space....is from the ending of the Neverending Story. Fantasia is destroyed by the Nothing, and Atreyu and the Luck Dragon are flying through asteroids until they come upon the last remaining building...which is the castle of the Childlike Empress, the Ivory Tower.

I don't think this is hopelessly hokey (unlike the dialogue, which has some wince-worthy moments), but rather a visually dramatic sequence. Sure, the special effects leave a bit to be desired (early 80s, quite forgivable), but it's not a disaster. But then...I did see this film a zillion times as a child, so I am used to viewing it with an extremely uncritical eye. Maybe I'd be less forgiving if I were seeing it now for the first time.


What do you think a more 'Mythic' design would be for the Timeless Halls and the Void? I mean, you have mentioned looking out the window and seeing a seashore, with the dark water and dark sky stretching as far away as you can go. I'm not opposed to this, really, though the dark water is really problematic, but don't know what you'll see when you look back at the Timeless Halls in this version.

Yeah, seeing it on screen is really solidifying that that's the wrong approach for the Timeless halls. Where's the light of Iluvatar? If the Halls are floating in the void, the void's not lot by the light of Iluvatar? That doesn't seem right at all.

Mythic as in metaphorical rather than literal. The Timeless Halls are not halls at all. We're representing that way on screen because it makes life easier for our actors and cuts down on the special effects budget. If we represent them as halls floating in a void, like in the clip from NES, it feels to me an awful lot like we're grounding our metaphors too much in the physical world. Like you said, if the void is outer space and the halls are in the void, then what, other than a "bending of the ways" as in Middle Earth, prevents one from taking a rocket to get there?

Make the Halls an entire country. Rock, soil, sand, water, trees, all of it. Make the void an ocean on its shores. The shore is a metaphor for a dividing between the two. We can emphasize the alien nature by making the trees different and grass different, everything unusual and ephemeral like the Valar themselves are at this stage, but couch it in a visually familiar but clearly unnatural setting. Make everything gilded and cream colored! Floating space halls is way to sci fi for me.

 

[ouzaru]

Okay, let me see if I can do a reasonable, non-hokey version of this idea.

So, to start with, we have a 'base' that looks something like this:

\

A nebula-like disc, lit from within, perhaps colorful (no stars, of course).

In the center of this, we have a many-roomed structure full of domes, pillars, archways, etc. Not quite as mazy as an M.C. Escher painting, but certainly giving the impression that it goes on (well, not forever). So, when you look through an archway, you see another room, not nothing. It should not feel too closed in, but it is an 'indoor' space that is illuminated as if it were an outdoor space.

There are some rooms that look 'outside,' but they show this nebula-base structure, so the wall doesn't end on nothingness, but has a brightly-lit shoreline.

Beyond THAT is the Void, which is a blank nothingness, but the edges of the nebula rise up as mist and dissipate into it. We have a boundary, but not a hard boundary.

When Melkor ventures off into the Void, he looks back and sees the Timeless Halls on their disc-shaped base....from above. So, we never show the unsupported 'floating' Halls. When Iluvatar takes the Ainur 'outside' to look at the vision of Arda in the Void, they are all standing on the nebula-shore, so no one is floating in empty space (well, except for the vision, which is explicitly 'globed in the Void')


Would this be workable?

See, this is the thing- why shouldn't the Timeless Halls go on forever? They house a literal omnipotent deity. Why are we fencing such a creature in a single building floating in space?

 

[Nicholas Palazzo]

Here's the problem.

I have no difficulty accepting that the Timeless Halls are infinite. Nor do I have difficulty accepting that the Void is an equally infinite space that either surrounds or borders them. Now the Ainulindale does state that the sound from the Music goes "out into" the Void, suggesting that it is outside, but you don't have to take that as encompassing.

However, we're tasked with illustrating this physical paradox on screen. Since the border must be shown, they cannot be infinite on the screen, and the Timeless Halls cannot surround the Void, as Tolkien seems to not have had that in mind based on his word choices.

As to the issue of the darkness of the Void. It does say that the Ainur had not perceived the Darkness until Eru took away the Vision, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there. In fact, before the Vision, they were unable to see at all, so without the light of the Vision, it makes sense that the Void would be dark.

And no, Iluvatar's light does not necessarily illuminate the Void, since that moment when the Ainur first perceive Darkness, he's standing right there with them. Until Ea is created, there is no light in the Void.

 

[Haakon]

Okay, let me see if I can do a reasonable, non-hokey version of this idea.

So, to start with, we have a 'base' that looks something like this:

\

A nebula-like disc, lit from within, perhaps colorful (no stars, of course).

In the center of this, we have a many-roomed structure full of domes, pillars, archways, etc. Not quite as mazy as an M.C. Escher painting, but certainly giving the impression that it goes on (well, not forever). So, when you look through an archway, you see another room, not nothing. It should not feel too closed in, but it is an 'indoor' space that is illuminated as if it were an outdoor space.

There are some rooms that look 'outside,' but they show this nebula-base structure, so the wall doesn't end on nothingness, but has a brightly-lit shoreline.

Beyond THAT is the Void, which is a blank nothingness, but the edges of the nebula rise up as mist and dissipate into it. We have a boundary, but not a hard boundary.

When Melkor ventures off into the Void, he looks back and sees the Timeless Halls on their disc-shaped base....from above. So, we never show the unsupported 'floating' Halls. When Iluvatar takes the Ainur 'outside' to look at the vision of Arda in the Void, they are all standing on the nebula-shore, so no one is floating in empty space (well, except for the vision, which is explicitly 'globed in the Void')


Would this be workable?

I think this is a good start.

Maybe we don't have to see the edges of the disc, even when we see it from far away. It could be so huge that the screen can't capture it all - we could sense that it is endless.
This picture is showing a grey, rather dull gas giant. The good thing is that it looks like it goes on forever, almost. If you take away the stars and make the grey more beautiful (the colours of the nebula above), and take away that small planet and put a small, glowing Melkor there instead, it kind of shows how we could do it. (But I'd like to flip it around for some reason and have the dark space to the right...)

 

[MithLuin]

Do we want the Timeless Halls to be endless, though? I'm not suggesting it should be a single concert hall in size - I'd much prefer a many rooms approach. But....a city, not a galaxy. It's all a matter of perspective and there's no frame of reference, though - that nebula is, of course, huge. So, if the Halls seem tiny perched on it, I guess....

And I prefer fractals to trees. I don't want the place to look like it could have been built on earth.

 

[Haakon]

And I prefer fractals to trees. I don't want the place to look like it could have been built on earth.

I agree, no trees. No earthly nature.

 

[ouzaru]

Do we want the Timeless Halls to be endless, though? I'm not suggesting it should be a single concert hall in size - I'd much prefer a many rooms approach. But....a city, not a galaxy. It's all a matter of perspective and there's no frame of reference, though - that nebula is, of course, huge. So, if the Halls seem tiny perched on it, I guess....

And I prefer fractals to trees. I don't want the place to look like it could have been built on earth.

I love this idea, that would be great.

And yes, the Timeless Halls should be implied to be endless. Again, omnipotent deity.

 

[ouzaru]

Here's the problem.

I have no difficulty accepting that the Timeless Halls are infinite. Nor do I have difficulty accepting that the Void is an equally infinite space that either surrounds or borders them. Now the Ainulindale does state that the sound from the Music goes "out into" the Void, suggesting that it is outside, but you don't have to take that as encompassing.

However, we're tasked with illustrating this physical paradox on screen. Since the border must be shown, they cannot be infinite on the screen, and the Timeless Halls cannot surround the Void, as Tolkien seems to not have had that in mind based on his word choices.

As to the issue of the darkness of the Void. It does say that the Ainur had not perceived the Darkness until Eru took away the Vision, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there. In fact, before the Vision, they were unable to see at all, so without the light of the Vision, it makes sense that the Void would be dark.

And no, Iluvatar's light does not necessarily illuminate the Void, since that moment when the Ainur first perceive Darkness, he's standing right there with them. Until Ea is created, there is no light in the Void.

You can't say that Tolkien's word choice suggests one interpretation and then turn around and say "just because the Ainur couldn't pereive darkness doesn't mean it wasn't there", Nick, that's border-line doublethink. Also presence of light does not preclude the perception of darkness, even on the sunniest, brightest day.

 

[Nicholas Palazzo]

I am just trying to understand how you are saying that there was no darkness in the Void prior to the Vision because Iluvatar's light penetrated it from the Timeless Halls when they first "perceive" the darkness with Iluvatar standing right there with them in the Void.

I also don't see how you can read that the Ainur (who had been blind prior to the Vision), first perceived the Darkness in the Void after the Vision was ended to say that there could not have been darkness in the Void prior to the Vision. Follow me down this timeline if you will:

The Ainur cannot perceive through sight.

Eru grants the Ainur sight, showing them the Vision.

The Vision ends.

The Ainur perceive Darkness for the first time.

This, to me, clearly suggests that the Darkness they perceive is what the Void looks like in the absence of the Vision. Maybe there was light in the Void prior to that, but the text certainly does not state that.

 

[MithLuin]

Okay, I know I am clearly getting frustrated trying to work this out, so I'm pretty much about ready to wash my hands of it and just be like, 'yeah, looks great' to whatever someone sketches up for this.

The Halls of Ilúvatar should be brightly lit and have colors, or be at the very least dimly lit so the Ainur themselves can stand out being all glowy. But there is definitely light there, and the structures should be well-defined (ie, solid).

The Void should be dark, empty, and rather undefined. So, it could be blank space, it could be dark waves, or it could be darkness with whispy smoke to give it an intangible feel. But the darkness of the Void should be in clear contrast to the light of the Timeless Halls.

Remember that no one but Melkor is giving any thought for the emptiness of the Void, so the other Ainur likely have not bothered to look at it prior to Ilúvatar taking them all outside the Halls to see the Vision. And while they are looking at the Vision (which is bright), they are thinking about that and not really thinking about the negative space around it.

Then, the Vision goes out - and it's like if you are looking at something bright and then look away and realize, oh, hey, yeah....it's dark here. In part, your eyes are dazzled by the light, so it seems a lot darker than it really is and you stumble around for a few moments until your eyes adjust. I am not suggesting that the Ainur have that rods/cones issue going on in their pre-embodied eyes. But in greater part, what they are really perceiving is the absence of the Vision...it was here, and now it's not, and what is left behind is a hole, an empty space, and....and it's everywhere, because the Void is in fact empty.

My interpretation of Tolkien's line is that the Void was always dark, but this is forcefully brought to the attention of the Ainur when they are mourning the absence of the beautiful vision they just saw....so that they perceive Darkness for the first time.


Regardless, though, I really can't think how we would pull off a brightly lit Void. 'The Neverending Story' does that, but you'll note their Void is full of things - there's stars, and they're flying through pieces of destroyed planet that are everywhere. They don't go full-on blank darkness with nothing in it (except the boundaries of your sound stage) until the 'in the beginning, it is always dark' line. When you have a blank space with nothing in it, making it brightly lit is a little weird.


When I speak of Melkor being out in the darkness and looking back on the brightly lit Halls (or later, Arda), what I am really thinking of is this:

http://wormtalk.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-trip-to-shire-this-past-weekend-i.html

In Professor Drout's account of 'The Long-expected Party' in 2008, he describes leaving the party (lit by paper lanterns) and walking some distance away into the darkness and looking back. What he is looking at becomes even more precious with distance, and shows that no matter what, the darkness is always there, waiting. We want Melkor to feel *alone* in these moments, and I think we can do that very poignantly if he can see ALL of the Halls or ALL of Arda laid out before him, and he is not a part of that brightness and joy.

If we represent them as halls floating in a void, like in the clip from NES, it feels to me an awful lot like we're grounding our metaphors too much in the physical world. Like you said, if the void is outer space and the halls are in the void, then what, other than a "bending of the ways" as in Middle Earth, prevents one from taking a rocket to get there?

Make the Halls an entire country. Rock, soil, sand, water, trees, all of it. Make the void an ocean on its shores. The shore is a metaphor for a dividing between the two. We can emphasize the alien nature...

The short answer? No one in Middle Earth has ever invented a rocket that can transverse the Void, so the Timeless Halls are separated from Arda by an impassable chasm of emptiness (and death). I don't think we need any more than that. Tolkien has translated Arda as 'our Solar System', and we've never managed to send someone anywhere near that far away from Earth at the present time. So....is this *really* an issue?

I also am utterly confused how, on one hand, you can say we're 'grounding our metaphors too much in the physical world' and then offer as the solution to that 'an entire country - rock, soil, sand, water, trees, all of it'. How is that *less* stuck on the rules of the physical world than Halls impossibly floating in emptiness? It's not that I even object to this idea, I just really don't understand what this is or how it works at all. I thought I was addressing this by constructing the Halls on the nebula-base, with the nebula forming a sort of buffer zone between the edge of the Halls and the edge of the Void - it's a strand or shore stretching out from the walls of whatever the Halls structure is to reach the Void, and it's large enough that the whole company of the Ainur and Ilúvatar can stand on it without venturing into the Void itself. Likewise, if the Timeless Halls are truly infinite, then they stretch in all directions, forever, and have no boundaries at all. So, Arda and the Void would have to be inside the Timeless Halls, which makes no sense at all. It's very clear you have to leave the Timeless Halls to get to the Void and to Arda, and that both of those places are somewhere separate from the Timeless Halls. So...we need boundaries, and it can't be infinite.

I can't think of a single reason why an immortal deity needs an infinite abode. He can be omnipresent, of course....but even in that case, he does not need a house that encompasses all of Creation.

Can you describe what you expect the Halls and Void to look like? Because I'm just confused right now.

 

[MithLuin]

An artist I am not...but this is what I meant by providing a base for the Halls. Obviously, you can play with the ratio of the size of the Halls to the size of the disc however you like.

Ignore the fact that you would never hire me to be your architect, but the idea of a design like this is to give you a lot of room to play with perspective. You can have a sweeping view of the Halls with the camera positioned on the edge of the disc, so no boundary would be visible, really. You could view them from above, and then the 'empty space' under the disc would never be visible - it might as well be a solid object that goes 'down' forever. Or, you could position the camera out in the Void, and the view would be more like this:


No matter what we do, the audience will either never think about this, or not be satisfied with any 'turtles all the way down' explanation we offer. Keep in mind that we have the *exact* same issue with the flat Arda as seen from the Void or in the Vision. People will be expecting earth to look like a globe in space, but we can't do that.

 

[MithLuin]

Karita had some good thoughts on the structure of the Timeless Halls in the discussion of the script outline for Episode 3. They can be heard at the beginning of this clip:

 

[ouzaru]

Okay, I know I am clearly getting frustrated trying to work this out, so I'm pretty much about ready to wash my hands of it and just be like, 'yeah, looks great' to whatever someone sketches up for this.

The Halls of Ilúvatar should be brightly lit and have colors, or be at the very least dimly lit so the Ainur themselves can stand out being all glowy. But there is definitely light there, and the structures should be well-defined (ie, solid).

The Void should be dark, empty, and rather undefined. So, it could be blank space, it could be dark waves, or it could be darkness with whispy smoke to give it an intangible feel. But the darkness of the Void should be in clear contrast to the light of the Timeless Halls.

Remember that no one but Melkor is giving any thought for the emptiness of the Void, so the other Ainur likely have not bothered to look at it prior to Ilúvatar taking them all outside the Halls to see the Vision. And while they are looking at the Vision (which is bright), they are thinking about that and not really thinking about the negative space around it.

Then, the Vision goes out - and it's like if you are looking at something bright and then look away and realize, oh, hey, yeah....it's dark here. In part, your eyes are dazzled by the light, so it seems a lot darker than it really is and you stumble around for a few moments until your eyes adjust. I am not suggesting that the Ainur have that rods/cones issue going on in their pre-embodied eyes. But in greater part, what they are really perceiving is the absence of the Vision...it was here, and now it's not, and what is left behind is a hole, an empty space, and....and it's everywhere, because the Void is in fact empty.

My interpretation of Tolkien's line is that the Void was always dark, but this is forcefully brought to the attention of the Ainur when they are mourning the absence of the beautiful vision they just saw....so that they perceive Darkness for the first time.


Regardless, though, I really can't think how we would pull off a brightly lit Void. 'The Neverending Story' does that, but you'll note their Void is full of things - there's stars, and they're flying through pieces of destroyed planet that are everywhere. They don't go full-on blank darkness with nothing in it (except the boundaries of your sound stage) until the 'in the beginning, it is always dark' line. When you have a blank space with nothing in it, making it brightly lit is a little weird.


When I speak of Melkor being out in the darkness and looking back on the brightly lit Halls (or later, Arda), what I am really thinking of is this:

http://wormtalk.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-trip-to-shire-this-past-weekend-i.html

In Professor Drout's account of 'The Long-expected Party' in 2008, he describes leaving the party (lit by paper lanterns) and walking some distance away into the darkness and looking back. What he is looking at becomes even more precious with distance, and shows that no matter what, the darkness is always there, waiting. We want Melkor to feel *alone* in these moments, and I think we can do that very poignantly if he can see ALL of the Halls or ALL of Arda laid out before him, and he is not a part of that brightness and joy.





The short answer? No one in Middle Earth has ever invented a rocket that can transverse the Void, so the Timeless Halls are separated from Arda by an impassable chasm of emptiness (and death). I don't think we need any more than that. Tolkien has translated Arda as 'our Solar System', and we've never managed to send someone anywhere near that far away from Earth at the present time. So....is this *really* an issue?

I also am utterly confused how, on one hand, you can say we're 'grounding our metaphors too much in the physical world' and then offer as the solution to that 'an entire country - rock, soil, sand, water, trees, all of it'. How is that *less* stuck on the rules of the physical world than Halls impossibly floating in emptiness? It's not that I even object to this idea, I just really don't understand what this is or how it works at all. I thought I was addressing this by constructing the Halls on the nebula-base, with the nebula forming a sort of buffer zone between the edge of the Halls and the edge of the Void - it's a strand or shore stretching out from the walls of whatever the Halls structure is to reach the Void, and it's large enough that the whole company of the Ainur and Ilúvatar can stand on it without venturing into the Void itself. Likewise, if the Timeless Halls are truly infinite, then they stretch in all directions, forever, and have no boundaries at all. So, Arda and the Void would have to be inside the Timeless Halls, which makes no sense at all. It's very clear you have to leave the Timeless Halls to get to the Void and to Arda, and that both of those places are somewhere separate from the Timeless Halls. So...we need boundaries, and it can't be infinite.

I can't think of a single reason why an immortal deity needs an infinite abode. He can be omnipresent, of course....but even in that case, he does not need a house that encompasses all of Creation.

Can you describe what you expect the Halls and Void to look like? Because I'm just confused right now.

Briefly, with regard to the bolder point, it's because you're not thinking metaphorically. in my version, the ground is not ground, and the waves are not waves, and the shore is not an actual shore. They're visual metaphors. What I'm getting from you guys is "this is the shape of the universe as is, or as close as we can depict it visually", and I'm saying, side step that all together by giving up trying to depict it as is and just using a visual metaphor. If that's our disconnect and none of you is saying that at all, then I apologize profusely for the confusion and collateral hubbub.

 

[Nicholas Palazzo]

I do understand that you are creating a visual metaphor, but my difficulty is that it may not come across as such. It might suggest to the viewers that rather than being able to reach the Timeless Halls with a rocket, you could do so with a simple sailing vessel. By setting the Timeless halls in an actual Void, we convey that our characters can't just _go_ there.

 

[Haakon]

Another important factor is how we make the transition from the Eä moment to the Valar entering Arda. That really effects how viewers see these things.