Timeless Halls and the Void

MithLuin said:
The Void is outer space. We can go to outer space. Outer space is a vacuum. There are objects (planets, asteroids, galaxies, etc) in outer space; the Void is completely empty.

I see no reason to think of the Void any differently than outer space.
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That works fine for me, though I will reiterate that having the Halls floating in Outer Space then strikes me as an... inappropriate choice.
 
It you put them on a planet, that planet will be floating in outer space. I know you want them to be infinite, but an infinite country has no boundaries, so we have no choice but to do it this way. We don't have to *show* it, though. The camera can stay in the Timeless Halls, thus never exploring their underpinnings.
 
Haakon said:
Well, if we retrace our steps, I was making the statement that it should not be depicted as a sea. I think that makes it too much of something. It's more like outer space.
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Again, a inky black sea that fades to a total blackness on a black horizon would be a visual me-ta-phor for that very thing so we don't have the timeless halls floating on a ding-dang Rock on the vacuum of space. With respect "the sea is life" is a symbol that I totally understand, but not the only be-all, end-all symbolism of an ocean.
 
If you look at my comment #49 I was trying to come up with an idea to get around this eternity/limited Halls issue. I'm not saying it is perfect...
 
MithLuin said:
It you put them on a planet, that planet will be floating in outer space. I know you want them to be infinite, but an infinite country has no boundaries, so we have no choice but to do it this way. We don't have to *show* it, though. The camera can stay in the Timeless Halls, thus never exploring their underpinnings.
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We do not "have" to do it any particular way at all. We can certainly do any of the ideas that have been proposed; I'm just trying to explain my objections and propositions as best I can.
 
ouzaru said:
Marvel's Thor is definitely not the direction I want to be coming at our depiction of the Timeless Halls from. I think it would be a mistake to making any sort of visual references to Jack Kirby's depictions of cosmic deities, and what most of what you're showing me is very much rooted in the New Gods and Marvel's Asgard that Jack Kirby basically invented out of whole cloth in the late 60s and early and late 70s, if somewhat updated. As much as I like those depictions, I think they are of a wildly inappropriate flavor for Tolkien's mythos. They combine the real and physical with the cosmically interstellar in a way that is visually striking and quite beautiful, but feels totally anachronistic compared to the flavor of Tolkien's world. Even if you cut out all the stars and nebulae and have this city floating on a black backdrop, I think you're just going to invite comparisons to Kirby's work that to me feel like they're pointing in totally the wrong direction.
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I definitely understand where you are coming from in wanting to avoid evoking the Thor movies, however, I think that Mithluin might be just trying to illustrate that you can have structures floating in space without it looking ridiculous, it actually looks pretty cool. Also, I'd just like to throw in this image of Norse cosmology (not Marvel in origin).

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Removing the tree (which is really metaphorical anyway) from the picture, the depiction of Asgard is not far afield from what Mithluin posted.
 
MithLuin said:
It you put them on a planet, that planet will be floating in outer space. I know you want them to be infinite, but an infinite country has no boundaries, so we have no choice but to do it this way. We don't have to *show* it, though. The camera can stay in the Timeless Halls, thus never exploring their underpinnings.
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I wouldn't object out of hand to just never really showing the transitions between or "cosmic topology" of the Halls and the Void at all, though it seems like a dodge we don't necessarily need to make.
 
I think I understand, and I think we basically agree. I agree that some cloud with a house in space is a choice to be avoided.
 
Nicholas Palazzo said:
I definitely understand where you are coming from in wanting to avoid evoking the Thor movies, however, I think that Mithluin might be just trying to illustrate that you can have structures floating in space without it looking ridiculous, it actually looks pretty cool. Also, I'd just like to throw in this image of Norse cosmology (not Marvel in origin).

9076b46b396168bed1d33195a2e6977c.jpg



Removing the tree (which is really metaphorical anyway) from the picture, the depiction of Asgard is not far afield from what Mithluin posted.
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I mean, that is still pretty much the Kirby aesthetic. It's a city and a rock floating against a star field.
 
I think that the more abstract our depiction will be, the better. We don't want to have Arda stuff in the Halls. Yes, there are arches and sometimes a throne or something. But I think that as soon as you're thinking that there are stone walls or water or trees or anything, we're on the wrong track. I don't know, maybe we should go for "Tron" or something. More of abstract lines etc. Not in a way that looks like we're in a computer of course.
 
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That's a really interesting possibility, though I'm not sure how to make that particular aesthetic fit visually into Tolkien's mythos. That would take a pretty exceptional imagination and artistic chops.
 
I would prefer to evoke Asgard (not precisely the Marvel version) over Tron.

But I agree with you that the Timeless Halls cannot have 'earth' stuff - no trees (or other living things), no crumbling dirt, no 'landscapes' at all. I am fine with a stretch of shore made of some sort of sand, and the use of fractal patterns to avoid it looking like a barren salt flat.
 
ouzaru said:
That's a really interesting possibility, though I'm not sure how to make that particular aesthetic fit visually into Tolkien's mythos. That would take a pretty exceptional imagination and artistic chops.
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A production completely untrammeled by reality? No restrictions of any kind—pure awesomeness without check?
 
I mean, this (from Tron) might not be exactly how I picture the scene when Eru shows the Valar the Vision, but it's at least interesting:
tron%20city%20here%20you%20go%201920x1200%20wallpaper_www.wallpaperfo.com_11.jpg
 
The issue that comes up all the time while thinking about the Ainulindalë and the episodes in the Halls and in the Void is that we risk showing things too clearly, too concrete, too much of the world. We have decided not to shy away from showing it, but I think we must show it in a way that makes it clear it is a myth. Even the Valar have difficulty remembering it, partly because they are in the world now and are changed by that. And we can't show that myth as being of the world as we know it.
 
I have stated before that we need to be very careful when we use the word 'myth', we are not using the modern meaning as "Something that is believed, but not true." Tolkien would have wholeheartedly rejected that. To him, myth was just as true as anything else. I don't think we have to be afraid to show the world as described in the Ainulindale, and have it seem "too real", because to Tolkien, myth is real. (Was, but you get my point.)
 
On the other hand, the world we are trying to depict here is representative, as no one actually has a physical body and thus it is not so much a physical place and physical Halls with a physical throne for Iluvatar to sit down on.
 
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