Women Fighters

[Haerangil]

Right, but....what will be the Silm Film ending to Boldog's life? That's...less clear to me right now. We've developed him a lot further than just an orc on the edges of Beren's story, so, we might not want to kill him off in a relatively meaningless skirmish.

Or, we might want to show Thingol still willing to fight and not just hide behind the Girdle indefinitely.

I am fairly confident that Boldog will survive at least until the penultimate episode of Season 5. After that...his days are numbered!

But yes, if Boldog is already dead (or has a planned death pending), then I could see us choosing to use Gorgol.

We've been very willing to re-introduce villain minor characters who were cut from the published Silmarillion. That is because, naturally, we're expanding the villain storylines quite a bit. The same is true with the dwarves; we'll need to invent characters as the ones we have die off and we need new roles. We'll likely show Belegost sometime this Season - that will be more than the texts did.

The story is Noldor-centric, though. Most of what is written...is written about the Noldor. We have less justification to add minor characters into their stories, because much of it is already told in plenty of detail. That was why Corey Olsen gave us the option of transferring canonical 'tasks' to a non-canonical character (and then killing off the canon character early). We would then not be adding to the story, but just shifting it in a different direction.

I do not know...

But sooner or lesser we should introduce a few minor evil side-characzers, shouldnt we?
i mean... hiw many balrogs die? Three?
and sauron gets outlawed and Thuringwethil disembodied, and glaurung and carcharoth and draugluin all get slain...

Shouldn't we have some minor orx and demon faces to interact with? I mean we do now have a thrall- noldo story arch in angband, don't we? So i guess these thralls do not just keep,amongbthemselves, butbthey interact with morgoths lesser lackeys...

 

[Ange1e4e5]

I do not know...

But sooner or lesser we should introduce a few minor evil side-characzers, shouldnt we?
i mean... hiw many balrogs die? Three?
and sauron gets outlawed and Thuringwethil disembodied, and glaurung and carcharoth and draugluin all get slain...

Shouldn't we have some minor orx and demon faces to interact with? I mean we do now have a thrall- noldo story arch in angband, don't we? So i guess these thralls do not just keep,amongbthemselves, butbthey interact with morgoths lesser lackeys...

I suggested a female Balrog a few months back, that didn’t go down well.

 

[Faelivrin]

I'm not against a Balrog who's female, I just like the idea that they look sexless after the destruction of the Lamps.

 

[amysrevenge]

Yes, they could be any mix up to and including all female and it wouldn't matter or change anything visually. Couple pronouns here and there, otherwise no difference.

 

[Haerangil]

Yeah, didnt we decide they look like titanic burned corpses? So it would be ha4d to figure out if that balrog was a female or male corpse, disfugured and cloaked in shadows as they are...

 

[Haerangil]

Cano or Tercano is Herald in Quenya. But the same title also implies Chieftain, leader, cryer, commander, Governor...

So i deduce an eldarin Herald was quite a bit of a different thing than our medieval herals, who was a messenger and diplomat and banned to wear weapons.

Indeed such a position does not male much sense if you have a war with Sauron.

So i interpret Elrond was Gilgalads Tercano, more a commanding officer than a diplomat and probably Tercsnor DID wear armour and weapons and command fighting troops and fight themselves.

If Elrond was a healer in his later life, there is no necessity that he was already a healer in his youth in the second age.He may well have be ome a healer and put away his sword after he settles in Imladris.In a way i would like that scenario better!


The only term i found for female cighter was Gothwin or Gothnir, in goldogrin for Amazon.I interpret tnis in a way that this may have been the word for those women and girls who did perform athletic feats and probably martial arts and that THESE women DID fight and join males in battle.In Panoply? perhaps, i do not see a reason why not.

Other women would have fought in necessary situations, but i doubt they did normally wear arms and weapons. But maybe we can show scenes in which eldarin women train, grab weapons and get armed
- and tnose should be situations where the war is brought into the eldarin realms and the home itself is in danger.

 

[Faelivrin]

I still think healing is a major part of who Elrond is as a person, not just a thing he does on the side.

 

[MithLuin]

I hope that isn't an indication of disapproval for them.

Hard to say. Silence can imply several things, and it's impossible to know for sure what happened there. Possibly we were running short on time, so Corey didn't bring up all the names on the slide because he simply didn't get to them. Possibly he got derailed defending past decisions and so didn't delve as deeply into the world building as we might have expected him to. Or it's possible that he skipped over the suggestions he didn't like. If that last one is the case, his failure to mention Irime's daughter (Glorfindel's mother/sister) might mean that he didn't like the idea of inventing that character and doesn't wish to include her. I don't know for sure, of course, because he didn't touch on it at all, but it is possible. There is only so much time in a podcast, after all.

Out of those, Fingolfin's herald is much less important than the two main Besain, and neither Besan needs a huge role either.

Fingolfin's herald was the one who came up and was discussed, but as a background role.

My suggestion was never to add any main characters (until most of our current ones die), nor to put a spotlight on minor characters to the exclusion of main characters. I haven't suggested making any episode center on a minor character, to the degree that "Our Mrs. Reynolds" centers on Saffron. I've suggested, having a few people at the level of Galdor of the Havens. He has done very little of note and has never been a main character. I wouldn't say that he has ever had the spotlight, much less stolen it from Cirdan or Celeborn.

My apologies, I did not mean to imply otherwise or mischaracterize anyone's argument. Galdor is a very minor character, it's true. We know we will want him later, though, so there is a plan of what to do with him. Also, conveniently, he's a mariner. He can be out at sea anytime we want, so if he's not there when Cirdan is on screen, it's not unusual or something that requires explanation.

Having somebody who is a significant participant in only 1-3 episodes, but not a main character for any episode, just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Especially for example, my suggestion for Celeborn to have a living parent or brother, who would only be present at one or two parties (which are full of background and minor characters anyway) and one other episode with a meaningful conversation about Noldor-Sindar reconciliation.

The big deal is....where do they go and what do we do with them when those 1-3 episodes are over? If we continually add characters and seldom kill them off/write them off, our cast grows and grows and gets very crowded. And once we've introduced them...the audience expects them there.

And most minor characters don't need any storyline of their own -- they're mostly only needed to participate in and round out the main storylines we already have, and to round out Elven culture. Several of them can become background faces for a season or several before they're needed again.

In which case...they aren't really minor characters. If they are on screen performing a role, but not calling any attention to themselves...then they aren't at minor character status. Having someone be a minor character, play a role, get introduced to the audience...and then proceed to just hang out in the background with nothing to do for the rest of their time on the show looks like sloppy lazy writing. Like we forgot about them, and the audience is left wondering why we introduced the character in the first place. All of our characters will be background characters at times, but we do have to pay attention to this.

This isn't an insurmountable obstacle. Just something we have to be mindful of as we are all eager to introduce new faces as we go.

The other point, with Curufin/Caranthir's wife, is that I think she should be a person before she's written out of the show.

You and the Execs are in agreement here. They don't expect the audience to care about her because she gets captured. They want the audience to care about her, so then when she is captured, it's tragic and matters.

And since we have so few women my suggestion was that when we have room or need for a role (death/capture/corpse does not count as a real role) that doesn't have to be male, we can use a female instead. And there isn't really a difference between introducing a minor character Tolkien said almost nothing about, vs. inventing a character from scratch.

We have been doing that. You'll note that Telchar and Celeborn's sister are both appearing in this season. We can continue to do that. But while 'death' is not a role, named character death has always meant that we introduced the character and gave that person a role prior to their death. Irime didn't just show up at the Kinslaying. She was involved in the feud between Feanor and Fingolfin and was our main viewpoint for the grief of the Noldor over Finwe's death. Elenwe was a much more minor character, but even so she appeared in several scenes over multiple episodes so that the audience would know something about her and view her as having agency in her own fate. We can certainly do at least that much moving forward.

Having Caranthir's wife (or Curfin's wife) involved a little in the Dwarf-dealings or with Haleth would be interesting, if there's room for it.
...
I think maybe you're imagining that I envision every minor character needs some grand and spotlight-stealing personal storyline. I don't. I respectfully ask all those who don't want any new minor characters to wait and actually see how little I suggest in an episode outline, before arguing that we can't possibly include them at all.

If what you are wanting is background / supporting characters, then that is almost definitely needed. I am not saying your suggestions can't be included, but just pointing out which ones are already included and which ones are not, so we're all on the same page.

 

[MithLuin]

Some shows really struggle with minor characters who can't just run off and do their own thing.

The Supernatural writers handled such characters awkwardly. Castiel is a major character. He's also an angel who comes whenever Dean calls. That...created problems quickly. There have been a lot of storylines diminishing his powers, making him crazy, killing him off, and removing his wings. All in efforts to make him absent for a time and unavailable to help Sam and Dean. Season 14 Castiel is there, but completely useless with no excuse. The typical decent excuse to send him away is to give him a mission of his own to work on that is not shown, but merely mentioned in dialogue when he comes back.

Crowley and Bobby were much easier to handle. Bobby lived in Sioux Falls, SD, and so if they were anywhere else, they could call him, but not expect him to show up. And if they needed him, he could drive and meet up with them. He was presumably busy living his own life in episodes where he did not appear, as shown in 'Weekend at Bobby's'. Crowley was busy being the king of hell when he wasn't hanging out with the Winchesters. Seasons where he was their main antagonist actually showed less of him then seasons when he was their ally. (It's complicated) Sometimes, they showed Crowley-centric storylines that had little to do with the brothers, like with Rowena.

Charlie was easy to handle. She lived her own life and only dropped in on the Winchesters (or they dropped in on her) maybe once a season. She could be working an IT job and LARPing on the weekends, or having adventures in Oz, or run around the world on a mission to recover a secret book. Just a glimpse now and then was fine. Kevin, on the other hand...he was a lot tougher to manage. Kevin was also introduced late in Season 7, about the same time as Charlie. Once they got the bunker in Season 8, Kevin moved in from Garth's houseboat. So...you would expect him to be there all the time. They didn't have something for him to do in every episode, though, just the tablet stuff for the Trials. Not a shock at all that they killed him off in Season 9. Charlie lasted until late Season 10. (Though this is Supernatural, so they're both in Season 13 as well.) Probably worth pointing out that both characters are younger than the brothers (something the show wanted as their main characters have aged from 22 and 26 when it began to 36 and 40 now). Charlie is a girl and Kevin is Asian-American; the five main characters are all white men. There's definitely some studio exec input into those characters being included, but both minor characters were very well received by fans.

Charlie's introduction:

As you can see, they gave her a her-centered episode to introduce her, but her role is important to the season long plot. The main villain for that Season is Dick Roman; she works for Richard Roman Enterprises (as is established in this scene)...she'll be their inside man, once they meet her and win her over.

Kevin's introduction (next episode):

So he also got an episode dedicated to him to start things off. And his role on the show is the prophet, which has been a role filled by someone else in the past (Chuck Shirley), and someone else after he's gone (Donatello). The difference is while the other two lived their own lives and only interacted with the Winchesters when needed (so, very minor character status), Kevin winds up more like...adopted by them. Because the King of Hell wants to kidnap him, and then they're trying to shut the gates of hell, and then they have the King of Hell locked up in the dungeon in the bunker where they and Kevin live....okay, so it's a weird show, but the point is, the interactions with Kevin become more frequent, and they eventually kill him off as a way to deal with him being there all the time. (And because...killing off characters who are close to the main characters is emotional.)

I'm not saying that no writer on the show figured out what to do with him. There are episodes that utilize him in minor scenes, like this one (where he fills a role formerly filled by Bobby):

So what does this mean for our show? If we have a location where we can say, 'Oh look, I built an entire city since the last time you were here!' it's easy to also say 'By the way, I got married and had a couple of kids since the last time you saw me' or 'check out my newest book/song/sculpture' or whatever. Peripheral locations that are only in the story occasionally will have the accompanying minor characters who are only on the show when we visit that location. Easy for Dwarves, Petty Dwarves, Green Elves, Ents, Círdan's folk, and some Men (Easterlings, Men of Brethil) to be handled that way, as they aren't typically main storylines and we won't show them at all when they aren't part of the story. The Noldor and the Sindar of Doriath are a bit different, though - we likely will be checking in with them frequently, so while it's fine to have someone just stand there in the background of a few scenes while the main characters talk, we can't do that indefinitely if we've introduced that character and the audience is waiting to hear from them. Which *does* make it challenging to prevent that minor character to start inserting themselves more and more into the story. If we like them well enough, that might be fine, but...

 

[Faelivrin]

Hard to say.

OK. I was also wondering about your disapproval, since you're the arbiter of what ideas can even be mentioned to the Execs. If you don't approve of, for example, a scene with a healer taking care of Maedhros, I don't really get to suggest the scene to the Execs, or put it in a script outline. I get to post a 1-sentence tweet in the chat box, which at best, if I'm lucky enough to have my tweet even seen before it scrolls off the screen, won't be enough to adequately describe my idea, and so it'll probably be rejected out of hand.

My apologies, I did not mean to imply otherwise or mischaracterize anyone's argument. Galdor is a very minor character, it's true. We know we will want him later, though, so there is a plan of what to do with him. Also, conveniently, he's a mariner. He can be out at sea anytime we want, so if he's not there when Cirdan is on screen, it's not unusual or something that requires explanation.

In Babylon 5, there's a monk named Brother Theo. He's not one of the military leaders or other important staff of the space station, he's the leader of a little Christian monastic order/IT department who live on the station. He appears in three episodes in Season 3, out of 22 episodes. He's what could be called a minor character in two and perhaps a semi-main character in one. He has no screen time elsewhere that I recall, but I didn't wonder what he was up to or think the writers forgot him. He's presumably busy doing religious and computer IT stuff in the meantime, probably stuff that's less important than what the main characters are doing. He has no character development that I recall, not even really a story arc like Saffron gets in Firefly. The audience doesn't get to know Theo's quirks or minor personality traits or personal history, but the most salient parts of his personality are well-characterized in his three episodes.

I don't know what we want Galdor for later, anymore than I know Maglor's wife's fate. Galdor at the Council of Elrond isn't necessarily the same guy, it's a simple and repeatable name. And that's... season 40? None of the non-combatants are likely to survive the sacking of their city and remain free (except maybe Gondolin), although they could be among surviving refugees if we want them to be.

The big deal is....where do they go and what do we do with them when those 1-3 episodes are over? If we continually add characters and seldom kill them off/write them off, our cast grows and grows and gets very crowded. And once we've introduced them...the audience expects them there.

I suggested that when they aren't doing something prominent, they're repeat background faces: they appear in the background when there's a scene of courtly life in Menegroth or [insert Noldorin stronghold]. During a council meeting in [insert city] the prominent women of that court attend, and one or two of them get a few lines. If they're healers they would be seen in any scene that involved putting people back together after a battle, if we have such scenes. If any of their relatives are main characters who get married, they're at the wedding with or without lines. Presumably, all of these people have their own lives and each kingdom is a pretty big place with lots of stuff going on, so they can't be expected to be present in one place nonstop. Besain spend a lot of time farming and baking.

On the other hand, at this time I don't envision any episode in which one of these women would be as central as Brother Theo is in "Passing Through Gethsemane", or as central as Saffron is in "Our Mrs. Reynolds". SilmFilm isn't E.R., so we won't focus on the medical side of life, unless the tone of the show changes in the Second Age.

In which case...they aren't really minor characters.

Well, then, ... I guess I don't know what to call them. They're more than just background faces because in some episodes they need to have some lines, and/or do something significant, rather than silently stand around or sing in a chorus. Someone who is a minor character in some episodes, a background face in some episodes, and absent in some episodes.

You and the Execs are in agreement here. They don't expect the audience to care about her because she gets captured. They want the audience to care about her, so then when she is captured, it's tragic and matters.

Well, maybe. What I'm trying to do is give her an actual, real story role, not only the so-called "role" of being captured, which is not a role by itself and would not make her feel like a real person.

If what you are wanting is background / supporting characters, then that is almost definitely needed. I am not saying your suggestions can't be included, but just pointing out which ones are already included and which ones are not, so we're all on the same page.

OK.

 

[Ange1e4e5]

OK. I was also wondering about your disapproval, since you're the arbiter of what ideas can even be mentioned to the Execs. If you don't approve of, for example, a scene with a healer taking care of Maedhros, I don't really get to suggest the scene to the Execs, or put it in a script outline. I get to post a 1-sentence tweet in the chat box, which at best, if I'm lucky enough to have my tweet even seen before it scrolls off the screen, won't be enough to adequately describe my idea, and so it'll probably be rejected out of hand.

In Babylon 5, there's a monk named Brother Theo. He's not one of the military leaders or other important staff of the space station, he's the leader of a little Christian monastic order/IT department who live on the station. He appears in three episodes in Season 3, out of 22 episodes. He's what could be called a minor character in two and perhaps a semi-main character in one. He has no screen time elsewhere that I recall, but I didn't wonder what he was up to or think the writers forgot him. He's presumably busy doing religious and computer IT stuff in the meantime, probably stuff that's less important than what the main characters are doing. He has no character development that I recall, not even really a story arc like Saffron gets in Firefly. The audience doesn't get to know Theo's quirks or minor personality traits or personal history, but the most salient parts of his personality are well-characterized in his three episodes.

I don't know what we want Galdor for later, anymore than I know Maglor's wife's fate. Galdor at the Council of Elrond isn't necessarily the same guy, it's a simple and repeatable name. And that's... season 40? None of the non-combatants are likely to survive the sacking of their city and remain free (except maybe Gondolin), although they could be among surviving refugees if we want them to be.

I suggested that when they aren't doing something prominent, they're repeat background faces: they appear in the background when there's a scene of courtly life in Menegroth or [insert Noldorin stronghold]. During a council meeting in [insert city] the prominent women of that court attend, and one or two of them get a few lines. If they're healers they would be seen in any scene that involved putting people back together after a battle, if we have such scenes. If any of their relatives are main characters who get married, they're at the wedding with or without lines.

On the other hand, at this time I don't envision any episode in which one of these women would be as central as Brother Theo is in "Passing Through Gethsemane", or as central as Saffron is in "Our Mrs. Reynolds". SilmFilm isn't E.R., so we won't focus on the medical side of life, unless the tone of the show changes in the Second Age.

Well, then, ... I guess I don't know what to call them. They're more than just background faces because in some episodes they need to have some lines, and/or do something significant, rather than silently stand around or sing in a chorus. Someone who is a minor character in some episodes, a background face in some episodes, and absent in some episodes.

Well, maybe. What I'm trying to do is give her an actual, real story role, not only the so-called "role" of being captured, which is not a role by itself and would not make her feel like a real person.

OK.

Well, there are three Galdors running round in Middle-Earth at any given date: Galdor of the Tree, Lord of Gondolin, Galdor of the Havens and Galdor the Tall, who was Lord of Dor-Lomin and father of Hurin. Galdor the Tall will be killed in Season 5 or 6 depending on when we want Morgoth to attack Hithlum.

 

[Faelivrin]

I haven't watched Supernatural, but presumably none of our characters except Melian and Luthien have the potential to be "on-call" deus-ex-machinas the way you seem to be describing Castiel. We know that Melian is fairly hands-off and we've taken steps to limit how often Luthien gets involved in battles with demons. The Valar are even more hands-off than Melian, and the Istari will be 1. mostly de-powered, and 2. forbidden to behave like deus-ex-machinas.

I have another example from Babylon 5, probably better than Brother Theo as an illustration of characters who are clearly prominent members of their community and prominent in the space station, without being prominent as characters. Every alien race on the station has an ambassador, who takes part in all Babylon 5 Station Council meetings. The most important ambassadors (Delenn, Londo Mollari, and G'Kar) are main characters. Kosh is a minor character. The ambassadors of the dozen or so other alien races don't even have names that I can recall, and they don't seem to appear outside of those council meetings (with rubber alien masks, it isn't as easy to recognize faces). But they are clearly prominent and highly respected people on the station by virtue of being ambassadors who frequently get lines in the council meetings, and the main characters treat them with respect and listen to what they have to say. While it's clear that they don't have the status that Delenn, Mollari, G'Kar, or Kosh have (their races are less powerful militarily), it's also apparent that they have genuine status.

 

[MithLuin]

The Galdor we have introduced in Season 3 of Silm Film is indeed intended to be the same Galdor of the Havens who appears at the Council of Elrond. He's going to survive the First, Second, and Third Ages of Middle-earth.

MithLuin: You and the Execs are in agreement here. They don't expect the audience to care about her because she gets captured. They want the audience to care about her, so then when she is captured, it's tragic and matters.

Faelivrin: Well, maybe. What I'm trying to do is give her an actual, real story role, not only the so-called "role" of being captured, which is not a role by itself and would not make her feel like a real person.

You and the Hosts are in agreement here. They would like her to have a role in our story prior to being captured. The stipulation was that the 'captured' elves could only be named characters whom the audience would be introduced to as characters. There is no value to capturing a red shirt for these four main 'roles'. Other redshirts can be captured if needed, but we aren't worried about how they impact the story at this point in time.

Now, in the case of Rog, we can have him be a 'red shirt' when he gets captured, and develop him into a character with his escape and future storyline. But for 'Curufin's wife who is captured and never escapes Angband' she would obviously need this character development and role prior to her capture.

She also won't be dead, so we may very well have opportunities to return to her in future seasons and see how she's doing in Angband. That will, again, work better if we saw her how she was before the captivity.

She will be a very minor character, but we would have at least one scene of her and Curufin speaking privately (to get a glimpse of what their marriage is like) before her capture. We're not just going to have some woman the audience has never seen before get captured and then have Curufin go, 'Oh no! That was my wife!'

OK. I was also wondering about your disapproval

The bolded vs italicized names on my list were a summary of the results of the session, not a reflection of my own thoughts on the matter at all. You know I liked the idea of Irimë having a daughter. I suggested a name for her. I talked about what I would see her role as being and how we could use her. It's not lack of interest on my part that left her out of that discussion. But she was left out, and that might mean that if/when we try to suggest her again in the future, we'd be shot down. It might not. But I wanted to make sure we were all aware that she was not discussed by the Execs at all during the discussion of healers, besain, scholars, artisans, etc. Therefore, she has not yet been incorporated into the project.

 

[Faelivrin]

Whether or not any of the supporting roles that we need to use have been given any approval yet, my request from you and Nick is to be willing to treat them the way we treated Norn (writing the parts that we need them to do) instead of the way that my requests to discuss Celeborn’s family have been treated so far (rejecting or ignoring all my attempts to discuss the situations in which we need them).

I am requesting that my suggestions don’t get shut down immediately every time I bring them up, and that I be allowed to try to include them when we write the episodes that require them, instead of pre-emptively banning them.

 

[amysrevenge]

I'm starting to come around to having more of Celeborn's family survive, but I'm wondering why the roles you laid out (recently, in a list that I can't seem to locate right now) have to be filled by Celeborn's family, and not other non-related Sindar?

Is it just to remove the one level of story required to have these non-related Sindar interacting? Like, if it's Celeborn's dad, there is a built-in reason for them to chat, but if it's some other Sindar person, you need to come up with a reason. That's not enough reason for me. It's not hard to come up with reasons for characters to talk to each other outside of familial relationships - I spend an awful lot of time talking to people I'm not related to.

I mean, they'd be "made up" characters either way - PubSil doesn't really have much of a family for Celeborn, and the legendarium has scattered self-contradictory references, some of which we've already explicitly discarded in SilmFilm. So having those roles (the "hey we don't like those Noldor types and you shouldn't be marrying one" role as an example) would require a made up character anyway.

 

[MithLuin]

I've responded further to your comments here, since not everything is specific to this topic:
https://forums.signumuniversity.org/index.php?threads/how-we-go-about-this-process.3150/page-2#post-25598

Whether or not any of the supporting roles that we need to use have been given any approval yet, my request from you and Nick is to be willing to treat them the way we treated Norn (writing the parts that we need them to do) instead of the way that my requests to discuss Celeborn’s family have been treated so far (rejecting or ignoring all my attempts to discuss the situations in which we need them).

I am requesting that my suggestions don’t get shut down immediately every time I bring them up, and that I be allowed to try to include them when we write the episodes that require them, instead of pre-emptively banning them.

There are several issues going on here. There are messageboard discussions, there are podcasts with the Hosts, and there are Script Discussions with Nick and I. Let's not conflate all of them right now. We haven't even started the Script Discussions for Season 4 yet, so suggesting that Nick and I will pre-emptively ban your ideas there is a bit...pre-emptive...don't you think? Okay, in all seriousness, I understand your concern.

I'm well aware of your interest in including Celeborn's family in Season 4 and the arguments you have made concerning that topic. I'm not ignoring anything. I'm maybe not doing anything about it right now, but that's because I don't see that there's much to be done at the moment.

If Corey Olsen says 'Celeborn's father is dead; he's not part of this story' then your attempts to write him into the story won't go over very well. If we find a way to include Celeborn's relatives in his wedding without the Execs shutting you down, then of course we can do that. The Execs will hold the podcast discussing that episode long before we have a script discussion about it. So, depending on how that goes, we will certainly work with you to include Celeborn's family's reactions to Celeborn's engagement/marriage to a Noldo woman. I'm sorry there was an executive decision made before you even joined the project that impacts these particular characters (Celeborn is an elf from Cuiviénen and Elmo does not exist), but...that is the situation.

When I set out to clarify what was said in a podcast, I am merely making sure everyone is on the same page and understands what was discussed. It isn't me shutting anything down. It's not even an indication of what I like or what I think. You'll notice that we did manage to get flashbacks-for-Eöl-who-has-been-in-Beleriand-since-well-before-the-Sun-rose into Season 4. One way or another, the existence and living membership of Celeborn's family will also be established in Season 4. We will get there. I certainly intend to bring up Irimë's daughter again and see if she can be included. As of right now, she has not been, for whatever reason.


Each of our kings will have a court. That court will consist mostly of background characters. 'Someone' will speak up when we need the court to voice something, and they will become repeat background faces. So, this is comparable to the minor nameless alien ambassadors from Babylon 5. They will be known by their role, not by their name.

So, will every elf kingdom have a besan? Yes. Will Fingolfin's besan be Irimë's daughter? That is the part that hasn't been decided yet.

 

[Haerangil]

But that Galdor is NOT the same Galdor as Galdor-of-the-tree in gondolin?

 

[Ange1e4e5]

But that Galdor is NOT the same Galdor as Galdor-of-the-tree in gondolin?

We might adapt him out, same way we intend to adapt out Legolas of Gondolin.

 

[amysrevenge]

Yeah, if someone doesn't do anything, or if what they do could be seamlessly transferred to a different character, it would be great to streamline the cast anywhere we can.

 

[MithLuin]

We have not yet discussed how we intend to handle the lords of Gondolin. We know we want Glorfindel and Ecthelion. And we've discussed how Rog will come to Gondolin post-battle (so, his house is not one of the 'original' houses but a later addition, as are several others).

Houses of Gondolin:

House of the King: Turgon
House of the Heavenly Arch: Egalmoth
House of the Tree: Galdor
House of the Golden Flower: Glorfindel
House of the Fountain: Ecthelion
House of the Swallow: Duilin
House of the Harp: Salgant
House of the Mole: Maeglin
House of the Pillar: Penlod
House of the Tower of Snow: (also) Penlod
House of the Wing: Tuor
House of the Hammer of Wrath: Rog
​

As you can see, some of these are later additions. At the founding of Gondolin, we will only have:

House of the King: Turgon
House of the Heavenly Arch: Egalmoth
House of the Tree: Galdor
House of the Golden Flower: Glorfindel
House of the Fountain: Ecthelion
House of the Swallow: Duilin
House of the Harp: Salgant
House of the Pillar: Penlod
House of the Tower of Snow: (also) Penlod​

In Season 4, we only intend to introduce Glorfindel and Ecthelion. The names in italics are there, but as unnamed faces in the background. More of a costuming choice than a casting choice, at this point in time. We'll spend a lot of time in Gondolin over the next few seasons, so it's quite possible that we'll find opportunities to give some of those unnamed lords roles or lines or character development. Or....they might just be Turgon's court, known by their heraldry and that is all.



Is this the same Galdor? That's a choice we can make this season. It could be, though it doesn't have to be. Galdor-of-the-Havens was one of Círdan's mariners in Season 3; he's not currently with Círdan in the north, but with the people of the Havens who are currently refugees.

We know that some Sindar (including Falathrim from the [destroyed] Havens) will join Turgon in Nevrast. We will show that in Episode 4-5, presumably. These Sindar will then go to Gondolin with Turgon this season (that move will happen after the Kinslaying reveal, so it might not be automatic, but Turgon will handle it in some way).

In the Lost Tales version of the Fall of Gondolin (the only one we have!), a lot of the folk of the House of the Tree (Galdor's house) escape with Tuor and join the refugees at the Havens of Sirion.

So, if we wanted him to be the same person, he could wind up back at the Havens that way, and we'd have to have him stay with Círdan rather than sail west, sticking around for the Second and Third Ages.

When Tolkien was considering the 'two Glorfindels' problem, he ultimately concluded that these two Galdors were in fact different elves, but it was a question worth asking to him. He concluded that it's a common name, and it's just two random elves who happen to share a name. We could merge them, but we don't have to. If we did merge them into one, we would likely solve the problem Tolkien saw with making them a single character; in our version, Galdor is one of the Falathrim, not a Noldo elf, so there's no reason for him to return to Tol Eressëa with the other Noldor at the end of the First Age. Having one of the Lords of Gondolin be a Sinda would be an interesting choice; we could do something with that.

We're eliminating the name 'Legolas Greenleaf' as an elf of Gondolin because we're reserving that for the main character in Lord of the Rings. We have enough other elves in Gondolin; we don't need him. Can someone else take his role? Sure, no problem. But we're not using that name.

If Galdor-of-the-Havens *is* Galdor-of-Gondolin, then that would give us interesting opportunities for dialogue between Galdor and Glorfindel later.


In conclusion - Egalmoth, Duilin, Salgant, and Penlod will not be introduced by name this season. If Galdor is a different elf, he won't be introduced, either. If it's the same Galdor, we will have to get him to Nevrast and make him the leader of a group of Sindar there.