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Happy Bilbo and Frodo's Birthday! Thoughts on Adapation...
My Wish List for a Second Age TV Series
Happy Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday, all! (In the great crossover ‘verse in my head, Frodo is 95 today.) Here’s a Middle-earthy post in honor.
I think Rings of Power S2, overall, is better than S1, and I have been enjoying some of it. On the whole, however, it’s a lost cause for me, so I’m going to lay out some things I’d like to see if the Tolkien estate ever grants rights to adapt The Silmarillion. (I know RoP is hampered by not being able to do this.)
Here are my broad contentions: 1) It should focus on the Elves and 2) it should follow Tolkien’s timeline. My picks for protagonist would be either Gil-galad or Elrond. For me, RoP’s biggest contribution to Middle-earth worldbuilding is Adar, and while he couldn’t be used in this hypothetical adaptation due to copyright, I will take inspiration from his plotline. Expect spoilers for any Tolkien lore and vague references to RoP stuff.
Disclaimers: My memory of a lot of The Silmarillion of is vague. I’m writing this in the midst of a pain flare up from too much screen time, so I’m not bothering to look up details like accent marks. Sorry for mistakes.
General Structure—Timing
If the task to is present the Second Age, I’d present at least 1000+ years of it. That necessitates that the Elves and Maiar be the central characters we follow. I might borrow a leaf out of Andor season 2 and suggest mini-arcs with (big) time skips in between. How long the mini-arcs are would depend on the length of the series overall, but generally, maybe three episodes to one six-episode season.
I think this would really help with the fall of Númenor. RoP is in a hard place trying to depict the collapse of a major civilization in “real time.” That’s not how civilizations collapse, so it ends up feeling unreal. Tolkien describes the fall of Númenor in tiny snippets that go something like “So-and-So ruled like this, but his son, Thus-and-Such, did that instead.” Each mini-arc could show a significantly differently stage in Númenor’s history, zeroing in on an issue of the moment. The contrast between mini-arcs would illustrate the fall.
This structure would necessitate that characters with shorter lifespans come and go in a single mini-arc (or maybe show up as a baby or very aged in two arcs). For a character like Durin, for example, you’d see him for 3-6 episodes; then, he’s done. That would require tight storytelling to make you care—but Andor did this in season 1. It’s doable. And the quality of “he’s there–you care–he’s gone” would help the audience internalize the life experience of the Elves with other people’s (and also why Sauron considers mere mortals to be trivial).
Protagonist
Why Galadriel Doesn’t Work
When I first realized RoP was going to make Galadriel its lead, I was intrigued and hopeful, but I’ve come to conclude that she’s not a good candidate for a Second Age lead. First Age, yes, but by the Second, she’s already old and wise, so there’s not much room for a character arc that doesn’t feel forced. Galadriel is structurally akin to Death in The Sandman: she’s an awesome character, but she’s not the one who needs to grow. She should be a major presence but largely in a mentor role.
Gil-galad
My personal pick is Gil-galad because he exists as such a bare sketch in Tolkien, and there is so much explore. He also has the advantage of being structurally the easiest choice. In terms of Middle-earth history, he arguably is the protagonist of the Second Age. His kingship defines the age and his actions as king the major front against Sauron.
His greatest deficit as a protagonist is that he, too, doesn’t seem to have much room for growth. He’s always depicted as wise and good—and that should be retained! But I think he presents interesting possibilities for conflict and evolution within that frame.
1) An interesting tension in Gil-galad’s reign is that he’s described as such a glowing hero yet the history of the Second Age could be described his failure to prevent the rise of Sauron. How do those two things go together? This is an opportunity to do thoughtful social and political writing because governing (hundreds of?) thousands of people is complex.
For example, one problem Gil-galad might have is understanding why Annatar is seductive. Gil-galad, we’re told, never trusted him; to him, it was likely intuitively obvious that this guy was slimy. But how, then, does Annatar gain so much power over others? This might be genuinely hard for Gil-galad to grok in the same way I trouble grokking why people admire Donald Trump, and that’s a problem for trying to pry people away from their demagogue. Tracking subtle failures of this kind could be fascinating. The main arc for Gil-galad might be progressively figuring it out just a little too late, one step behind, with associated psychological stress.
He might also fail to properly monitor Celebrimbor precisely because he’s trying to mend fences with the last heir of Fëanor, and wants to show that he trusts him and doesn’t hold the deeds of his forebears against him.
2) On a personal level, Gil-galad is unusual among Elves in never having married, which is especially odd given that a king needs an heir. (He’s the last king of the Elves because he doesn’t have one.) The easiest explanation for this is that Elves don’t marry during war time, and the Second Age might be regarded as one extended conflict. This is why Elrond and Celebrían didn’t get married till the Third Age. But whatever the core reason, there’s a lot of room for interesting character development here.
One would have to avoid the impulse to be maudlin and write in a boring romance. But there are a lot of other ways a writer could go. Gil-galad could simply have no love interest (for millennia), which is itself an interesting study in character, motivation, bonding, loneliness. It might also be interesting to posit, over one mini-arc, that he was once attached to a human (like Arondir in RoP); this could fit in canon, given that he becomes dear friends with Elendil over a very short period of time (for an Elf), so he’s clearly capable of rapidly bonding with humans. One could suppose he was primarily a homosocial bonder and lean into his relationships with Elrond and Elendil. I would not make this overtly “gay,” but it could have a “romantic” edge. That might get accusations of queer-baiting, but everything is going to be accused of something. There are a lot of other possibilities that could make good storytelling if approached with caution.
Elrond
Elrond is less apt as a structural protagonist but possibly easier as a character since Tolkien fleshes him out more. Elrond’s journey has a main theme all mapped out (and it’s bloody weird how thoroughly the RoP writers have ignored it): loss.
Elrond’s life is defined by massive emotional losses. He loses both his parents young. Then he loses his twin brother, and he doesn’t even lose him to death (which would be bad enough); he loses him because his brother chooses his mortal family over his brother. Then, he’s in love with Celebrían for centuries (or something) but not able/willing to marry her because Elves don’t marry in wartime. Early in the Third Age, they do get married, but they haven’t been together (by Elf standards) very long before she is badly wounded and goes West for healing. So then, he spends 2000+ years utterly separated from the wife he really only got a short time to be with. And then, of course, his daughter leaves him in exactly the same way his brother did. And somehow, this never breaks him. In the face of all this grief and loss, he never loses his goodness.
Now, obviously, a lot of this is in the Third Age. But the mini-arc structure could work really well for showing how Elrond addresses the grief of losing Elros. (Elros could basically be Mini-Arc One.) I would not pull an “RoP-Galadriel” and have Elrond go really wrong so that he can learn better, but there’s a lot of depth to be explored in how someone does manage all this pain without falling to it. One possible arc could be a fairly slow (aided by Celebrían?) healing from the truly catastrophic loss of Elros, which eventually sets Elrond up to be able to face the loss of Arwen with the reasonable equanimity we see LotR.
I also find it very odd that with Elrond and Celebrían, the writers of RoP had a ready-made plot full of separated-lovers angst and jettisoned it. Imagine the longing stares and intensity of hands briefly touching. (Narratively, this isn’t rocket science.)
But What about the Women?
Tolkien is famous for giving short shrift to female characters, and if Galadriel is not going to be protagonist, where is the representation of women going to come from? The show would need to make up some female characters, as RoP has. I think RoP has done a nice job with Dwarvish women, and there are many opportunities along those lines.
In terms of canon Elvish women, there’s a lot of potential for developing Celebrían and her relationship with her mother, Galadriel. Celebrían (and her dad) are in the difficult spot of being overshadowed by an immediate family member. For Celeborn and Galadriel, this creates interesting tension around what it means to have a dominant female partner in a patriarchal society. Officially Celeborn is the ruler of Lothlorien, but Galadriel is more notable. Unpacking that could make for interesting feminist discourse. As for Celebrían, she could have some commiseration not only with her father but with Elrond: they both have reasons to feel somewhat dismissed or unseen among great people’s doings, and this could be part of what brings them together. Conversely, seeing how Galadriel values her daughter, even knowing her daughter will never be the flashy superstar she is, could also make for interesting relationship building and commentary on greatness, wisdom, and—one of Tolkien’s favorite themes—humility.
There’s also opportunity with Galadriel and Celebrían to develop discourse around women’s social roles. RoP follows our usual pop feminism in equating good female representation to putting women in lots of traditionally male roles, thus perpetuating the sense that traditional “women’s work” is lowly, irrelevant, or non-existent (stuff women do just happens, like, “Oh, here’s dinner”). I’d like to ask, though, who makes those clothes? The banners? How long does it take? How is food grown? Who does the cooking? What do people eat? There’s cornucopia of opportunity to show how a space like Lothlorien is nurtured into being the haven it becomes and maintained as such. This isn’t just the work of women, of course, but women are at least as prominent in it as men, maybe more. Imagine their relationships with flowers, trees, mushrooms, seasons, beetles, irrigation. These things are fundamental to life, and Elves are strongly equated with life flourishing. There’s immense room here not only for provocative feminist discourse but also ecological discourse. And, yes, shield maidens can still take up arms, and I’m sure Galadriel is a good archer and might well get a chance to show it; that’s fine. (Note: The RoP Dwarves do a great job with creative gender discourse.)
Sidenote: Elvish kids? Probably not. Or at least not beyond Mini-Arc One if Elves don’t marry or have kids during wartime, and the Second Age is construed as unsettled in this way. That could be explicitly explored (vs. RoP). And speaking of women and kids...
Thanks, RoP, for Adar
In my opinion, Adar is the best extrapolation to come out of RoP. As an Elvish forefather of the Orcs, he’s “canon-compliant” but describes an important perspective I don’t think Tolkien ever explored. Of course, no non-Amazon show would be able to use him, so how could this idea of the Elvish forebears of Orcs be retooled? How about the mothers of Orcs? That would (hopefully) evade copyright and further interesting feminist inquiry.
The concept of an Elvish mother of Orcs is, I think, inherently harder hitting than a father. It has ugly implications that wouldn’t require any explicit depiction to be clearly present. But a mother would not be leading Orcs to war; I don’t buy it.
I might put forward this idea: as women are often symbolically depicted in threes, how about three: mother, daughter, and granddaughter, where the mother is an original Elf captured or seduced by Morgoth (and scarred by it somewhat like Adar), her daughter somewhat degraded, and granddaugher further degraded (more Orcish). There could, perhaps, also be a grandson, who fills the “Adar” role of direct leader of militaristic Orc culture, but he could take council from the women, who really drive the agenda, the agenda being basically what Adar claims to want: a place for them to live in peace, maybe to begin to reverse their degradation (a paradigmatically female want, but one a lot of men could get behind). Whether granddaughter and grandson have an incest vibe, I could see either way.
To steal another idea from RoP, how would Gil-galad respond to a group of Orcs wanting to flee Sauron and just be left alone (ostensibly)? This question in RoP got me thinking. I can’t imagine he would ever say, “Okay” or “Let’s be in alliance,” because he couldn’t trust them as far as he could throw them. And yet, I could imagine him being troubled by outright rejecting the only overture Orcs have ever made claiming to want redemption from evil. My guess is he might allow them to go unmolested into exile, way out into the desert beyond Mordor and the general sphere of influence of Middle-earth politics, with a proviso that if he hears ill of them, he’ll come for them. Strategically, however, this could very well be the wrong move, and this hoard could come back to bite them (as just in RoP). For example, they might cause problems out there, and he might feel obligated to send troops he couldn’t really spare. That could also make a good mini-arc.
Small Notes on Presenting Elves
I’d like to assure everyone who dramatizes Tolkien, it’s okay to have sexy male Elves. It is. There’s a reason Orlando Bloom worked so well as Legolas and made a fairly minor character into such an icon. You have nothing to lose. Casting male Elves with conventionally attractive men younger than forty will have positive effects for your adaptation: it will greatly enhance the numbers and devotion of your fangirls (and some fanboys and other fanlings); it will act as free advertising; it will not be called out as non-canonical (at least not harshly) because it is canonical: those Eldar guys were gorgeous! It’s also really okay to put your male Elves in attractive clothing. I promise you. No one will revolt if we can see a collarbone or a little hint of a nice build.
It’s getting positively weird that the only film/TV adaptation franchise of Tolkien not to make at least some Elvish men look old, podgy, or just plain weird is Bakshi. (Yes, okay, they’re a bit weird there too, but that’s their whole animation style.) Though I do have to admit that the bloated Jackson Hobbit movies did okay there.
What's on your wish list? I'd love to hear.
Happy Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday, all! (In the great crossover ‘verse in my head, Frodo is 95 today.) Here’s a Middle-earthy post in honor.
I think Rings of Power S2, overall, is better than S1, and I have been enjoying some of it. On the whole, however, it’s a lost cause for me, so I’m going to lay out some things I’d like to see if the Tolkien estate ever grants rights to adapt The Silmarillion. (I know RoP is hampered by not being able to do this.)
Here are my broad contentions: 1) It should focus on the Elves and 2) it should follow Tolkien’s timeline. My picks for protagonist would be either Gil-galad or Elrond. For me, RoP’s biggest contribution to Middle-earth worldbuilding is Adar, and while he couldn’t be used in this hypothetical adaptation due to copyright, I will take inspiration from his plotline. Expect spoilers for any Tolkien lore and vague references to RoP stuff.
Disclaimers: My memory of a lot of The Silmarillion of is vague. I’m writing this in the midst of a pain flare up from too much screen time, so I’m not bothering to look up details like accent marks. Sorry for mistakes.
General Structure—Timing
If the task to is present the Second Age, I’d present at least 1000+ years of it. That necessitates that the Elves and Maiar be the central characters we follow. I might borrow a leaf out of Andor season 2 and suggest mini-arcs with (big) time skips in between. How long the mini-arcs are would depend on the length of the series overall, but generally, maybe three episodes to one six-episode season.
I think this would really help with the fall of Númenor. RoP is in a hard place trying to depict the collapse of a major civilization in “real time.” That’s not how civilizations collapse, so it ends up feeling unreal. Tolkien describes the fall of Númenor in tiny snippets that go something like “So-and-So ruled like this, but his son, Thus-and-Such, did that instead.” Each mini-arc could show a significantly differently stage in Númenor’s history, zeroing in on an issue of the moment. The contrast between mini-arcs would illustrate the fall.
This structure would necessitate that characters with shorter lifespans come and go in a single mini-arc (or maybe show up as a baby or very aged in two arcs). For a character like Durin, for example, you’d see him for 3-6 episodes; then, he’s done. That would require tight storytelling to make you care—but Andor did this in season 1. It’s doable. And the quality of “he’s there–you care–he’s gone” would help the audience internalize the life experience of the Elves with other people’s (and also why Sauron considers mere mortals to be trivial).
Protagonist
Why Galadriel Doesn’t Work
When I first realized RoP was going to make Galadriel its lead, I was intrigued and hopeful, but I’ve come to conclude that she’s not a good candidate for a Second Age lead. First Age, yes, but by the Second, she’s already old and wise, so there’s not much room for a character arc that doesn’t feel forced. Galadriel is structurally akin to Death in The Sandman: she’s an awesome character, but she’s not the one who needs to grow. She should be a major presence but largely in a mentor role.
Gil-galad
My personal pick is Gil-galad because he exists as such a bare sketch in Tolkien, and there is so much explore. He also has the advantage of being structurally the easiest choice. In terms of Middle-earth history, he arguably is the protagonist of the Second Age. His kingship defines the age and his actions as king the major front against Sauron.
His greatest deficit as a protagonist is that he, too, doesn’t seem to have much room for growth. He’s always depicted as wise and good—and that should be retained! But I think he presents interesting possibilities for conflict and evolution within that frame.
1) An interesting tension in Gil-galad’s reign is that he’s described as such a glowing hero yet the history of the Second Age could be described his failure to prevent the rise of Sauron. How do those two things go together? This is an opportunity to do thoughtful social and political writing because governing (hundreds of?) thousands of people is complex.
For example, one problem Gil-galad might have is understanding why Annatar is seductive. Gil-galad, we’re told, never trusted him; to him, it was likely intuitively obvious that this guy was slimy. But how, then, does Annatar gain so much power over others? This might be genuinely hard for Gil-galad to grok in the same way I trouble grokking why people admire Donald Trump, and that’s a problem for trying to pry people away from their demagogue. Tracking subtle failures of this kind could be fascinating. The main arc for Gil-galad might be progressively figuring it out just a little too late, one step behind, with associated psychological stress.
He might also fail to properly monitor Celebrimbor precisely because he’s trying to mend fences with the last heir of Fëanor, and wants to show that he trusts him and doesn’t hold the deeds of his forebears against him.
2) On a personal level, Gil-galad is unusual among Elves in never having married, which is especially odd given that a king needs an heir. (He’s the last king of the Elves because he doesn’t have one.) The easiest explanation for this is that Elves don’t marry during war time, and the Second Age might be regarded as one extended conflict. This is why Elrond and Celebrían didn’t get married till the Third Age. But whatever the core reason, there’s a lot of room for interesting character development here.
One would have to avoid the impulse to be maudlin and write in a boring romance. But there are a lot of other ways a writer could go. Gil-galad could simply have no love interest (for millennia), which is itself an interesting study in character, motivation, bonding, loneliness. It might also be interesting to posit, over one mini-arc, that he was once attached to a human (like Arondir in RoP); this could fit in canon, given that he becomes dear friends with Elendil over a very short period of time (for an Elf), so he’s clearly capable of rapidly bonding with humans. One could suppose he was primarily a homosocial bonder and lean into his relationships with Elrond and Elendil. I would not make this overtly “gay,” but it could have a “romantic” edge. That might get accusations of queer-baiting, but everything is going to be accused of something. There are a lot of other possibilities that could make good storytelling if approached with caution.
Elrond
Elrond is less apt as a structural protagonist but possibly easier as a character since Tolkien fleshes him out more. Elrond’s journey has a main theme all mapped out (and it’s bloody weird how thoroughly the RoP writers have ignored it): loss.
Elrond’s life is defined by massive emotional losses. He loses both his parents young. Then he loses his twin brother, and he doesn’t even lose him to death (which would be bad enough); he loses him because his brother chooses his mortal family over his brother. Then, he’s in love with Celebrían for centuries (or something) but not able/willing to marry her because Elves don’t marry in wartime. Early in the Third Age, they do get married, but they haven’t been together (by Elf standards) very long before she is badly wounded and goes West for healing. So then, he spends 2000+ years utterly separated from the wife he really only got a short time to be with. And then, of course, his daughter leaves him in exactly the same way his brother did. And somehow, this never breaks him. In the face of all this grief and loss, he never loses his goodness.
Now, obviously, a lot of this is in the Third Age. But the mini-arc structure could work really well for showing how Elrond addresses the grief of losing Elros. (Elros could basically be Mini-Arc One.) I would not pull an “RoP-Galadriel” and have Elrond go really wrong so that he can learn better, but there’s a lot of depth to be explored in how someone does manage all this pain without falling to it. One possible arc could be a fairly slow (aided by Celebrían?) healing from the truly catastrophic loss of Elros, which eventually sets Elrond up to be able to face the loss of Arwen with the reasonable equanimity we see LotR.
I also find it very odd that with Elrond and Celebrían, the writers of RoP had a ready-made plot full of separated-lovers angst and jettisoned it. Imagine the longing stares and intensity of hands briefly touching. (Narratively, this isn’t rocket science.)
But What about the Women?
Tolkien is famous for giving short shrift to female characters, and if Galadriel is not going to be protagonist, where is the representation of women going to come from? The show would need to make up some female characters, as RoP has. I think RoP has done a nice job with Dwarvish women, and there are many opportunities along those lines.
In terms of canon Elvish women, there’s a lot of potential for developing Celebrían and her relationship with her mother, Galadriel. Celebrían (and her dad) are in the difficult spot of being overshadowed by an immediate family member. For Celeborn and Galadriel, this creates interesting tension around what it means to have a dominant female partner in a patriarchal society. Officially Celeborn is the ruler of Lothlorien, but Galadriel is more notable. Unpacking that could make for interesting feminist discourse. As for Celebrían, she could have some commiseration not only with her father but with Elrond: they both have reasons to feel somewhat dismissed or unseen among great people’s doings, and this could be part of what brings them together. Conversely, seeing how Galadriel values her daughter, even knowing her daughter will never be the flashy superstar she is, could also make for interesting relationship building and commentary on greatness, wisdom, and—one of Tolkien’s favorite themes—humility.
There’s also opportunity with Galadriel and Celebrían to develop discourse around women’s social roles. RoP follows our usual pop feminism in equating good female representation to putting women in lots of traditionally male roles, thus perpetuating the sense that traditional “women’s work” is lowly, irrelevant, or non-existent (stuff women do just happens, like, “Oh, here’s dinner”). I’d like to ask, though, who makes those clothes? The banners? How long does it take? How is food grown? Who does the cooking? What do people eat? There’s cornucopia of opportunity to show how a space like Lothlorien is nurtured into being the haven it becomes and maintained as such. This isn’t just the work of women, of course, but women are at least as prominent in it as men, maybe more. Imagine their relationships with flowers, trees, mushrooms, seasons, beetles, irrigation. These things are fundamental to life, and Elves are strongly equated with life flourishing. There’s immense room here not only for provocative feminist discourse but also ecological discourse. And, yes, shield maidens can still take up arms, and I’m sure Galadriel is a good archer and might well get a chance to show it; that’s fine. (Note: The RoP Dwarves do a great job with creative gender discourse.)
Sidenote: Elvish kids? Probably not. Or at least not beyond Mini-Arc One if Elves don’t marry or have kids during wartime, and the Second Age is construed as unsettled in this way. That could be explicitly explored (vs. RoP). And speaking of women and kids...
Thanks, RoP, for Adar
In my opinion, Adar is the best extrapolation to come out of RoP. As an Elvish forefather of the Orcs, he’s “canon-compliant” but describes an important perspective I don’t think Tolkien ever explored. Of course, no non-Amazon show would be able to use him, so how could this idea of the Elvish forebears of Orcs be retooled? How about the mothers of Orcs? That would (hopefully) evade copyright and further interesting feminist inquiry.
The concept of an Elvish mother of Orcs is, I think, inherently harder hitting than a father. It has ugly implications that wouldn’t require any explicit depiction to be clearly present. But a mother would not be leading Orcs to war; I don’t buy it.
I might put forward this idea: as women are often symbolically depicted in threes, how about three: mother, daughter, and granddaughter, where the mother is an original Elf captured or seduced by Morgoth (and scarred by it somewhat like Adar), her daughter somewhat degraded, and granddaugher further degraded (more Orcish). There could, perhaps, also be a grandson, who fills the “Adar” role of direct leader of militaristic Orc culture, but he could take council from the women, who really drive the agenda, the agenda being basically what Adar claims to want: a place for them to live in peace, maybe to begin to reverse their degradation (a paradigmatically female want, but one a lot of men could get behind). Whether granddaughter and grandson have an incest vibe, I could see either way.
To steal another idea from RoP, how would Gil-galad respond to a group of Orcs wanting to flee Sauron and just be left alone (ostensibly)? This question in RoP got me thinking. I can’t imagine he would ever say, “Okay” or “Let’s be in alliance,” because he couldn’t trust them as far as he could throw them. And yet, I could imagine him being troubled by outright rejecting the only overture Orcs have ever made claiming to want redemption from evil. My guess is he might allow them to go unmolested into exile, way out into the desert beyond Mordor and the general sphere of influence of Middle-earth politics, with a proviso that if he hears ill of them, he’ll come for them. Strategically, however, this could very well be the wrong move, and this hoard could come back to bite them (as just in RoP). For example, they might cause problems out there, and he might feel obligated to send troops he couldn’t really spare. That could also make a good mini-arc.
Small Notes on Presenting Elves
I’d like to assure everyone who dramatizes Tolkien, it’s okay to have sexy male Elves. It is. There’s a reason Orlando Bloom worked so well as Legolas and made a fairly minor character into such an icon. You have nothing to lose. Casting male Elves with conventionally attractive men younger than forty will have positive effects for your adaptation: it will greatly enhance the numbers and devotion of your fangirls (and some fanboys and other fanlings); it will act as free advertising; it will not be called out as non-canonical (at least not harshly) because it is canonical: those Eldar guys were gorgeous! It’s also really okay to put your male Elves in attractive clothing. I promise you. No one will revolt if we can see a collarbone or a little hint of a nice build.
It’s getting positively weird that the only film/TV adaptation franchise of Tolkien not to make at least some Elvish men look old, podgy, or just plain weird is Bakshi. (Yes, okay, they’re a bit weird there too, but that’s their whole animation style.) Though I do have to admit that the bloated Jackson Hobbit movies did okay there.
What's on your wish list? I'd love to hear.