The Silmarillion TV Series by AndyC

Introduction

The Block Party challenges us to come up with trying “a new form of fanwork.”

This is sort of a new form of fanwork for me.  Instead of a straightforward story, it’s the script for a TV series.  A Silmarillion TV series.

My first thought was that the three Great Tales would be a good candidate for adaptations: The Tale of the Nightingale, The Curse of Morgoth (which could include the Wanderings of Hurin and the Fall of Doriath), and The Fall of Gondolin (which could interleave with the Second Kinslaying).  A fourth Tale – The Rising of the Star – would be possible, but take a lot of invention.

All the bits we love from the earlier Silmarillion could be done in flashback.  Yes, this could be done.

Then I paused – the point of trying your hand at a form of fanwork you’ve not tried before is to challenge yourself.  I’m already skating over the definition of fanwork in order to make it achievable for myself.  Could I push the start further back?

Well, the key issue for filmed adaptations is (usually) the need to have protagonists (with whom the viewer can identify) going consistently through the work – whether a film or a series.  Well, you can have them “hand over” the narrative, but you have to have introduced the new protagonists significantly in advance and had the viewer get invested in them. In the ones mentioned earlier, it’s easy: Beren and Luthien for the first; Hurin, Turin, Nienor for the second; Tuor and Idril in the third. 

Telling in flashback (by Maglor? – wouldn’t work.  You still need to hold to protagonists for the encapsulated story.  But, as above, you can switch protagonists – especially between.  Could we still see the Darkening of Valinor?

Feanor would be an ideal protagonist for that season – except – he dies at the Dagor nuin Giliath (and any studio executive who suggests “Can we have this Feanor guy survive?  He makes for great conflict!” would get a slap).  We’d have to switch to other protagonists until the Battle of Sudden Flame (although having Feanor as a protagonist (amongst others) who dies partway through the season could be a great outcome – like Ned Stark unexpectedly getting his head cut off in Episode 8).

Musing out loud: If we started at the Darkening of Valinor, we could have Maedhros and Finrod as key protagonists, with Fingon, Fingolfin, Galadriel, and, of course, Feanor as supporting protagonists.  That could work.

Can I go further back?

Got to keep going to the limits of the possible to find out where it’s impossible.  Before the Coming of the Elves, the protagonists are too remote – the Valar and Maiar.  And I don’t want the viewer identifying too much with them – they need to be remote, powerful figures.  Which gives me the answer for how far the limits are (for me, anyway); the Awakening of the Elves. 

So.  And bear in mind that this loose outline is subject to massive change as I go along:

Season One: The Awakening of the Elves to Melkor’s Release from Mandos.  Main protagonists: Finwe and Elwe.  Miriel, Ingwe, Melian, Olwe, Elmo as well.

Season Two: Crafting of the Silmarils to the threshold of the Battle of Sudden Flame (the Battle doesn’t occur yet – but we see all the preparations by Morgoth at the end of the final episode of the season and all the pieces are moved in place.  Maedhros and Finrod as key protagonists, with Galadriel (her part written up more), Fingolfin, Lalwen (plenty of possibility for her to be a wise advisory voice, for a start), some of Thingol (who’s left over from last season, anyway) and Melian, Fingon of course.

Season 3: key protagonists - Luthien and Beren; starting with the Battle of Sudden Flame, covering the Quest for the Silmaril, and ending just before the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.  Also featuring Finrod, Thingol, Melian.

Season 4: key protagonists – Hurin, Turin, Nienor, and Tuor; starting with the Battle of Unnumbered Tears and ending with the death of Hurin and the birth of Earendil

Season 5: key protagonists - Tuor (first half), Dior (first half), Maedhros, Earendil (all the way through) and Elwing (latter half); starting with the Fall of Doriath, through the Battle of Sarn Athrad, the restoration of Doriath, the Second Kinslaying, the Fall of Gondolin, the start of Earendil's Voyages, the Third Kinslaying, the Voyage of Earendil, the War of Wrath.

To be honest, Season Five might need to be split into two shorter seasons…

I’ve sketched out events for each of 10 shows per season for the first two seasons, but I’ll probably take a while to get that far.  Oh, and the names start off slightly differently – my reasoning is that as the Elves weren’t speaking Quenya on Day One, but Primitive Quendian, the tidy names of “Finwe, Ingwe, Elwe, Olwe” were quite possibly not as laid out.  We know that Thingol’s name was portrayed as “Elwe” to the Elves of Aman, and “Elu” to the Elves of Doriath – did it start out as Elwe and mutate a bit?  Or did it come from something like simply “El” and have an appropriate ending appended in each language as Quenya and Sindarin evolved?

I’ve gone for the latter.  So we start with our heroes being known as “Ingar”, “Finn,” and “El.”

And, as a bonus, we don’t start off with too many “-we” names that might confuse the viewer.

[Ed: Andy – this isn’t actually a TV series, you know…]

In addition, and potentially needing to apologise in advance: the dialogue is not even remotely archaic, but modern conversational.  Partly to appeal to viewers, but mainly because if I tried to make it archaic, I'd get it horribly wrong and come up with some sort of faux-archaicisms that would make people who genuinely know what they're doing cringe in pain.  In any case, I'd argue that to the characters, they're always speaking conversationally for their time, anyway.  Call it a translation convention.

So.  Here we go, then.  As TV shows don’t exactly have chapters, and as each episode would probably be on the long side for each “Chapter” update (for me and for you), I’ll post them in “Part 1,” “Part 2,” etc of each episode.

You can imagine the commercials yourself, though…