#lebennin

- Re: the city bustle—we see glimpses of people with different occupations, different classes, different backgrounds, different languages, living their daily lives. Despite the weight of legacy and the pressures of war, it should be clear that Gondor’s culture is diverse and vibrant. There might be a contrast with the Northern Dúnedain here as well, as they’re a much smaller and more homogeneous population.

- The Northern Dúnedain would need ... like, a plot or something to bring them in before they’re summoned to help Aragorn. We need a sense of what their deal is, both where it’s connected to Gondor’s on the Dúnadan level and where it’s separate. Maybe this doubles as our introduction to hobbits—we first see them from the perspective of the Dúnedain protecting them. 

- I mentioned this in a reply, but I would (regretfully) lower the register of the Dúnedain characters’ dialogue to a somewhat more accessible level for central characters—not modern casual by any means, but not quite so high-diction as the book.

- It’s dreamland, so I’d get linguists who could not only handle neo-Sindarin, but neo-Sindarin with dialectical differences. Even in “English,” there’d be different accents between, say, the Northern and Southern Dúnedain, even if it’s not very pronounced (and definitely between e.g. Rivendell Elves and Boromir).

- (I am very set on Boromir using Sindarin at least once. I’m pretty sure that I lose a year off my life every time I see people assuming he can’t.)

- I’m really looking forward to the ‘the Sword that was Broken’ dream. I mean. I would be, if this was actually, you know, a thing.

- I have a headcanon that Ivriniel accompanied Finduilas to Minas Tirith way back in the day, studied with the healers, and just ... never left again, until Denethor evacuated her before the battle. My more tentative headcanon is that Lothíriel has been with her for some time, mostly due to escalating Corsair raids, so if I went with that, we could get three whole canon female characters in MT and have some sense of Lothíriel beyond her familial/marital connections.

(Bonus: the expanded headcanon is that Denethor and Ivriniel got on super well, but she was enraged when he sent her off in the evacuation, and they had a bitter fight about it before she left. Of course, she never sees him again.)

- Tolkien remarks in UT that Denethor was not only driven by personal pride but by his love for Gondor and the burden of being selected to lead his people through a desperate time. This should be really clear, esp when it comes to his use of the palantír. (I don’t think that would be a secret to the audience. Probably. If anything, we might even experience some episodes of his use of it with him, culminating in his sanity finally snapping.)

- Gandalf is a major recurring character in both ‘halves’ of the story. Maybe we get his line to Faramir about who he truly is and are eventually given enough information to understand what it means? Not sure how deep into Middle-earth cosmology we want to get, but it’s ... kind of important. At any rate, we would see his affinity with both Aragorn and Faramir, and Denethor’s resentment of Faramir’s affection for Gandalf would have some context.

- In my most perfect world, Gandalf and Denethor would actually be framed in similar ways at points, obviously enough to see them as related, parallel figures per Pippin’s observation. 

- We’d get some glimpses of the Elves, if not more, via the Northern Dúnedain, though the “northern” focus would probably narrow in on Aragorn as the plot closes in on FOTR. At the very least we’d meet Elladan and Elrohir and get an idea of their quasi-eternal bromance with the Northern Dúnedain and undying hatred of orcs.