Five point guides
Dec. 10th, 2012 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altariel![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
dwimordene_2011 did this meme over on her journal:Pick a character I've written and I will give and explain the top five ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.
I did a few over there, and here they are.
Altariel's Five Point Guide to Denethor
1. Denethor knows how and why Faramir judges him, and he fears Faramir is right. It genuinely hurts that Faramir loves and respects other people ahead of him. Boromir is all round less complicated to love unconditionally.
2. There was a period of time after Boromir went off soldiering when Denethor and Faramir rubbed along quite happily. Then Faramir grew up. They both miss this time terribly.
3. Denethor sees long before Faramir does that Faramir will one day choose his own way over Denethor's, and he kind of despises Faramir for not seeing this. Or, it gives him an excuse to despise him.
4. Gondor, Gondor, Gondor.
5. Gandalf is obviously doing everything on purpose to annoy him.
In summary: Total War
Altariel's Five Point Guide to Finduilas
1. Finduilas and Denethor are genuinely in love. But he's too fixed in his character and she's too young - she's daunted in the same way that Faramir is daunted, but with even fewer resources.
2. Ecthelion adores Finduilas. This doesn't help Denethor's tendency towards jealousy. Second again.
3. The Eye is firmly fixed upon Finduilas.
4. It's suicide.
5. It takes Faramir a long time to allow himself to be angry with Finduilas, and thus to grieve for her properly. Arwen's friendship is crucial here.
In summary: Ariel
Altariel's Five Point Guide to Faramir
1. It's not just the pyre, it's the knife.
2. Sufficient = self-sufficient. Faramir spends much of his adolescence alone, as a result of both his social position and also being younger than his brother. This gives him tremendous interior resources, up to and including understanding how he differs from his father, and how and why this is OK. These resources are enough right up to the moment that they're not. Luckily for him, that's exactly when Eowyn turns up.
3. He copes remarkably well with people saying to him: "You're just like your father was at this age!" It's considerably nicer when people tell him how he's like he's mother, because she's a puzzle that he can't quite solve, and he is on a lifelong quest to collect information.
4. Gondor, Gondor, Gondor. But unlike Denethor, this is a dream, a vision, and a source of nourishment rather than an excuse.
5. He really does talk in parentheses.
In summary: Self-Medication
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no subject
Date: 2012-12-10 09:22 pm (UTC)Denethor #2 - I have wondered about that... it wasn't all bad, all the time.
Finduilas points are eye-openers for me, particularly 3 and 4. Number 3 makes a lot of sense now that you say it...
Faramir #1 - I had totally forgotten about that until a recent referencing of that bit of text, and it was completely surprising and horrifying.
And #5 - Ha ha, yes. I won't admit how much time I wasted trying to see if I could format footnotes in LJ for my own five points.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-10 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 12:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 01:51 am (UTC)Like a great university lecturer. :D
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Date: 2012-12-11 09:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 10:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 10:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-11 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-12 09:34 pm (UTC)I'm trying to decide what his research specialisms would be. The law of succession in the South Kingdom. Medicinal herbs and their uses. Irregular warfare in subtropical climates.
Most recent monograph: "A History of Board Games Other Than Chess" *.
* Actual book purchased for Mr Altariel one Xmas.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-13 01:27 am (UTC)Wait, wait, wait, since when does Dwim have an LJ? Jeez. (...answering my own question, I suppose her handle's a clue?)
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Date: 2012-12-14 02:18 pm (UTC)Wait, wait, wait, since when does Dwim have an LJ? Jeez. (...answering my own question, I suppose her handle's a clue?)
Get thee over there forthwith!
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Date: 2012-12-14 02:21 pm (UTC)Yes, that's the moment that really does me. Even the long funeral parade I can kind of think, "He's in a fugue state, he doesn't really know what he's doing." But the knife is nasty. Symbolically it has to be there, of course (Abraham and Isaac/"the old man would not so and slew his son, and half the seed of Europe one by one").
3. The Eye is firmly fixed upon Finduilas.
Yes, he's got his Eye on her. If she dies, that could destroy the present and the future for the leadership of Minas Tirith. Plan nearly comes off too, if it weren't for Pippin.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 05:12 pm (UTC)I was just reading a post on Henneth-Annûn about the changes to Denethor detailed in HoME, from merely stressed to unhinged. (you probably already know this, but just in case, http://henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?stid=1838) The final version of Denethor goes along with Tolkien's stated belief that the higher the capacity of a given character to start with, the farther they fall, if/when they do.
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Date: 2012-12-15 02:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-15 02:18 pm (UTC)