The King's Players - Discussion/Planning Thread

[Boromir88]

I would prefer doing the full-days, since right now I'm more able to contribute in the mornings and afternoons, and less so at night.

As far as my general idea for Branor. I don't know how 'redeeming' he'll end up yet, that's going to probably be a spontaneous 'let's see what happens' thing. However, he will have likable qualities once you get passed the arrogance business. The big one being, he can put any back-stage disputes out of his mind, while performing and always does his best out of love for the play (but this also means he always likes to think himself the star, even if he's not). He's just one of those guys that doesn't let back-stage shenanigans contribute to the success (or failure) of the performance.

[Pitchwife]

Commendable research and scholarship, phantom and Form! *applauds*
I suppose during the years when the Players started to tour abroad and play in Minas Anor, they also continued to perform in Dale & surroundings, right? Because that's where Coldan met & joined them, which I imagine happened around F.A. 17 or 18 (probably not later, as they seem to have been quite busy extensively touring in Gondor and Rohan from F.A. 19 onwards).

Anyway, since Coldan is, after all, a member of the troupe, I'll do my best to post at least once a D/day. I probably won't have time on Tuesday the 8th (this being my wife's birthday), but from Wednesday on there should be no problem.

phantom's assignment of roles looks good to me, especially this:

Originally Posted by the phantom

Aldarion- dramatic, tortured soul, romantic lead
[...]
Aldarion- Boromir prince of Gondor

Do the wave for Aldarion the disco king and Therian the disco queen?

Only a few minor quibbles:

Originally Posted by tp

Amdir- minor roles if necessary (set design, construction, etc)
[...]
Amdir- Pippin the Hobbit Prince

Come on, you can't make the Ernil i Pheriannath a minor role! Didn't he lead a whole host of five thousand halfling warriers to the Pelennor, one of them riding with every Rider of Rohan? Or so I've heard...

Originally Posted by tp

Aldarion- Boromir prince of Gondor, the evil King Butterbur

Lovely idea to recast old Barley as the Dark Lord, but somehow I doubt that any of our sources has heard so much as his name.
And I notice we have nobody cast as Gandalf/Mithrandir. Now while it would be quite consistent for us to be totally ignorant of the part he played in the War of the Ring, he was a prominent and well-known figure both around Dale/Erebor and in Gondor, so I don't see how we could have failed to include him in the play.

Concerning our script, how about including some of the plot ideas the Prof considered in his early drafts but rejected later, such as:

• Frodo gets captured by evil!giant Treebeard (who is in league with Saruman) at some stage of the quest;
• Boromir isn't slain at Parth Galen but survives to duel Aragorn for the throne of Gondor (ok, probably not, as somebody from our Minas Anor audience would likely have corrected us about that already, or what do you think?);
• ...(can't remember any more at the moment and don't have the pertinent HoME volumes to look up, but I'll try to wring my memory over the weekend.)

[the phantom]

Ah, sorry Pitch- I completely left out your character! I was going off of the first post of the thread (the one with the links to various characters) and yours wasn't on there so I didn't get it. I'll do something about it later today.

[Pitchwife]

No worry, phantom, my vanity was hurt just the tiniest of bits.
On further consideration, "Vat's up with zis Frodo fellow I've heard folks here in Gondor mention? I zought ze halfling who burned down Barad-dûr vas ze same as stole zat magic ring from Smaug's hoard - vasn't his name Bingo or Dildo or some such? Unless of course it vas ze Ernil i Pheriannath himself..."

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

On further consideration, "Vat's up with zis Frodo fellow I've heard folks here in Gondor mention? I zought ze halfling who burned down Barad-dûr vas ze same as stole zat magic ring from Smaug's hoard - vasn't his name Bingo or Dildo or some such? Unless of course it vas ze Ernil i Pheriannath himself..."

Channeling "Eorache" from Bored of the Rings?

I'm not quite sure yet where Vëandur's going to make his entrance. I think I'll just look at how things start to play out and take it from there.

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Channeling "Eorache" from Bored of the Rings?

"Vat do you mean, ve have a funny vay of pronouncing ze Vyestron in Dorvinion? *mutters* Arrogant Númenórean suprematists..."
Actually, I imagined Coldan's accent to sound somewhat like Star Trek's Chekov. "Keptin, ze Ringvraiths are penetrating ze Rammas Echor!" (The German sync speaker in Star Trek 2009 had the awesomest fake Russian accent I've ever heard, palatalized vowels and all. [/OT])

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I'm not quite sure yet where Vëandur's going to make his entrance. I think I'll just look at how things start to play out and take it from there.

Spontaneous idea which may not appeal to you and I don't know what Ang thinks of it, but couldn't Vëandur be Cirdacil's nephew or something? I mean, with Cirdacil originally being a merchant, he could have a younger brother who went to sea, couldn't he?

phantom, I think Coldan is beyond himself with pride to be cast as Gimli - usually, he only gets roles with little stage presence and next to no text (think of characters like Ceorl or Hirgon in the book), having to hide behind the sets and prompt most of the time. But I suppose Gimli's part in the play - which must originally have been quite substantial in order to please our Dwarven fans back home and would have been played by someone else then - was cut a lot when Aldarion adapted the play to suit Gondorian taste?

[the phantom]

Okay, so I decided to make some lists here. As we discuss and add more, I can edit in the changes and we can use the post as a reference point.

sources of The King's Players information

• a couple dwarves from the Lonely Mt that heard stories from other dwarves who heard things from Gimli
• men of Laketown that heard stories from Elves of Mirkwood who heard stories from Legolas
• farmers & such from Gondor & Rohan that saw/heard things here and there
• a pair of travelers from Bree they met in Minas Tirith during their first visit

I don't think it would be difficult for us to have received awful information about the story and characters, if we consider that many of the people wishing to tell tales were lying drunkards, or perhaps just inventing scoundrels looking to get a free meal. Plus I think some of us might be prone to believe the most fantastical/interesting stuff we hear given that the events were so big and the stakes high, not to mention as actors we'd want the story to be crazy.

some possibilities for The King's Players version of The Lord of the Rings

• Gandalf shows up mysteriously at random moments, doesn't say much, and is just sort of around behind the scenes (role played by several people in heavy costume & makeup).
• Whoever heard about Merry mistakenly thought "Mary" and after that the group filled in blanks with the assumption Merry was a lady. The thought that "she" is an Elf stemmed largely from "her" ability to speak to the trees (Fangorn). It was later decided to make "Mary" a love interest for Boromir, which added nicely to his death defending "her".
• Gollum is an orc. After all, he's an evil creature that knew his way around Mordor. What else could he be?
• From what we've heard, we know that the Hobbits ran into lots of trouble up around Bree, and we know that Aragorn helped them get out of Bree alive. Regarding their near deaths, we heard that the attempted murder was while staying with Butterbur (who must've been some sort of ruler if he had dozens of guest rooms), and that he had their ponies stolen, and that Butterbur was an evil man. (The travelers from Bree the King's Players met were full of crap and had a grudge against Barliman.)
• Frodo was a mighty warrior and a bit of a wizard too. He did fight Sauron after all- what else could he have been?
• Since we believe Sam to have been a somewhat stupid and unimportant servant, we decided to have him die earlier in the tale to add some drama (somewhere between the Shire and Rivendell). Imagine our surprise when we find out the visiting Hobbit-Mayor is Sam!

[Mnemosyne]

Sorry about not adding Pitch to the character list--I was holding off because I didn't know what list to put him in, and rather than do the sensible thing and add him to the minor one for now, I had quite forgotten...

I was going to suggest that we had forgotten that Sam existed entirely!!

And I will put in a second plug for Frodo going to Barad-dur to challenge Sauron to single combat, since that's pure canon.

Also, if we're still looking at aborted plots for ideas, I would love it if we had a Trotter...

I'm going to try to get a First Post up on this thread tomorrow so we all have a general idea of when and where the game is officially starting.

Oh, and this is now officially morphing into the Discussion Thread as well as the Planning thread.