March 2021 - Day 1

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Here is the place to tell us about your daily success (or the lack of it)!
May the magic be with us all!

FYI: I'll put up the daily posts between 6 and 8pm, CET, each day. The exact posting time might vary due to RL issues. My apologies.

Comments

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

No actual writing for me today (too many chores), but I've been playing various scenarios in my head concerning "Sea Flower". One of them being a dance done by Zirán, a slave woman from Khambaluk (one of the farthest and largest Haradric realms in my little corner of the Tolkienverse that has certain similarities with medieval India). The dancer was inspired by Indira Varma as she appeared in the Kama Sutra film and is the concubine of the leading male character, a nobleman in Umbar.

The other one is a bull game, based on the one they do in Camargue, France. The peculiarity of this game is that they don't harm the bulls in any way; the animals have some kind of brooch fastened to their foreheads, and the participants have to snatch the thing without being impaled by the bull. Basically, it is a game of speed and skill, as the men participating are not armed in any way. I need to get certain characters sent to participate in the game, so that they can meet by accident, as it would be important for the plot.

For those not in the known: the story take place a few decades before the events described in The Lord of the Rings, featuring a very minor canon character who's only mentioned in the genealogy of the Princes of Dol Amroth. Aragorn, Imrahil and Denethor also make appearances, and so does Finduilas, the mother of Boromir and Faramir.

Sorry for being so verbose. I'm actually trying to inspire discussions about the works themselves, not only pats on the shoulder for the word count. (Which I don't even have today...)

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

I think you will have a good deal of fun figuring out how to get your characters to participate in the bull game. And the game itself sounds like a grand lot of choreography for you to work out, too. Do you plan to have Aragorn, Imrahil and Denethor play the bull game? Sounds very lively!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

No, Aragorn hasn't even entered the scene yet and Imrahil is 13 years old when the story begins. The players of the bull game will be OCs: Hallatan (Halbarad's brother and thus Aragorn's kingsman) and someone called Rasheed who's in the service of the First Consul of Umbar.

[akane42me.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, considering Aragorn's human and the story is set a few decades prior to LOTR...
I should have caught that:)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, he is, like, 90 or so during LotR (and so is Denethor), so they aren't actually children anymore when the story takes place. In fact, one of the plot elements is Denethor wanting to marry Imrahil's sister, Finduilas (who'll eventually become the mother of Boromir and Faramir).

[elmey.livejournal.com]

I'm one of those people who never made it through Lord of the Rings, so will be useless for this discussion :( But I like the way you investigate the nooks and crannies of Tolkien's world, carving out areas you can populate with your own characters. I also like a sport where the Bulls aren't killed!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I was amazed when I saw that documentary about the Camargue Bull Games. Those men, wearing only light cotton t-shirts and trousers, were true acrobats, and the bulls black, huge and heavy, with long, pointy horns...

[fiorenza-a.livejournal.com]

I presume these games trace their lineage back to the bronze age games?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Err... no. According to some website or other (sorry, I forgot what the actual source was):

The games began as simple farm games when farm workers and animals enjoyed teasing and fighting with the bulls. The oldest written record of a bull game in Arles dates from 1402, when a race was organized in honor of Louis II, Count of Provence. Later, at the end of the 19th century, the game became less cruel and it was only men who “played” with the bulls : objects (flowers, scarves, red-white-and-blue ribbons, cocardes displaying the ranch colors) were attached to the bull’s horns to be snatched by young amateurs.

[fiorenza-a.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's interesting. I thought all European games like that had their roots in antiquity — obviously bulls just bring that out in agriculturally minded folk!

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Those ideas sound really promising! I like the bull one, where the animal isn't hurt...

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Me, too. It was interesting to see the game on the telly.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

That sounds really interesting. Dol Amroth and its neighbours is a really good place for using our own mental images, and our own thoughts on the culture. I enjoyed surgsteelfic's take on it being very like New Orleans, but in my own head I have sometimes toyed with it being rather Venetian.

Would you see the bull game of the Camargue being a tradition of Umbar?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yes, it would be a tradition in Umbar — only to be undermined by the Cult of Morgoth (imported from Númenor) who use the games to snatch those who fail as sacrifices. I mean the men, not the bulls, of course.

I imagine Dol Amroth Castle similar to the Chateau of Chillon (at Lake Geneva), which originally inspired this entire story. although Dol Amroth, being built by Númanóreans, might be a size or two bigger. Those guys tended to monolithic architecture. Think of the Argonath... or Minas Tirith itself!