So, Finrod-zong has been "reloaded"! What i saw on Friday sure was a very different show from what it had been in its Etherius era. There is still a lot left to be improved, and there are thing which left me flabbergasted; but it can be said even now that Moscow is getting its own Finrod that can and should be shown to people without blushing or facepalming.
Speaking to the director, Taria Baturina, I realised two important things. The first one is hopeful: there will be improvements, the show will be further updated, and the holes in its logic will be mended. The other one is a head-scratcher, and it's about that latter thing i would like to talk.
I asked Taria about showcasing Morgoth in prologue, while Sauron still wears the silmarils in his crown; and she said: well, yes, we still had to go for an amalgamation of Morgoth and Sauron, because that's how it is in Bocharova's text, isn't it. And I froze. ...No it isn't?
I did not argue the point, but it suck with me, so I kept going back to it in my mind, up until a realisation: while, sure, it doesn't clearly say Morgoth and Sauron are the same dude, if you read it with no context, going off what it says and ignoring what it implies, you absolutely can come out of it thinking that they are, in fact, the same person!
Now, I still suspect that much of Baturina's reading is informed by the way Etherius went about it, and they very much had Sauron wear the silmarils. (Another question is if those silmarils were real, considering the whole copycat thing they were going for, but that's besides the point.) There are plenty iterations of FZ where Sauron does not wear any silmarils, among them - the 2001-2002 version, especially notable since Lora Bocharova and Lina Vorobyova themselves made it.
That in mind, it still got me thinking: to my utter surprise, it turns out not everyone reads FZ the way I usually do! What i mean by that is FZ is something i cannot fathom without a larger context of the Legendarium which is reflected and refracted in it like in a prism. That is the fundamental difference between Finrod-zong and Skadi's Lay o Leithian: while LoL may use metatext as an tool of expression, FZ is a metatext. You cannot have FZ without its many, many references to LotR, both on thematic and textual levels, up to specific references to a specific translation. And the beauty (and the curse) of its nature is that it's vague as fuck, vague enough that you can see many possible references in one place. One of my favourite spots like that is "нам стоять на страже ваших снов": now, clearly it refers to Gildor and company watching over the hobbits in ForR. But also, I very much would like it to refer to Finrod Felagund coming across people of Bëor and sitting at their campfire where none kept watch. It is Galadriel who sings that, after all. To my mind, FZ not only invites the audience to such metatextuality - by its own nature it demands it. While LoL is a retelling of the Legendarium, FZ is a meditation on the Legendarium, inherently vague and context-oriented. More than that: i am sure there is an even further layer of metatextuality that by now is lost to us: the level of Russian Tolkien fandom of the 90s and early 2000s. We can still see traces of it, in the jokes and the silliness and the biases of the narrative, but most of it is lost to time.
So, with all that in mind, I never even thought about addressing Bocharova's text to determine what is and what isn't canon in "FZ-verse", because for me, there no FZ-verse. While I very much recognise that it has its own biases and its own (very strange in places) takes on Tolkien lore, its text has never felt like a finality. Heck, there are things in there i would outright refuse to take as final, namely the whole Thingol Mess.
There is a humorous scene in the new FZ which illustrates perfectly how Taria's understanding of the text differs drastically from that of mine. During the Gem Quest, Finrod and his elven company walk briskly across the stage, tailed by a winded, stumbling Beren. He has to call for his companions, who already have disappeared off-stage: "Lord Finrod! Oi, Lord Finrod!" Finrod and Co return. Beren: "How do I even... I get that elves are resilient folk and all, but. Um. How 'bout some rest, eh?" Finrod, processing: "...Ah. Rest." Turns to the company, shrugging, half-amused, half-apologetic: "Humans!"
Needless to say, the scene took me out of it. Finrod Felagund doesn't "humans!". Finrod Felagund has gone through thick and thin with those humans. Finrod Felagund has scars on his heart dealt by knowing humans all too well.
Now, is it plausible, within solely the material of Finrod-zong, for such a scene to take place? Yes. There is nothing in the rock opera which states directly that Finrod is a) knowledgeable about human nature and b) considerate enough to take it into account while travelling with Beren. Is there groundwork in the material for such a joke to work? Yes! Starting from Thingol's disdain: "С человеком не равняй меня!", to Melian's "но о людях мы ничего не знаем", to Finrod's initial cold aloofness and racism towards Beren, the text does play off contrast between elves, where the latter are more often than not flabbergasted by the former. Heck, Finrod's very attitude towards Beren, coupled with his revelation in Истина, can be read as an arc of sorts, where Finrod learns to appreciate humans and sees the Design behind their fate (Galadriel spells it out for us in the finale). This arc is precisely what Taria went for in her direction of Finrod-zong! In the re-launch, Nargothrond's Finrod is particularly cold towards Beren, only to slowly grow to care for him, and end up giving his life for him willingly, happily. Does that work? Heck yeah it does! But can it work, with the aforementioned joke as step in that arc, if we try to look at that particular Finrod as The Finrod Felagund? ...Not really.
Is the text favourable towards such a reading? Yeah it is. Does it exclude all the other readings? Heck no it doesn't! Finrod's initial unfriendliness does not need to be explained by his lack of familiarity with humans. It can be explained by his royal veneer. It can be explained by the sense of elven superiority. It can be explained by his apprehension, too. More importantly, as far as I am concerned, it does not need to be explained. And Finrod as a character does not need to be reluctant to help Beren because he doesn't get what humans are about: his revelation does not need to be a thing he learns. Instead, it very much can be a thing he submits to.
I am genuinely intrigued, if a little disappointed, with the way Taria Baturina experiences the nature of Finrod-zong. Now I even wonder if I am, in fact, a minority in the matter? And I have to ask, how will Taria Baturina's reading of Bocharova's text influence the further development of Finrod-zong in the future?
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