[Aiwendil]

Lindil wrote:

but I can not see Rog as an entirely canonical problem the problem is not wether he existed or not or wether he may have killed a balrog or not [ he did in Q 30 apparently] but wether his name nis aestheticaqlly suitable within the Silmarillion CRT felt it could not go in his and I also feel it cannot go in ours, based on euphony not canon.

I still maintain that it is an entirely canonical problem. It is, you are correct, not a question of whether he existed, but rather of what his name was. But surely the names of characters are canonical issues, since they have a real meaning within the pseudo-history. There is a sharp distinction between the name of a character and the exact words used in an account of that character to describe his actions.

His name may not 'contradict' Sindarin as we have it in terms of meanings and such but it is nails on cahalkboard euphonically.

I have to disagree here as well. This exemplifies the problem of letting aesthetics play a role in deciding on canonical issues; you think that "Rog" is nails on a chalkboard. I think it's rather euphonically pleasing and perfectly suitable. How do we decide between us? The problem with letting aesthetics play a role is that it provides no higher authority to which to appeal when a point is disputed.

I still think that the issues of Rog's name is separate (or should be separate) from a principle that allows or forbids stylistic editing of the text. And I think you are right that this name is an isolated issue and that other situations will prove less troublesome. But I think that, if we drop Rog, it should be because we have evidence that "Rog" could not be a name in later Sindarin. This evidence may be explicit or implicit, but it must be there.

This, I think, is not the place to proceed with a debate on the name Rog. However, I cannot help but to make two points. First, we have absolutely no suitable replacement for "Rog", so dropping the name may very well require us to drop the character. Second, unless my memory fails me, the name Rog did reappear in the Quenta Noldorinwa, so it cannot simply be considered a bizarre name from BoLT.

Re: The dragons [mechanical ones] we don't know what JRRT would have done really because all further versions of the fall of Gondolin are compressions that only refer to a 'tale of the fall of Gondolin'

But the fact is that in no later account of, or reference to, the Fall of Gondolin, are such a striking feature as mechanical dragons mentioned. I must admit that I don't see how aesthetics can play a role in this determination. I don't think that they are aesthetically unsuitable in the later mythology, and if we did not have evidence that they were discarded, I would favor keeping them. But I think that their ommission from later accounts is evidence that they were discarded.

A new version Translations from the Elvish has been my suggested working title, which incorporates the historical Quenta and scavenges darn near anything it can find from BoLT to Letters to UT to HoME to create a super Silmarillion complete with as much imitation of Tolkien's style as we can muster for the times we use old source materials or;

A canon of idea's and events that leaves the texts pretty much exactly as it found them after they have been grafted into the tale in question.

Of course I leave it to Aiwendil to formulate his vision here better than myself.

Hmm. Well, as for myself, I don't see a contradiction between the two possibilities that you listed: 1. A super-Silmarillion with as much in it as we can scavenge; 2. A canon of ideas and events that leaves the material as it is without clean-up. My vision, if it can be called that, for this project is simply a super-Silmarillion with as much in it that we can scavenge, that leaves the material as it is without clean-up.

I suspect, though, that your idea of a super-Silmarillion is something else, something more readable, something with literary merit, like a vastly improved '77. I am entirely sympathetic with the desire for such a thing. My view, though, is this: the creation of such a work is not a simple matter of grafting together different texts and editing them for consistency of content and style. There would need to be creative expansion of certain segments (like Earendil, or The Ruin of Doriath); there would be aesthetic decisions on which it is very unlikely that a group could completely agree. If one wanted to minimize such problems, one would have to exclude certain texts and would end up with something very much like the published Silmarillion.

The possibility of such a Silmarillion has been touched on before, in this very thread among other places. If you look back a bit, you'll see that Jallanite sketched out a distinction between a purely canonical Silmarillion and a fan-fictionalized one. There was some more discussion of this elsewhere, though I can't at them moment find it. The point, I think, is this: with this project as it is currently structured, we are working on a purely canonical history of ideas and events. I would love to see the creation of a new literary Silmarillion; in fact, I did several hundred pages of work on one a while back. But I think that here and now the focus should be on ideas and events, and simple textual splicing.

7. ~ JRRT almost certainly would have changed it.or Aestheics or Euphony
examples: Mechanical dragons, hosts of Balrogs, 'Legolas' in Gondolin.
Much has already been worked on from different angles, but I think this subjective but realistic principle, cuts through quite a bit o red tape.
Aestheics or Euphony must also be considered when dealing with any of the material from Q30 and BoLT. Some of the elements in the names, manner of the telling are discordant with the whole feel of the later legendarium [HoME 5 and onwards]. We should not let a desire for editorial minimalism mar the beauty of the later writings. So when no suitable substitutions are available [ such as Rog] he must eliminated or glossed around as most befits the specific text.

Well, as I guess I've sort of laid out already, I am against such a principle. It is my opinion, as I've argued above, that all instances mentioned as candidates to be fixed under the aesthetics principle can be fixed under other principles. It is also my strong suspicion that this principle would foster further indecisiveness and debate (things which we very much do not need).

I think that the various cases that Lindil mentions can all be dealt with without an aesthetics principle:

Rog [ see above post from lindil for specific arguments]

This one I've already gone on about at some length. If he is to be dropped, I think it ought to be because his name does not fit with later Sindarin. Also, considering that there is disagreement concerning the aesthetics of "Rog", I don't see how this could be resolved under the new principle.

Mechanical Monsters

Same arguments as for Rog. But I think there is a good argument that the monsters were dropped, without resorting to aesthetics.

Mechanical Monsters [ as Aiwendil posted much earlier – “the only example I could think of for it [pt 7- lindil’s note] would be that we'd have to KEEP the mechanical dragons!” Although this has been decided upon, I think we were missing some of the key pro-points, but nonetheless we really don’t know how JRRT would have kept them, if at all.

I made the mistake of thinking that the former principle 7 could force us to include the mechanical dragons. To this, Jallanite eloquently replied:

On point 7, I don't think the corollary forces us to keep the mechanical dragons or Gothmog as son of Morgoth, to name two examples, if there is a reasonable probability that they have been removed from the legendarium in versions following BoLT. These examples might be listed here as changes that have reasoning behind them and therefore could be made accordingly. Both of these are supportable in part from argument by silence, but that I think is strong enough to allow omission of the mechanical dragons as quite possibly what Tolkien intended, and almost force omission of Gothmog's parentage per the dropping of children of the Valar and from the fact that so striking a parentage as being a son of Morgoh would almost certainly be mentioned if it were still part of the tale.
I think the point of the corollary is that we can't drop something only because some don't like it without some other evidence that JRRT had dropped it, not just happened not to mention it. It is otherwise too easy for any of us to identify his or her individual tastes with Tolkien's.

I am in complete agreement with what Jallanite said, and I think that the old principle 7 is sound.

If we can not come up with a textual satisfying Ruin of Doriath then by this formula CJRT’s Silm chapter would stay [ or at least form the basis].

This is already covered by principle 3: "If no sources that fall under number 2 can be used to form the actual narrative of a section, then any text or summary created by Christopher Tolkien may be used, provided it does not violate the canon established for that section by numbers 1 and 2 above."

Also in principle part of 7 but practically it’s own point should be – stylistic editorial changes. This can be dealth with once we deide whether we want them or not.

Agreed.

My apologies for the long and argumentative post.

[ December 31, 2002: Message edited by: Aiwendil ]