<font face="Verdana"><table><TR><TD><FONT SIZE="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Wight
Posts: 190</TD><TD></TD></TR></TABLE>
Re: A new approach at Silmarillion canon.
I think your analogy helps illuminate some of the challenges of trying to figure out what is canon, Saulotus, but asks more questions than it answers regarding your approach to formulating Tolkien canon.
Parts of HoME can be equated to the old versions of the Star Wars screenplay -- those early drafts are so different from the finished film and evolved so much that you'd almost think the one had nothing to do with the other.
Other parts of HoME are more like the Special Edition -- especially the transformations of the "legendarium" that JRRT toyed with in writings like those contained in "Morgoth's Ring". In this case, however, the analogy breaks down. Both the original films and the Special Editions are finished products that were put into final form by their creator. Strictly speaking, you'd have to say that the Special Edition is "canon" and supercedes the original films because GL says they are a truer representation of his vision. Things that he left out and older versions are interesting from the standpoint of observing the creative process, but otherwise have no bearing on the question of “canon”. Personally, I hate the revised cantina scene and think the Jabba-Han scene should have stayed on the cutting room floor -- but I love the new Mos Eisley footage and the improved dogfight sequences.
We will never know what a final and complete Silmarillion would have looked like if JRRT had actually finished it. Really, between the prof's habit of endless rewriting and his tendency to abruptly and inexplicably abandon manuscripts, it seems a wonder that we ever received The Hobbit and LotR! Anything that you try to assemble in the way of a revised Silmarillion will necessarily be a mix-mash attempt to take the "best" (a subjective term if ever there was one) of what JRRT devised and weld it onto the half-completed framework of the legendarium (which is what the published Silmarillion is anyway).
I've always been of the opinion that LotR and The Hobbit are the only books which can truly be considered "canonical" and that in cases where the published Silmarillion contradicts them, the Silmarillion must defer to their authority as finished works. But I would also say that JRRT's presentation of virtually all of his stories as mere translations of the works of a multitude of different authors and sources allows inconsistencies to live comfortably alongside one another, and may even add another layer of verisimilitude to the whole. Just as with real history, conflicting accounts exist.
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