[Tar Elenion]

Originally posted by Man-of-the-Wold:
In response to Tar-Elenion

Your arguments with me seem to fall into two categories, on which of course we are not far apart, with regard to issues of little genuine importance. So, please don’t be offended if I seem argumentative.

O.K.

First would be the proper treatment of the various books, and Second would be how I treat Galadriel.

The first is perhaps correct. The second is not. I have no problem with how you treat (or envision) Galadriel (except perhaps equating her in power with Sauron). I however envision her differently. I think I said the 'flawed' version was _my_ bias or preference.

You seem to think that I put her on a pedestal. Yes, perhaps, in terms of her greatest, which I find perfectly correct in view of the totality of Tolkien’s work, as I’ll explain below, but to say I characterize her as saintly reveals a careless review of my words.

Please point out where I said 'you characterize her as saintly'. What I think I said was I do not like the late version that sanitizes her character, this is my veiw not a statement of how you characterize her.

The Books.
We seem to both agree that The Lord of the Rings is the ultimate benchmark, beyond reproach, except for technical problems mostly found in certain word usages or the appendices’ dates and listings, for which correction is easily accepted based on The Unfinished Tales or Letters . . ..

The Hobbit you downplay because of its child-oriented narration. Well, it is actually a very rich story, I feel, even if not up to the perfection of Rings. I can think of no significant fact that cannot be seen in some way as consistent with Rings, semantics aside, and I see no problem with even very silly-acting High Elves, which the narrator says is often thought of them, but is not true. In a way, if derived from Bilbo, as opposed to Frodo, it offers some contrast of perception about Middle-Earth and its history. I only wish more dimension of vantage point was there.

I have actually read The Hobbit more than LotR. It many ways I enjoy it more than LotR. I wish JRRT had been able to complete a fuller version of it. JRRT himself had problems with it:

Letter 131
The generally different tone and style of The Hobbit is due, in point of genesis, to it being taken by me as a matter from the great cycle susceptible of treatment as a 'fairy-story', for children. Some of the details of tone and treatment are, I now think, even on that basis, mistaken. But I should not wish to change much. For in effect this is a study of simple ordinary man, neither artistic nor noble and heroic (but not without the undeveloped seeds of these things) against a high setting - and in fact (as a critic has perceived) the tone and style change with the Hobbit's development, passing from fairy-tale to the noble and high and relapsing with the return.

Letter 153
But I do not agree (if you admit that fairy-story element) that my trolls show any sign of 'good', strictly and unsentimentally viewed. I do not say William felt pity - a word to me of moral and imaginative worth: it is the Pity of Bilbo and later Frodo that ultimately allows the Quest to be achieved - and I do not think he showed Pity. I might not (if The Hobbit had been more carefully written, and my world so much thought about 20 years ago) have used the expression 'poor little blighter', just as I should not have called the troll William. But I discerned no pity even then, and put in a plain caveat.

Letter 163
The Hobbit was originally quite unconnected, though it inevitably got drawn in to the circumference of the greater construction; and in the event modified it. It was unhappily really meant, as far as I was conscious, as a 'children's story', and as I had not learned sense then, and my children were not quite old enough to correct me, it has some of the sillinesses of manner caught unthinkingly from the kind of stuff I had had served to me, as Chaucer may catch a minstrel tag. I deeply regret them. So do intelligent children.

Letter 165
My work did not 'evolve' into a serious work. It started like that. The so-called 'children's story' [The Hobbit] was a fragment, torn out of an already existing mythology. In so far as it was dressed up as 'for children', in style or manner, I regret it. So do the children.

Letter 215
When I published The Hobbit - hurriedly and without due consideration - I was still influenced by the convention that 'fairy-stories' are naturally directed to children (with or without the silly added waggery 'from seven to seventy'). And I had children of my own. But the desire to address children, as such, had nothing to do with the story as such in itself or the urge to write it. But it had some unfortunate effects on the mode of expression and narrative method, which if I had not been rushed, I should have corrected. Intelligent children of good taste (of which there seem quite a number) have always, I am glad to say, singled out the points in manner where the address is to children as blemishes.
[and]
I think that The Hobbit can be seen to begin in what might be called a more 'whimsy' mode, and in places even more facetious, and move steadily to a more serious or significant, and more consistent and historical. .... But I regret much of it all the same. ....

Man_of_the_Wold wrote:
As for the The Silmarillion, I sense that you have a desire to disregard it, which seems somewhat common among “Barrow-downers.” But still, it’s a finished work of stories, and not just writings about writings. The criticism seems like whining in the “could’uv”, “would’uv” and “should’uv” vein. Yes! … it could have been better done, including by Christopher Tolkien with his own hindsight; it would have been done differently by JRR Tolkien (but when? . . . does anyone outside of Middle-Earth really live so long?!), and of course, many things in it should have been otherwise. And, I cannot recall any particular point from The Silmarillion that significantly contradicts something clearly said in Rings.

'The Silmarillion' is finished because CT put it together from a variety of sources. The problem with accepting the Sil. as canon, is not that it contradicts LotR (which it does in some cases), but rather that it is 'contradicted' by other writings of JRRT that were also published posthumously. The other writings may be more 'canonical' than the Sil because they show a later intent, and usually are developed in line with the mythology as presented in LotR. I do not disregard the Silmarillion as published. I however lok at it in the veiw of the other writings also published.

So, I accept as Christopher Tolkien describes in the Forward to The Book of Lost Tales, Part I:quote:
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“By the publication of ‘The Silmarillion’ the ‘longitudinal’ was cut ‘tranversely’, and a kind of finality imposed.” (emphasis added).
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You emphasize 'finality', but I would look to 'kind of'.
I accept that CT spent 25 years of his life publishing his fathers papers to show what could have been.

As for the Letters, The Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-Earth, the best that can be done with them is to round out the lore and understanding, by maximizing as much as possible that is consistent with the above works. And, of course, to marvel at the other ideas and constructions that JRR Tolkien had.

I think the best that can be done with them is they can show what JRRT actually intended.

For me it seems somewhat pointless to argue about “intentions”. JRR Tolkien had numerous intentions, which changed and changed again, evolved, and mixed ideas from various manuscripts. Where he was on a particular concept when he died, even if known, is of little help, because it would have changed again, before finally being ever published. There is often no way to reach firm conclusions that cannot be argued to death about what someone would have meant to do.

This is the problem with the Silmarillion. It was not finalized by or published by JRRT. It can not be used as a firm conclusion, that is why the otherworks are necessary to truly study the Legendarium. The Silmarillion as such is only an 'intention'.

I appreciate your point about The Road Goes Ever On being on a par with the sacredness of Rings, and I’ll have to find a copy, maybe at a used bookstore. But my sense is that it really doesn’t have that much to say about Middle-Earth, other than a few ‘Letters-like’ comments, such as the one concerning Galadriel.

It is my understanding that a new edition is to be released this summer. To me, any information it gives is welcome especially when it can be used to clarify other conceptions.

Will the Real Galadriel Please Stand Up?
<snip>
Obviously, Galadriel was an important project for Tolkien, which he wanted to develop as shown in the diverse tales with which he experimented. Unfortunately, he never finalized the best conception for himself, but I think there is more than enough in both finished and unfinished works to get a sense of the proper depth and significance of her role among the Noldor and throughout the first Three Ages of the Sun.

On this, you took me to task, but I feel that one is compelled to assume a rather “nuanced” perspective on the “ban” cited in Road, and my sense is that C. Tolkien is all but saying as much in The Unfinished Tales, when he stresses different accounts regarding in particular why she didn’t go back, in “The History of Galadriel and Celeborn” (which is curiously much more “unfinished” then the other tales), but this intuition on my part is something you either share or don’t.

The 'nuance' that I take on the Ban, is that the Valar banned her. She was not repentant of her deeds or actions, and her pride and desires demanded she stay.

What exactly the correct nuance should be or would have been is not necessarily important. But I raise the following:
quote:
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“These two kinsfolk [Fëanor and Galadriel], the greatest of the Eldar of Valinor, were unfriends for ever.” * * * She [Galadriel] was proud, strong, and selfwilled [sic], as were all the descendants of Finwë save Finarfin; and like her brother Finrod, of all her kin the nearest to her heart, she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as should without tutelage. Yet deeper still there dwelt in her the noble and generous spirit of the Vanyar, and a reverence for the Valar that she could not forget. From her earliest years she had a marvelous gift of insight into the minds of others, . . .”.
—The Unfinished Tales, IV
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Elsewhere in another “account” she is likewise equated in stature to Fëanor. That other portions of these accounts deviate (sometimes greatly) from published works, does not mean that one can’t rely on the above characterization of Galadriel as amenable to Tolkien’s general conception of her dating back to when he wrote Rings. Factually, there’s no contradiction with The Silmarillion in which she is a key rebellion leader and confidant of none other than Melian. Indeed, she is described above as someone both great and flawed; the comparison to Fëanor may work on several levels.

I don’t understand your argument that she would have been in some way a “young” rebel who is not greatly respected in the eyes of the Valar. She was not physically much younger than any of Indis’ other grandchildren, even if she was the youngest one. Elves despite their long lives seem to have and raise families within relatively short time frames; Elladan/Elrohir precede Arwen by 111 years. But in our terms, Galadriel had probably been alive for the equivalent of at least several millennia at the start of the First Age.

Did I argue that she was not greatly respected? I said that she was young and her being 'high' in the eyes of the Valar while still young come from late writings. Those are observations, not arguments.
Well I will note that in the account you quoted from above Galadriel's youth is mentioned several times. Particularly where you insereted the '* * *' wherein it is noted that though born in the Bliss of Valinor it was not long before that Bliss was dimmed. It is even noted in the essay proper that the a particular liguistic change (which Feanor was upset about, and thought it was a plot on the part of the Valar to cast him aside) took place before her birth, and that the Lament in LotR harkens back to her days of youth in Valinor. Galadriel at the time of the Rebellion was around 1200 years old.

She was probably no less mature than Fingon, Finrod or Turgon, although she was of different gender, of course. But nowhere is there any hint of the näivetë ascribed to Aredhel. And again, she could have been even older than Fëanor was when he made the Silmarils.

Feanor was around 25 or 26 hundred years old, when he began making the Silmarils.
Turgon and Finrod were about 1800 years old.
What naivete of Aredhel? What is interesting about Aredhel is that (who is, by the way, the same age as Galadriel) in Beleriand she went out into dangerous lands, and put herself at risk. Galadriel, as you point out, remained for the most part with Melian. Safe here behind the Girdle. When things started looking bad in Beleriand, she fled out of Beleriand.

I am also surprised by your dismay at my description of her as nearly Sauron’s equal and the greatest of the Children of Ilúvatar. Surely, you recognize the following line from Appendix B of Rings:
quote:
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“Three times Lórien had been assailed by Dol Guldor, but besides the valour of the elven people of that land, the power that dwelt there was too great for any to overcome, unless Sauron had come there himself.”
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And at the close of the Third Age, or anytime during it, who among Elves or Men in Middle-Earth would have been even her equal? Probably only Elrond, Círdan and Celeborn. Perhaps, it’s that gender thing again.

Sauron is neither Elf nor Man. She was not his equal. The quote you supply indicates that had Sauron come, she would have lost. In fact, the only way Galadriel could have been Sauron's equal was with the One Ring, and JRRT indicates even that was not likely:

Letter 246
Of the others only Gandalf might be expected to master him [Sauron] - being an emissary of the Powers and a creature of the same order, an immortal spirit taking a visible physical form. In the 'Mirror of Galadriel', 1381, it appears that Galadriel conceived of herself as capable of wielding the Ring and supplanting the Dark Lord. If so, so also were the other guardians of the Three, especially Elrond. But this is another matter. It was part of the essential deceit of the Ring to fill minds with imaginations of supreme power. But this the Great had well considered and had rejected, as is seen in Elrond's words at the Council.

Man_of_the_Wold wrote:
Moving on, in The Silmarillion it says in the context of Eönwë's answer to the pleas by the two remaining Sons of Fëanor:
quote:
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“The light of the Silmarils should go now into the West, whence it came in the beginning; and to Valinor must Maedhros and Maglor return, and there abide the judgment of the Valar by whose decree alone would Eönwë yield the jewels from his charge.”
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I’m not really concerned about when that was penned by Tolkien; he wasn’t a computer,

I find it very important to recognize 'when'. It shows changing concepts, and further development within the Legendarium.

but I think it points to a consistently given impression of the Valar as forgiving and open-minded at the close of the First Age, and not wrathful and retributive towards the Noldorin exiles. I do not interpret it as saying that these Sons of Fëanor were to be dragged off to Valinor in chains, if they didn’t go willingly. Rather, they were morally obligated to seek judgment, and could not have gotten the last two Silmarils otherwise. Probably these would never have been surrendered, as Maedhros knew. That these two brothers should have such a chance, after committing three (count’em) Kinslayings, and that their followers are allowed back, suggest the Valar were inclined to pardon. Moreover, Finrod and probably others were even released from the Halls of Mandos.

I read the passage "and to Valinor must Maedhros and Maglor return and there abide the judgement of the Valar" as they were ordered to do exactly that. There was no gaurantee of forgiveness. They were however able to refuse. The Valar were not allowed to use force against the Children (though I suppose the other Elves could have done so).

All of this makes it perfectly logical to assume that Galadriel had reasonable opportunity to return, apologize and be forgiven, but was unwilling to give the Valar the satisfaction to have prevented imposition of the "ban." In this, I reiterate, both sides could be at fault. Despite being among the Wise, Galadriel had something to learn. But the Valar seem to hold her leadership role against her, unfairly perhaps in fear of some future unrest in Eldamar again (because she is not insignificant!). Otherwise, it makes little sense in light of her crimes. The Noldor were free to be have been led out of Aman, and Galadriel was certainly not even an accomplice in any of the Kinslayings.

She was a leader in the rebellion. And the acts that took place in the rebellion were wrong. That she may have had no active part in certain actions, but she went along anyways. She did not turn back when she had the chance, wanting a realm of her own to rule, and when the Valar were ready to forgive she said no. She had much to learn.

That through her encounter with Frodo and her constant struggles against Sauron, I felt that she had figuratively “earned” the right to go back with the Ringbearers. You retorted that she “had” to earn it. I would agree that in her own heart and for her own sake she needed to feel deserving and fulfilled enough to return. It was as much of a self-imposed “test” that she passed.

An interesting way to interpret it, but I read the implications and statements in LotR and RGEO differently. The Valar banned her from the West. The Ban was lifted after she overcame her own pride and desires. I feel that she literally earned forgiveness by her struggles aginst the Dark (including that within herself).

Finally, I’ll emphasize again, that I was not sanitizing Galadriel, much less comparing her with the Virgin Mary.

I will also emphasize again, that I did not say you were doing that. I said that was what I felt the late versions did to her character and those are not how I prefer to see her.

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: Tar Elenion ]

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: Tar Elenion ]

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: Tar Elenion ]