Quote:
Originally Posted by Findegil
But nonetheless you should moderate your tone as long as you does not have your own facts straight: the later Hour, Tuor's father has a different name in the Lost Tales: Peleg.
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Indeed, my list of names that are the same in
The Book of Lost Tales and
The Silmarillion was wrong in three places, because I simply put down forms that I remembered as being the same in both, and did not actually check, which is just asking for trouble.
I think my addition of
Huor instead of
Peleg was a stupid slip when I should have posted
Túrin (and also possibly have posted other names from the chapter “Turambar and the Foalóke”, namely
Brodda and
Mîm, though I was not intending to list
every name that was the same in the
Book of Lost Tales and the published
Silmarillion). But I don’t really
know how
Huor wrongly slipped in. I fully admit this as an inexcusable error.
Another error was my listing of
Barahir in the list where Christopher Tolkien quite clearly states that
Barahir only appears as a change in a late retelling of the “The Tale of Tinúviel”. In the main account Beren’s father is named
Egnor.
Also, the form
Tinwë Linto which I gave for
Thingol is a rare variant. The most common name for the character in the
Book of Lost Tales is
Tinwelint.
Quote:
Sorry, I couldn't resist to point that out, even so I think the discussion is worthless. The point should be taken on both sides: The names bear some potential for confusion, but it is less the changes made compared to later versions than the pure number of them.
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Here I
very much disagree. Tar-Jêx originally posted: “… the name are all different, very few the same.” The names are not
all different from those in the published
Silmarillion. Most of them are
the same or at least very close to the versions which appear in the published
Silmarillion, unless Tar-Jêx is possibly including forms that appear only very seldom in the
Book of Lost Tales and were soon changed by Tolkien to more familiar forms within the
Book of Lost Tales.
I do not take Tar-Jêx’s point, because I do not see the point. Tar-Jêx excused himself by claiming that he “… was more talking about places and things, not characters.” But he does not explain by indicating what persons and places in the
Book of Lost Tales so confused him, instead pointing out two supposed personal name changes and he gets that wrong also.
My own suspicion is that Tar-Jêx does not now clearly recall what turned him off the
Book of Lost Tales, only vaguely that some of the changes in the nomenclature were involved. But this has led him to statements that are quite untrue concerning the extent of the name changes.
The name changes he claims are mostly either non-existent, or very minor. They are at least no more than one might expect in a work published as an early version of Tolkien’s
Silmarillion. One surely ought to expect some differences in plot and names from the published
Silmarillion.
To complain that differences between the
Book of Lost Tales and the
Silmarillion are confusing to the point that the reader finds the works unreadable suggests to me that that reader must be
very easily confused.
I fully admit Tar-Jêx’s right not to like the
Book of Lost Tales but the reasons he presents for doing to do not make sense to me.