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Old 07-19-2024, 03:27 AM   #73
Findegil
King's Writer
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
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If our text is any kind of reference Tolkien was inconsitance in the capitalization of 'doom'. I have to say that I did not check the originals. Right now I don't have the books near me and the scans are no good reference.
But your examples do more help my argument than yours:
- Ring of Doom: That is a place name. So capitalization is quiet normal in such cases in Tolkiens texts.
- Doom of Mandos, Doom of the Noldor and many of the later e.g.'s: This Doom is felt at least by the Exiled to be very final (even so it did not prove so by the end). To emphazise that Tolkien used capitalization often (but not always as it seems).
- doom of Manwë: the only time we used that in our text is when Manwë after the War of the Powers send Melkor into prison. Which is exactly the event that most naturlay would be interpretetd as refered to by the passage under discussion. And so fare we have it in our text not capitalized (again, I did not check the original text in the books, so this might be a mistake).
- "neither law, nor love, nor league of swords, dread nor danger, not Doom itself": This refers to Doom in general, making it uncomparalbe for our use case.

All the rest either refer to the Doom of Mandos/the Noldor or to Doom in general. Thus what we are left with is: Doom as a general concept is capitalized and the Doom of the Noldor is capatilized. Dooms as refference to some rulings of Manwë are not capitalized. And in this particular case the ruling of Manwë had in itself a temporary charchter: After three ages Melkor's cause should be tried again.

But I am not adamant on this. If you feel, Doom should stay as it is, so be it.

Respectfully
Findegil
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