Findegil wrote:
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The question is now for me: Do we follow Christhopher Tolkiens lead here or do we take JRR Tolkiens text as he left it?
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I don't think there's any question of following Christopher's lead.
If there is a contradiction in JRRT's final text, it must be resolved in favour of the new story - that they came back down and moved along the bottom of the ravine.
As far as I'm concerned the only question is whether JRRT's text is self-contradictory. I can certainly see Christopher's case for the view that the dream of clinging is an inconsistent holdover from the previoius version. Actually I think this is probably the case. However, I don't think that a contradiction is necessarily implied, so I suppose we could keep the dream.
I don't know if I agree with Findegil's synopsis:
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- Túrin and Hunthor cross the Taeglin.
- They climb halfe way up the cliff.
- They decied to stay were they are and cling to the trees of the cliff over night.
- Túrin dreams of clinging to a tree.
- When Glaurung moves in the morning they have to climb down first. This movement is implicit, since
- Túrin 'clambered along the water-edge to come beneath him [Glaurung]')
- Hunthor is slain by a stone, when they come under Glaurung
- Túrin climbs the cliff and slaughters Glaurung
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I think Christopher is right that it makes little sense to cling to the cliff half-way up if they intend to climb down to move to the place where Glaurung crosses - although I suppose they might at this point not have been sure whether they would need to climb down again or not. Anyway, if we go with JRRT's final text, we need not address the issue of
when they climb down - whether they spend the night clinging to the cliff or at the bottom of the ravine.