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Old 03-04-2013, 11:12 AM   #111
Findegil
King's Writer
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 1,694
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Notation issue: Gondowe, I am sorry but it seems that Aiwendil and I were not entirely clear in our postings at the notation thread. I only remarked that it would have been more reader friendly to have underlining as deleted text. But Aiwendil and I agreed totally that it would cause to much confusion with all the text already given in the standard notification with {...} as deleted and ... as added for grammatical or metrical reason to change these standard notation, now. So pleas stick to the old system!

FG-T-24: As your text stands Gondowe, Tuor asked Turgon to leave together the city with all Gondolindrim and remove to the sea, but Turgon answered that he would not send messengers again to Valinor. For me that does not sound right.

Coming back to Aiwendils 4 questions, which I will number for reference sack a) to d):

a)
Quote:
Should GA be interpreted as a rejection of the more bellicose counsel of Ulmo?
The text of GA in its last version reads:
Quote:
And at the last by the power that Ulmo set upon them they came to the guarded gate of Gondolin. There Tuor was brought before the king, and spoke the counsel of Ulmo, bidding Turgon depart and abandon the fair and mighty city that he had built, and go down to the Sea. But Turgon would not listen to this counsel; and [Meglin later >] Glindur his sister-son spoke against Tuor. But Tuor was held in honour in Gondolin, for his kindred's sake.
This is very compressed. To extract from this a rejection seem very difficult for me.

b)
Quote:
Can ToY be interpreted in any way other than as a confirmation that Ulmo's counsel of war was still present?
The text referred to is the entry for year 511 emended to year 509 in Text ‘C’. It reads:
Quote:
The Second Kinslaying. The Sons of Feanor assail[ed] Dior, and he was slain; slain also were Celegorm and Curufin and Cranthir. Eldun and Elrun sons of Dior were left in the woods to starve. Elwing escaped and came with the Silmaril to the Mouths of Sirion. Ulmo sends a last warning to Gondolin, which now alone is left; but Turgon will have no alliance with any after the kinslaying of Doriath. Maeglin Eol's son, sister-son of Turgon, was taken in the hills, and betrayed Gondolin to Morgoth.
in the previous text ‘B’ only the last warning of Ulmo was spoken of. But in the following text ‘D2’ this element is missing completely. The Second Kinslaying is moved to Yule of 506-507, but no reaction of Turgon to this event is given. The capture Maeglin is moved to 509.
Christopher Tolkien does compare this with Q30 were after Turgon is bidden to make war on Morgoth it is said of Turogn after hearing of the Second Kinslaying that ‘he shut his ear to word of the woes without; and he vowed to march never at the side of any son of Feanor.’
Again these accounts are very much compressed. That in one of them the ‘alliance with the Feanorians’ is mentioned at all is in my view much more telling then it missing in all others. But this is no straight forward answer to Aiwendils question. I have to confess that the straight forward answer is: Yes, it could be that Turgon does only think of future events in the liking of the Union of Maedhros. But taken together with the story in Q30 where the reference is clearly to the war that Ulmo urged Turgon to wage, this seems more then unlikely.

C:
Quote:
Is it possible to make our text ambiguous, so that it neither includes the counsel of war nor contradicts it?
In principal yes, but it could be that the result is very awkward. I think we would have to shorten the message to some blank statement that Tuor delivered it and Turgons answer to a blank refusal without giving much reason (since that would hint at the message itself). As the text was before we restarted the discussion the bidding to war was not included. The impression was that this would be an exclusion, even so one could make the argument that not every word was reported and therefore the bidding of Ulmo to march forth could have been still part of the unreported message. But this is very constructed.

D):
Quote:
Would we be justified in going against the earlier decision, made by the larger group that was active at that time?
This question does need a kind of general answer. It will come again and again as long as the group working on the project does change. And I hope it will change, since now that can only mean to have more participants. Whenever new members came in we urged them re-open any discussion were they thought their own interpretation of the text were not represented in the discussion. Why should we discussion a point anew, if we were unwilling to change a decision? So let us set some rules for such cases:
- There is no restriction for farther discussions. That means anybody can and should reopen a discussion if she/he feels that a valid point was not accurately covered in the previous discussions.
- A former decision found by silent agreement of the former members of the working staff, can be changed by a spoken unanimous consensus or voting of the active members.
- A former decision made by voting of the former members, might be changed, if a new counting of old and new votes would change the decision, or if the staff has changed drastically and new and convincing arguments have come up, by a calculation system in which the votes of all the active members together have the same weight as the votes of all now inactive members.
- A former decision taken by a spoken unanimous consensus of the former members can only be changed if:
a) New and convincing arguments have come up, that were not heard of in the former discussion
AND
b) the group of active members finds a new spoken unanimous consensus.
A corollary to these rules is that the group should try to get as many active members in such re-decisions as possible. Meaning that semi-active members should get a special invitation to speak up on such points

Respectfully
Findegil
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