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Finally, Galin, your are getting down to the discussions in Arda Reconstructed itself moving away from what I perceive as innuendo against the messenger which surely misses that point. If the messenger has presented the data mostly correctly, then the fact that occasionally he or she has stumbled occasionally becomes no more than a minor flaw such as the greatest of us are liable to make. If the messenger has grossly misrepresented the data then blaming the messenger in himself or herself is unnecessary. It is the misrepresentation that will put the blame on the messenger over any heated words.
No statement made by myself can every fully represent my ideas (imperfect as they must be) on the composing of the published Silmarillion. Again and again one thinks one has found some principle that guided Christopher Tolkien, and then one comes across a passage which goes against the proposed principle.
But certainly that Christopher Tolkien so often did not select from the fullest account means that along with often matters dropped, obviously matters pertaining to females were dropped, sometimes only a word or phrase. But I do not mean anything I might put forth to be taken as something that must have guided Christopher Tolkien and Guy Kay at all times throughout their work. But yes, loss of female-oriented material as part of general shrinkage is in itself sufficient to explain why the loss appears to be systematic, though it does not explain every case.
Why, for example, did Christopher Tolkien remove Findis, Finvain, and Faniel, the three daughters of Finwë by Indis? Possibly because they only appear in a single footnote and can easily be seen as simply more clutter in a work arguably already overstuffed with minor characters.
And would The Silmarillion have included most of the dropped material on females if at the time when Christopher Tolkien was working on it some criticism had appeared blaming J. R. R. Tolkien for sexism in his work? Most notably, The Hobbit contains only one named female,[FONT=Arial, sans-serif] Bilbo[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]ʼs mother Belladonna Took, who was deceased by the time the story takes place.
That some others are bothered by Kane[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]ʼs supposed insinuations about Christopher Tolkien[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]ʼs[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, sans-serif] s[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]upposed misogyny. doesn[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]ʼt impress me at all, having read the discussion. That is only a weak form of the appeal to authority fallacy,: some people were discussing something and some of them agreed with me, so there must be something to their position.
Nor is there any one method of identifying major or minor characters in The Silmarillion. It depend where one draws tjhe line and diffferent people will draws in in different places if they try to definitely distinguish between major and minor?
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