<font face="Verdana"><table><TR><TD><FONT SIZE="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Pile o' Bones
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Re: A project ? - revising the Fall of Gondolin
I don't think the archaic language in the Lost Tales version of the Fall of Gondolin should be altered. Rather, start a new chapter at that point.
A scribe is now introducing into the work a different source, one more archaic, the old classic Fall of Gondolin which cannot be touched.
(Of course I have done a lot of reading of medieval English literature, and perhaps don't feel the contrast in style as much as many readers.)
The mechanical dragons unfortunately are part of the very life of the Fall of Gondolin, one of its points of distinction. Removing them would gut the work. I can see changing them to real dragons in a few cases. But leave the style of the story alone!. There's no point in letting consistancy of style and coherence with the rest of the work reduce such good writing and a unique vision to watered-down blandness. This is the real thing, not to be thrown away because of tension with some summaries, or because some editor cannot appreciate Tolkien's style here. Changes should be minimal.
The multitude of Balrogs isn't hard to manage, though. In most cases they can be replaced by a single Balrog at the point in the tale with no harm to the account.
A major problem is the mention of Legolas, since we are elsewhere told Elves do not reuse names. He actually could be the Legolas of The Lord of the Rings. Not that I believe it. Galdor can be the Galdor of the Havens in The Lord of the Rings with no problems.
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