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Old 08-29-2017, 12:47 PM   #2
ArcusCalion
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Silmaril Thoughts

This draft was amazing, and I love the inclusion of the BoLT material! I always wished we got more of a description of Valinor, and when I read the Lost Tales I was thrilled, so its nice to see them back.

VT-EX-03: in this paragraph there is (perhaps) a minor contradiction. In this paragraph we have the phrase:
Quote:
By reason of their great masonry {is}[was] {Erumani}[Avathar] {now}[then] very broad and bare and of a marvelous level,..
In Of the Darkening of Valinor we learn that:
Quote:
Thus unseen he came at last to the region that once was called Avathar, [footnote to the text: The Shadows (in ancient Quenya).] beneath the eastern feet of the Pelóri; a narrow land it had become, eaten away by the Sea, and was long forsaken.
This "had become" implies it was once not narrow, but I thought I would point it out to see if there was anything worth changing. It very well might be perfectly fine.

VE-EX-05: In the paragraph after this it describes Ilmarin and its great, but I have a linguistic note.
Quote:
That house was builded of marbles white and blue and stood amid the fields of snow, and its roofs were made of a web of that blue air called ilwë that is above the white and grey.
The word Ilwe is tied to older Qenya, and the element ilw- was changed to ilm- (cf. Ilwarin-Ilmarin, Ilwen-Ilmen) so this should be ilmë.

VE-EX-11.2: This is not related to the times of the creatin of the trees, but I was not sure how else to label it. In the paragrph describing the house of Tulkas, it describes the lawns of Nessa thus:
Quote:
But most she loved to retire unto a place of fair lawns whose turn Oromë her brother had culled from the richest of all his forest glades, and {Palurien}[Kementári] had planted it with spells that it was always green and smooth.
Earlier it says Lorien used poppies in his enchantments, but that I think is fine, but the word "spells" gives me pause. If you think it is fine, then I agree, I just figured I would point it out.

VE-EX-11.3: The very next paragraph is thus:
Quote:
In {Valmar}[Valimar] too dwelt Noldorin known long ago as Salmar, playing now upon his harps and lyres, now sitting{ beneath Laurelin} and raising sweet music with an instrument of the bow.{ There sang Amillo joyously to his playing, Amillo who is named Omar, whose voice is the best of all voices, who knoweth all songs in all speeches; but whiles if he sang not to his brother's harp then would he be trilling in the gardens of Oromë when after a time Nieliqui, little maiden, danced about its woods.}
If we are keeping Salmar, then why remove Omar? in the Coming of the Elves chapter you included him in the description of the Valar arming for battle and argued that he be kept, so why remove him here?

VE-EX-14.5: The paragraph describing Fui wife of Mandos cannot, in my opinion, be used to apply to Vaire or Nienna, as neither of them is strictly a death goddess anymore.
Quote:
To Vê {Fui}[Vaire] came not much, for she labored rather at the distilling of salt humors whereof are tears, and black clouds she wove and floated up that they were caught in the winds and went about the world, and their lightless webs settled ever and anon upon those that dwelt therein. Now these tissues were despairs and hopeless mourning, sorrows and blind grief. The hall that she loved best was one yet wider and more dark than Vê, and she too named it {with her own name}, calling it Fui. Therein before her black chair burnt a brazier with a single flickering coal, and the roof was of bats' wings, and the pillars that upheld it and the walls about were made of basalt. [i]Thither came the sons of Men to hear their doom, and thither are they brought by all the multitude of ills that Melkor’s evil music set within the world. Slaughters and fires, hungers and mishaps, diseases and blows dealt in the dark, cruelty and bitter cold and anguish and their own folly bring them here; and {Fui}[Niënna] reads their hearts.[i]
The italicized parts are problematic. The first, bc Vaire is not the Vala associated with tears,which is Nienna, and also bc even Nienna is not associated with despair, but rather with pity, courage, and hope; The second, bc nowhere else is it said that Men are judged by Vaire, and in fact, says they are judged by Mandos. These passages about the afterlife are very tied to a brief phase of his conception of the afterlife that was very quickly discarded. Maybe the passage about Men could be appended to the Mandos paragraph?

VT-EX-15: the sentence: "That city they named Valimar the Blessed." is redundant, since its naming and making was described earlier.

VT-EX-29: The transition between Lorien's naming and the others feels jarring to me. I know you and I can clash often about stylistic changes, but I figure I'll propose mine and see what you think.
Quote:
VT-EX-29<LT But Lóriën said: ‘Lo! I will give {this}[the other] tree a name and call it Silpion’, and that has ever been [one of] its name[s] since.>
§16 Telperion the one was [also] called in Valinor, {and Silpion}, and Ninquelótë, and many names in song beside;
VT-EX-36: in §35 there is the sentence:
Quote:
And the Noldor it was who achieved the invention of gems, which were not in the world before them coming; and the fairest of all gems were the Silmarils, and they are lost.
I would delete the italicized phrase, since in the DoV chapter, it says how Feanor made gems better than the ones of earth, implying that they existed already. Since it is a later source, it should take precedence.

That was all I saw. It was great!
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