[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Galin

I don't agree I have put forth inferences as facts.

I disagree.

That is an incorrect characterization of my position Jallanite.

Then you might try stating your position clearly.

I've already posted my opinion about Doug's presentation, and I largely agree with Carl Hostetter's points with respect to the 'evidence' in Arda Reconstructed.

I largely don't agree with Carl Hostetter’s points at all. Anyone can read them at http://www.thehalloffire.net/forum/v...t=2184&start=0 .

Hostetter says to start with:

… your unsupported and scurrilous implication (and only just barely that, as opposed to an explicit charge) that in his editorial changes Christopher deliberately set about to "reduce" female characters in The Silmarillion.

By using the word implication Hostetter admits up front that his opinions are based entirely on inference and not based on anything that Kane has said. In short, Hostetter is making it up, though he probably doesn’t altogether know it. Hostetter dmits that he does not find anywhere his inference as an “explicit charge''. Would it be wrong to refer to Hostetter’s unsupported and scurrilous inference?

Hostetter later remarks:

I'm astonished that you didn't realize this, and even more that none of your reviewers or editors pointed this out to you.

Why should Kane or his editors realize Hostetter’s inferences? I am astonished myself that anyone would take Hostetter’s rant seriously. Because that is what I see. A vicious rant without foundations decorated with inflammatory language. No substance at all. Most of the remarks by others in the forum don’t indicate that Hostetter was successfully making his point.

Hostetter later states:

If Christopher Tolkien really were given to deliberately reducing the roles of female characters, just because they are female (as Doug seems really to believe), then why would he stop with The Silmarillion? Why not in other works? Indeed, why not in HoMe itself? It simply makes no sense.

Kane is supposed to believe something which Hostettter himself admits does not make any sense in Hostetter’s mind. The word seems is a giveaway that Hostetter’s argument is subjective. The reason why I and others didn’t twig to what Hostetter claims to see in the book is that the ideas were simply too absurd to arise.

Hostetter raises an idea which he admits “makes no sense” and then insists on interpreting two(?) sentences in the book as though Kane believed that senseless idea. I and, I presume, the reviewers, did not make such a silly assumption. We read the book as the author intended, without prompting.

Hostetter continues:

But when you write that "it appears that the roles of female characters are systematically reduced", you are making a far different kind of statement, and one that I cannot read as anything but an implication of deliberate reduction of female roles simply because they are female (which sure sounds like misogyny to me). Now, you may not have intended this implication (i.e., the use of the word "systematic" here may only have been an unfortunate and unconsidered choice); but in the event this statement as written does make that implication (nor is this statement the sole source of that implication).

More indications that Hostetter is only talking about what he has inferred, not about what Kane says. And if we are going down to the level of individual words, then it was dishonest of Hostetter not to note the word appears, which is often used to indicate that what follows is an appearance only. This statement is at worst only ambiguous. That Hostetter reads it as in implication of an idea that he finds absurd is a choice that Hostetter has made.

Hostetter admits:

I didn't address the nature of the edits themselves, and deliberately so, since I need to sit down with the books and study the specifics of a change for myself before I can offer a (possible) explanation for them, and I haven't had time to do that.

That speaks for itself. Hostetter appears to have only skimmed the book and been enraged because of a single inference Hostetter made from very few (two?) remarks without looking at them in context and without considering that Kane was probably unlikely to have meant to imply something which was obviously absurd. Hostetter thinks it absurd. I think it absurd.

Hostetter then admits:

Doug, I do accept your claim that you did not mean to imply deliberateness. But I nonetheless maintain that what you wrote in your book does in fact imply deliberateness, and very strongly, even though that was not your intent.

One cannot usually cannot prove implication, or it would not be implication but a definite statement. One might take a poll among people who have recently read Introduction to Arda and see what they each felt. If a majority of those polled felt as Hostetter did, then he has a strong point, that two(?) statements in the entire books have been shown objectively to be too strong and ought to have been further modified or explained.

Possibly even if only a few people have so understood the statements so that would also apply.

Going on and on and on about what was at worse a single error of judgment only makes the person going on and on and on about it look bad. Badger, badger, badger, badger, badger.... There are few books of supposed fact outside of books containing mathematical or logical proofs that are intended to reach the level of absolute perfection you call for. You appear to demand that no book should contain any statement from which you might infer something which the author did not intend.

How dare J. R. R. Tolkien allow readers to infer that a Balrog has wings?

The discussion you posted hardly supports Hostetter’s complaint. I see him as the clear loser.

Which answer in no way means one cannot arrive at an opinion about who is, or who is not, a minor character.

In theory yes. But I know of no writing or literary study which attempts to arrive at such an opinion even from people who use the terms.

One could assign a number to each character in a book based on number of mentions, including references of personal pronouns and aliases, and say that the numerically higher half of the list are major characters and the numerically lower half of the list are minor characters. But should the dividing point be at the halfway point of the numbers, or the median value, or something else? And what of characters like the gatekeeper in Macbeth who is a minor character but one of the most memorable characters in the play for most viewers. Should not being memorable also count, though it this case I doubt that it makes the gatekeeper a major character.

Its a silly idea in any case.

innuendo: 'an indirect intimation about a person or thing, especially of a disparaging or a derogatory nature.'

There was no negative intent behind my statement Jallanite, in any case.

You have continually made negative remarks about Kane’s book, specifically about what you and Hostetter think some remarks in the book imply, despite Kane’s statements and Hostetter’s admission that he accepts that what Hostetter inferred was not what Kane intended.

Innuendo.

I did not infer the same meaning as you, nor did apparently Kane’s editors nor did the reviews that I have seen. If you accept Kane’s statements that the meaning you infer was not intended and accept that many readers did not and do not see the meaning you infer, than you really ought to accept that Hostetter was perhaps just pressing a point for far more than it was meant, as are you.