[Aiwendil]

Findegil wrote:

My appologies if I by posting my storyline posts,I robbed you of the last free minutes of the day.

Not at all. As it turned out I had plenty of time for these comments.

FD-SL-05: I'm still not altogether convinced that the evidence against the outlaws being killed on the road as in Q30 is all that compelling. But for the moment at least I think I agree with you that they should survive and reach Menegroth.

FD-SL-06: Sorry that I missed that bridge in UT! Still, I don't like inventing the fact that they entered there. I would prefer to be ambiguous rather than to invent details. And Findegil is right about the problem with Nivrim.

FD-SL-11: What I meant was that I don't see any reason to alter or elaborate on the story in Q30 by re-introducing Ufedhin or someone in that role.

FD-SL-12, FD-SL-13: Maedhros wrote:

I would definitely in the whole Ruin of Doriath would introduce as most Lost Tales material as possible within our rules, considering that the Q30 account is very general.

And Findegil:

Talking about storyline I am willing to accept that, but when it come to the actual text I can not imaging how we can go with a Q30-like version of Fod between a full told Narn plus WH and a full told FoG.

This is an old issue, of course. I've said before that, no matter what we do, there will be huge stylistic discrepancies in the later parts of our Silmarillion. There certainly is one between FoG and Earendil. There is also bound to be one between "The Wanderings of Hurin" and the remainder of RoD, even if we were to use as much of TN as possible.

Now I don't object to using the Lost Tales as a source for a more full narrative - we did that in FoG. But now it looks like in many places we have to weigh that full narrative against canonical safety. In places where the TN narrative is quite reliable, and agrees very closely with Q30, we can safely use it. But whenever there is doubt as to how precisely to implement the TN material, we ought to be able to fall back on Q30 itself.

I am wary because a lot of times so far in the discussion the inclusion or exclusion of plot points from TN seems to come down to "I would like to use this story" or "if we use this, we can justify it" rather than "this story is clearly still valid".

FD-SL-20: I expressed myself poorly in my last post. Findegil is right that, being that it appears in Q30, the treachery of the Elves idea is hard to just ignore. But in my reading, this alone is sufficient to account for the Dwarves' access to Doriath; and the famous note "Doriath cannot be invaded by a hostile army . . ." should be taken as contradicting that story and sketching out a new one. Also, the treachery of Elves in Doriath seems somewhat out of place in the later - i.e. post-LotR - Silmarillion.

The very fact that Tolkien considered having him "induced to go to war beyond his borders" might suggest that the hunt was abandoned. I can perhaps see the inclusion of the hunt though. The main point is that I would try to avoid inventing any details concerning how Thingol was lured outside Doriath, preferring a bald statement of that fact.

FD-SL-23: Maedhros wrote:

Findegil is correct in this. But there is another factor to consider. Melian is a wise and great queen. I just can't see her that if she had the ability to keep the Girdle in place after Thingol's death, she would choose not to do it and leave and Valinor at once. I know that she would be in shock at the death of Thingol but not as to leave all of Menegroth vulnerable to such a devastating attack. I would rather follow CT as he did in the QS77 riskier as it might be.

But I don't see how the note can be interpreted other than as saying that Melian's departure allowed the Dwarves to enter. I don't see why Melian's power should disappear after Thingol's death. But I don't think that it's absolutely necessary that we choose between the two alternatives. There's no need for our text to specify whether the Girdle is gone and therefore Melian departs or Melian departs and therefore the Girdle is gone. And in any case, why should she not go and bring the message to Beren and Luthien?