Douglas Charles Kane’s “Arda Reconstucted: The Creation of the Published Simarillion” - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Voronwë_the_Faithful · 07-25-2012, 08:31 AM

It would be easy for me to say "yes, that's it" and let that be the end of it, but I'm not sure that I can say that it is that simple. Yes, many of the edits that affect the role of female characters result from Christopher choosing shorter versions. But not all of them. For instance, the two removals of the description of Galadriel as "valiant." Or substituting the Quenta passage in which only Ossë teaches the Teleri sea-lore for the Annals text in which both he and Uinen do so, despite the fact that the Annals is the main source for the that portion of that chapter (Chapter 5). Neither of those edits are a result of choosing a shorter version over a longer one. Nor is using the older story of Melkor being the one that wounds the Two Trees rather than the new story of Ungoliant destroying them on her own while Melkor cravenly stands in the shadows. I don't know why those choices were made, but they can't be so simply explained away.

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07-25-2012, 08:31 AM	#24
Voronwë_the_Faithful Pile O'Bones Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 20	It would be easy for me to say "yes, that's it" and let that be the end of it, but I'm not sure that I can say that it is that simple. Yes, many of the edits that affect the role of female characters result from Christopher choosing shorter versions. But not all of them. For instance, the two removals of the description of Galadriel as "valiant." Or substituting the Quenta passage in which only Ossë teaches the Teleri sea-lore for the Annals text in which both he and Uinen do so, despite the fact that the Annals is the main source for the that portion of that chapter (Chapter 5). Neither of those edits are a result of choosing a shorter version over a longer one. Nor is using the older story of Melkor being the one that wounds the Two Trees rather than the new story of Ungoliant destroying them on her own while Melkor cravenly stands in the shadows. I don't know why those choices were made, but they can't be so simply explained away.