Does the Silmarillion Contradict Third age History? How Powerful Were Those First age

[Eldy]

Originally Posted by R.R.J Tolkien

Nice to see you on this forum as well my wise friend. I am not one to question you so it seems I must accept maiar was not fully developed yet. However the strength of the balrogs and at least some of the history of them seemed clearly finished in the letters of tolkien at this point. He had even previously tried to publish what he saw as a consistent [few touch ups] sillmarillion with the LOTR. I would also say while he may have never totally finished the sillmarillion due to lack of energy in old age, he thought it close to finished and tells of its history many times in its letters that matches the published sillmarillion we have today.

While I wouldn't advise anyone to accept everything I say without question, I appreciate your vote of confidence and especially your kind words about my essays; thank you.

The 1977 Silmarillion is not a great guide as to what Tolkien's latest intentions for the First Age were (though his intentions would undoubtedly have continued to evolve had he lived longer). Tolkien contemplated a lot of major revisions late in his life and the Later Silmarillion (HoMe X-XI) has a lot of examples of points on which Tolkien never made up his mind. I do think there is solid evidence in some cases (such as the excision of Elfwine) that Tolkien more or less definitively decided the change should be made, but he did not engage in large-scale rewriting of established texts towards the end of his life. As a result, much of the Silm is based on Tolkien's mid-ish 1950s (pre-Myths Transformed) conception of the legendarium, although some passages are based on much earlier texts that Christopher mixed later ideas into to achieve at least partial consistency. It is natural, then, that there is a good deal of compatibility between the 1977 Silm and letters that Tolkien wrote in the mid-1950s such as Letter 144 (as you point out). But Tolkien explored a lot of different ideas (some radically so) later on.

Christopher Tolkien did not entirely ignore his father's later ideas; he removed the Second Prophecy of Mandos and the Elfwine framing device, although in the latter case he did not replace it with a different framing device (something he discussed the downsides of in the Foreword to The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1), but in general he did not implement radical changes to the mythology. I don't want this post to come off as an attack on Christopher because I think he did a remarkable job when faced with an unenviable situation, but I do not think that the 1977 Silm was intended to be treated as definitive or that doing so helps us gain a better understanding of Tolkien's First Age works. I'm perfectly happy to use the 1977 Silm as a baseline for discussion and speculation, but I have no compunctions about putting other material above it. This is to some extent a subjective process (Galin has referred to it as assembling one's own "personal Silmarillion", which is a phrase I like), so as far as Lore discussions go, I think it's more worthwhile to pay attention to the full scope of the evolving legendarium. (I've already said my piece about the idea of canon and why I don't think it's useful in one of my essays and in the TORn thread you linked to above, so I won't bore you with it again. )

I'm not sure how much sense any of this makes because I am really behind on sleep and a bit mentally frazzled from grad school plus a large personal project, but this is sorta where I'm coming from. I know a lot of people don't find this level of uncertainty to be satisfying but it actually makes the Silmarillion more like Primary World mythologies which I think is neat. And the Bilbo/Red Book transmission allows for a lot of Silmarillion material from various eras to potentially be retained as in-universe texts (by analogy with the First Edition of The Hobbit, which was replaced on bookshelves but not excised from its place in the internal source tradition of the Red Book), which I think was part of Tolkien's intention towards the end of his life. That's a subject for another (more awake) post, though. But it doesn't necessarily make them "definitive".

There is of course a ton of room for disagreement and debate on the subject of what Tolkien might have done. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm pretty sure that I'm in the minority with my view of Elfwine vs Bilbo, though it's something that I personally think is relatively straightforward as far as Later Silmarillion issues go.

[R.R.J Tolkien]

Originally Posted by Eldorion

While I wouldn't advise anyone to accept everything I say without question, I appreciate your vote of confidence and especially your kind words about my essays; thank you.

The 1977 Silmarillion is not a great guide as to what Tolkien's latest intentions for the First Age were (though his intentions would undoubtedly have continued to evolve had he lived longer). Tolkien contemplated a lot of major revisions late in his life and the Later Silmarillion (HoMe X-XI) has a lot of examples of points on which Tolkien never made up his mind. I do think there is solid evidence in some cases (such as the excision of Elfwine) that Tolkien more or less definitively decided the change should be made, but he did not engage in large-scale rewriting of established texts towards the end of his life. As a result, much of the Silm is based on Tolkien's mid-ish 1950s (pre-Myths Transformed) conception of the legendarium, although some passages are based on much earlier texts that Christopher mixed later ideas into to achieve at least partial consistency. It is natural, then, that there is a good deal of compatibility between the 1977 Silm and letters that Tolkien wrote in the mid-1950s such as Letter 144 (as you point out). But Tolkien explored a lot of different ideas (some radically so) later on.

I need those volumes before i could give a good evaluation. But it just seems to me in the case of DB, that Tolkien at the time [1950's] and post publishing of the fellowship of the rings, saw no inconsistencies and wanted than to publish the sillmarillion that he seemed over and over to refer to as a finished history of the first ages [in his letters]. He very well may have drastically wanted to chang things later but i need those volumes first. With my limited knowledge it seems the 1977 sil likely took the best option, or very close to it. Tolkien must have had in mind the 1950's version of the sil when he wrote LOTR because it

“The Lord of the Rings was not not so much a sequel to the hobbit as a sequel to the silmarillion, every aspect of the earlier work was playing a part into the new story.”
-J.R.R Tolkien The Authorized Biography Humphrey carpenter Houghton Mifflin company NY 2000

“It [LOTR] is not really a sequel to the hobbit, but to the sillmarillion”
-J.R.R Tolkien letters 124

Originally Posted by Eldorion

Christopher Tolkien did not entirely ignore his father's later ideas; he removed the Second Prophecy of Mandos and the Elfwine framing device, although in the latter case he did not replace it with a different framing device (something he discussed the downsides of in the Foreword to The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1), but in general he did not implement radical changes to the mythology. I don't want this post to come off as an attack on Christopher because I think he did a remarkable job when faced with an unenviable situation, but I do not think that the 1977 Silm was intended to be treated as definitive or that doing so helps us gain a better understanding of Tolkien's First Age works. I'm perfectly happy to use the 1977 Silm as a baseline for discussion and speculation, but I have no compunctions about putting other material above it. This is to some extent a subjective process (Galin has referred to it as assembling one's own "personal Silmarillion", which is a phrase I like), so as far as Lore discussions go, I think it's more worthwhile to pay attention to the full scope of the evolving legendarium. (I've already said my piece about the idea of canon and why I don't think it's useful in one of my essays and in the TORn thread you linked to above, so I won't bore you with it again. )

Just to be clear I have no position yet especially before I have not read the HoMe X-XI. I very well may end up agreeing with you as I often did with your essays. However to even engage in such a discussion as my op, there must be a set standard and only the published sillmarillion can fulfilling that even if imperfectly. As you said otherwise its "one's own personal Silmarillion" and it would vary. Even if that is the correct mode.

Originally Posted by Eldorion

I'm not sure how much sense any of this makes because I am really behind on sleep and a bit mentally frazzled from grad school plus a large personal project, but this is sorta where I'm coming from. I know a lot of people don't find this level of uncertainty to be satisfying but it actually makes the Silmarillion more like Primary World mythologies which I think is neat. And the Bilbo/Red Book transmission allows for a lot of Silmarillion material from various eras to potentially be retained as in-universe texts (by analogy with the First Edition of The Hobbit, which was replaced on bookshelves but not excised from its place in the internal source tradition of the Red Book), which I think was part of Tolkien's intention towards the end of his life. That's a subject for another (more awake) post, though. But it doesn't necessarily make them "definitive".

There is of course a ton of room for disagreement and debate on the subject of what Tolkien might have done. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm pretty sure that I'm in the minority with my view of Elfwine vs Bilbo, though it's something that I personally think is relatively straightforward as far as Later Silmarillion issues go.

Thanks as always for your posts.

[R.R.J Tolkien]

“The Lord of the Rings was not not so much a sequel to the hobbit as a sequel to the silmarillion, every aspect of the earlier work was playing a part into the new story.”
-J.R.R Tolkien The Authorized Biography Humphrey carpenter Houghton Mifflin company NY 2000

“It [LOTR] is not really a sequel to the hobbit, but to the sillmarillion”
-J.R.R Tolkien letters 124


I posted this above in a reply but I wanted all to see it because i think it supports what I have said on DB. In the letters of Tolkien he wrote the LOTR more as a squeal to his personal favorite the sillmarillion [rather than the hobbit] and after LOTR was published saw his 1950's sillmarillion as constant with LoTR and tried to get it published. This seems to me to support the 1977 sillmarillion and the take on DB and balrogs i have offered. Comments?

[Eldy]

Originally Posted by R.R.J Tolkien

I need those volumes before i could give a good evaluation. But it just seems to me in the case of DB, that Tolkien at the time [1950's] and post publishing of the fellowship of the rings, saw no inconsistencies and wanted than to publish the sillmarillion that he seemed over and over to refer to as a finished history of the first ages [in his letters]. He very well may have drastically wanted to chang things later but i need those volumes first. With my limited knowledge it seems the 1977 sil likely took the best option, or very close to it. Tolkien must have had in mind the 1950's version of the sil when he wrote LOTR because it

“The Lord of the Rings was not not so much a sequel to the hobbit as a sequel to the silmarillion, every aspect of the earlier work was playing a part into the new story.”
-J.R.R Tolkien The Authorized Biography Humphrey carpenter Houghton Mifflin company NY 2000

“It [LOTR] is not really a sequel to the hobbit, but to the sillmarillion”
-J.R.R Tolkien letters 124

The Silmarillion wasn't finished in the early 1950s, despite Tolkien's attempts to find a publisher interested in. It wasn't finished at the time of his death either, of course, but in the intervening years much of the work he did was influenced by a desire to make the Silm consistent with LOTR. Within a few years of the first edition of LOTR being published Tolkien considered large portions of the Silm, mostly early mythological material, to be inconsistent with the more novelistic and (for lack of a better term) realistic material from the Third Age. The legend of the sun and the moon was of particular concern during the Myths Transformed period as Tolkien thought the Elves must have had an advanced enough knowledge of the physical world and laws of nature to know that the sun couldn't "really" be a magical fruit, that vast forests could not grow in a world illuminated only by starlight, that the world was never flat, etc. This led him to the idea that much of the Silmarillion material (the Great Tales, at the very least) were not true historical accounts written by Elves but human myths preserved by the Númenóreans that mixed the "actual" events with their own traditional folkloric beliefs.

It's an open question how radically different a hypothetical published Silm would have been if Tolkien had lived longer (or whether he'd have finished it even with an extra 10-15 years of life). A lot of people dislike the the Númenórean transmission and choose to ignore it. Certainly, if one is reading early and middle period texts by Tolkien, those must be understood in the context in which they were written, which did not include the more scientifically realistic setting conceived later. And if one wants to approach the 1977 Silmarillion as its own distinct work (as does, for example, Dennis Wilson Wise in "Book of the Lost Narrator" in volume 13 of Tolkien Studies), those ideas obviously aren't present there either. But if one wishes to take a holistic view of the First Age, then Tolkien's ideas from the last 15 years of his life can't be disregarded. I tend to think that Tolkien was right that they improve the Silm's consistency with LOTR (the mythological version of the sun and the moon always seemed out of place to me in the world of LOTR, even before reading HoMe) but there are of course plenty of people who disagree.

Fake edit: also, the early 1950s version of the Silm wasn't the one Tolkien had in mind when writing LOTR, since it didn't exist yet. The latest extant version of the Silm during the period when Tolkien wrote the main body of LOTR (1937-1949) was the version found in HoMe V that Huinesoron mentioned above.

Originally Posted by R.R.J Tolkien

Just to be clear I have no position yet especially before I have not read the HoMe X-XI. I very well may end up agreeing with you as I often did with your essays. However to even engage in such a discussion as my op, there must be a set standard and only the published sillmarillion can fulfilling that even if imperfectly. As you said otherwise its "one's own personal Silmarillion" and it would vary. Even if that is the correct mode.

My view is that meaningful discussions of Tolkien's works are not only possible if we take into account the lack of a set standard, but that doing so makes it easier to understand the works in relation to each other. Because Tolkien did not finish the Silm a consistent vision of the First Age can only be achieved by readers, and even if it's a group of people creating a collective Silmarillion, that's not really more authoritative than a plethora of personal Silmarillions, IMO. And the 1977 Silm was not intended to be a standard like this. As Christopher Tolkien stated in the foreword:

A complete consistency (either within the compass of The Silmarillion itself or between The Silmarillion and other published writings of my father's) is not to be looked for, and could only be achieved, if at all, at heavy and needless cost. Moreover, my father came to conceive The Silmarillion as a compilation, a compendious narrative, made long afterwards from sources of great diversity (poems, and annals, and oral tales) that had survived in agelong tradition; and this conception has indeed its parallel in the actual history of the book, for a great deal of earlier prose and poetry does underlie it, and it is to some extent a compendium in fact and not only in theory.

Originally Posted by R.R.J Tolkien

Thanks as always for your posts.

Thanks for starting such an interesting thread!

[R.R.J Tolkien]

Originally Posted by Eldorion

The Silmarillion wasn't finished in the early 1950s, despite Tolkien's attempts to find a publisher interested in. It wasn't finished at the time of his death either, of course, but in the intervening years much of the work he did was influenced by a desire to make the Silm consistent with LOTR. Within a few years of the first edition of LOTR being published Tolkien considered large portions of the Silm, mostly early mythological material, to be inconsistent with the more novelistic and (for lack of a better term) realistic material from the Third Age. The legend of the sun and the moon was of particular concern during the Myths Transformed period as Tolkien thought the Elves must have had an advanced enough knowledge of the physical world and laws of nature to know that the sun couldn't "really" be a magical fruit, that vast forests could not grow in a world illuminated only by starlight, that the world was never flat, etc. This led him to the idea that much of the Silmarillion material (the Great Tales, at the very least) were not true historical accounts written by Elves but human myths preserved by the Númenóreans that mixed the "actual" events with their own traditional folkloric beliefs.

It's an open question how radically different a hypothetical published Silm would have been if Tolkien had lived longer (or whether he'd have finished it even with an extra 10-15 years of life). A lot of people dislike the the Númenórean transmission and choose to ignore it. Certainly, if one is reading early and middle period texts by Tolkien, those must be understood in the context in which they were written, which did not include the more scientifically realistic setting conceived later. And if one wants to approach the 1977 Silmarillion as its own distinct work (as does, for example, Dennis Wilson Wise in "Book of the Lost Narrator" in volume 13 of Tolkien Studies), those ideas obviously aren't present there either. But if one wishes to take a holistic view of the First Age, then Tolkien's ideas from the last 15 years of his life can't be disregarded. I tend to think that Tolkien was right that they improve the Silm's consistency with LOTR (the mythological version of the sun and the moon always seemed out of place to me in the world of LOTR, even before reading HoMe) but there are of course plenty of people who disagree.

Fake edit: also, the early 1950s version of the Silm wasn't the one Tolkien had in mind when writing LOTR, since it didn't exist yet. The latest extant version of the Silm during the period when Tolkien wrote the main body of LOTR (1937-1949) was the version found in HoMe V that Huinesoron mentioned above.



My view is that meaningful discussions of Tolkien's works are not only possible if we take into account the lack of a set standard, but that doing so makes it easier to understand the works in relation to each other. Because Tolkien did not finish the Silm a consistent vision of the First Age can only be achieved by readers, and even if it's a group of people creating a collective Silmarillion, that's not really more authoritative than a plethora of personal Silmarillions, IMO. And the 1977 Silm was not intended to be a standard like this. As Christopher Tolkien stated in the foreword:





Thanks for starting such an interesting thread!

Thanks for the post I cant rep you at the moment for some reason. Gotta love the wisdom of the eldar lore masters