Akallabêth

[Findegil]

AK-SL-30; The Flying ships:

the paragraph about flying ships and the passage about the Eldar leaving do not necessarily refer to the same time period

Yes, and it should not.

The paragraph about flying ships could only refer to aircraft of modern times since no aircraft are present in any tale from the third age.

Well, there is a bit of time gap between the Third Age and ’modern times’. And in the same chapter we speak about Rockets and steel-ships which are in use in Númenor itself during the time of Saurons sojourn – even so we do not hear of them later in the Third Age.

This makes the statement "and they took these mariners of the air to be gods, and some of the Númenóreans were content that this should be so." unbelievable. I doubt people viewed the first aviators as gods.

Well, I don’t think about Europe or North-America, but about undeveloped areas in South-America, Africa or Asia. By the way a similar thing is said about the Númenoreans that came back to Middle-earth.

Furthermore, the text states that it is because of these flights that we discovered the Earth was round, but we knew the Earth was round around the 3rd century BC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth).

That is rue, but we denied and or forgot it again. Anyhow, if the reference is to modern aircraft invention it is true that at that time we did know about the roundness of the world. But as said above these saylors of the flying ships are probabaly not the early aviators, like Lindbergh, Marckham and co.
But it is clear that this is a very critical passage. To be on the save side we should remove it, or not take it up.

1) I don’t think we ever used ‘Powers’ to replace ‘Gods’. {Gods}[Valar] was a general change. So ‘Powers’ is only used if it was used in the original text of JRR Tolkien.

2) AK-SL-02: I agree that a change is recomandable here. But ‘was’ is not much better for me, so what about ‘became’?

3) The reference of ‘her’ is in the sentence before: ‘his[Pharazôn’s] cousin , daughter of Inziladûn‘, so Míriel is meant. As we did not change this passage, the unclearness is in the original and I wouldn’t change it.

4) I am okay with this change, but I think your editing is a bit defective, as you have left in the move passage at the end of the passage. So what about this:

And Amandil and Pharazôn rode in Andúnië and Elentir and {Zimrahil}[Zimraphel] saw them afar as they {[?}stood{] .....}/ watched for them,/ for Elentir loved his brother. But when {Zimrahil}[Zimraphel] saw Pharazôn in the splendour of his young manhood come riding {[? }in{] .......... Suddenly}suddenly {Zimrahil}[Zimraphel]'s AK-SL-04.5{heart turned towards him}<HoME 12; The History of the Akallabêth; Note on the marriage of Míriel and Pharazôns; text a {but when first she saw Pharazôn her} eyes and her heart were turned to him, for his beauty, and for his wealth also>. And when Pharazôn was greeted upon the steps of the house their eyes met {.......... }and they were abashed.>AK-SL-05b<HoME 12; The History of the Akallabêth; Note on the marriage of Míriel and Pharazôns; text a But he went away{(15)} and she remained unwed.>

4) AK-SL-08: Agreed.

5); 8) and 9) Ak-FN-01; Ak-FN-02 and Ak-FN-03: Nice find! I agree to these additions. There nothing against the usage of such passages.

6) thou, thy versus you/your: What we tried was to have all references to Elendil and his belonging as thou and thy, while all references to him and others as a group you and yours.

7) I think we did not removed that feeling in that special case, because her for the only time his son uses Quenya, which at this time in Númenor could feel strange.

Respectfully
Findegil

[ArcusCalion]

Airships"Your objections make a lot of assumptions. It is true that these flying ships could not feasibly have been built till after LotR, but as Fin says, between even the Fourth Age and our current time is an enormous gap. Tolkien posits that we are currently at the end of the sixth Age (in 1960s) so it is conceivable that we are in the very beginnings of the seventh age at this time. The Second and Third ages are around 3400 and 3200 years long each, and even if the next 3 were shorter, that still means a time period of around 9000 years between the end of LotR and the current year. This is plenty of time for the Numenoreans to have developed airships of their own and flown to the new lands, and for people to have taken them to be gods. I do not think the assumption that it must refer to our own historical discovery of flight holds water. In addition, the text does not say this is the reason they knew the earth was round, only that it was the final confirmation of this fact.

1) As Fin says, we did not make this any sort of general change. Tolkien uses the term at times. There are times where we may have changed 'Valar' to 'Powers' in the Akallabeth text, but only if CT has said that this change would reflect the original state of Tolkien's text as opposed to his own edited version in the published Sil.

2) Agreed, good catch. I am fine with 'was'.

3) I agree with Fin, the reference is to his cousin who is mentioned just before, and any confusion is included in Tolkien's own wording, so we can't change it.

4) I like Fin's recommendation best, since it keeps more and flows just as nice.

AK-SL-08: Agreed, nice catch!

5) Awesome find!

6) This was, as Fin says, a delicate balance, and it may need some revision.

7) The idea is as Fin says that it is shocking to hear the Quenya from his son, who was almost expressing support for Sauron earlier, and it signals that he might not be as brainwashed as we think. However, if you are adamant that does not work, we can remove it.

8) Good find!

9) Great find! I would just add a 'he' after 'mountain' to make the grammar work with the new construction.

I just want to say, that gandalf, your combing through our drafts has been really helpful and I can already see great improvement in flow and structure and substance, so thank you for your tireless efforts!