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

[R.R.J Tolkien]

Originally Posted by Galin

Actually my definition of Tolkien canon is "published work by the author", but anyway...

And even though I would disagree as far as employing the word canon here, with respect to taking into account everything that Tolkien wrote about Balrogs (you even quote from The Lost Tales in your original post), well, that's where this marginal note and revision come in.


You are free to hold that opinion obviously, but no one knows for sure, not even Christopher Tolkien. And in my opinion Christopher Tolkien arguably took this note into account: in other words, for the 1977 constructed Silmarillion, it seems to me that CJRT altered those instances where Tolkien referred to very many Balrogs to allow for the possibility that this idea might have been a factor in any later, full QS revision.

Tolkien's marginal note described an actual number: three, at most seven, but the revision to Annals of Aman reads:
"a host of Balrogs" > "his Balrogs"

In any case I think we can safely say that at this point in time (when JRRT writes the note and makes this revision) Tolkien was thinking of drastically reducing Balrog numbers.

For some reason

Point taken. That is a sure safe bet. It is a subject that I am not fully on one side or the other.

http://newboards.theonering.net/foru...=unread#unread

But to even discus first age matters we need some material to work with, this op does assume the sillmarillion published is part of cannon. If not, there is no first age/second age cannon and it would vary greatly from person to person. I also never said reject any of Tolkiens notes, but to be very careful with his unpublished materials. The reasons I think of the balrogs as i do, come not just from the sillmarillion, but his letters as well.