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#1 |
Wight
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 248
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I believe that the fact that he counted generations was due more to his eagerness to make the Tale of Years very reliable and realistic according to the nature of the Quendi and in the context of a world with sun and moon from the beginning.
I was not doing accounts, but I am trying to adapt the "old" Tale of Years to the new duodecimal system and I find it very difficult to adjust it without a "new narrative". I think that a lot (not all) of the new information can be inserted but keeping the old decimal system. I can be wrong and it would be necessary to give it more lapses but ... On the other hand I think Tolkien always thought and wanted the three ambassadors to be First Born hence the "option" for Imin Tata and Enel to go to Valinor and join them Ingwë Finwë and Elwë, their "young descendants", and that also contributed to the calculations to make it more credible. Greetings |
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#2 | |||
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
Posts: 3,971
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But... all we can do is all we can do. There are several approaches to take, one of which is to literally keep the Annals timeline and just change the numbering scheme to duodecimal, taking the "3100 years is probably an elvish underestimate" as the latest authority (heck, at one point 14,000 years was too short for him!) My timeline would maybe better be described as pseudo-Christopher Tolkien: it's how I imagine Christopher would have reconstructed a consistent timeline for a hypothetical New Silmarillion, not what Tolkien would have produced with his own hands. Quote:
It gives some lovely interactions, but it's really hard to know what to do with it. That's why my timeline just says "Ambassadors" - it's a problem for someone else to sort out! hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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#3 |
Wight
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 248
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I don't think Tolkien's final position was that there were six ambassadors. Rather I think he put it as an option. Because, as you say, he logically thought that the Three Fathers should be ambassadors (as I think he had always thought since the Lost Tales).
Of course this also brings up some problems such as that then "the light of Aman" was also "in the eyes" of the Three Fathers and perhaps that would have to be developed narratively. In my case and in my reconstruction of the story, before knowing the information contained in NoME and the reasons why the Professor decided to write it, I had taken Cuivienyarna as a non-real Fairy Tale (related to numerals), at least that it was what I understood. From what I thought (I wanted, as I think Tolkien wanted) that Ingwë, etc were First Born and preserve the beautiful story of the Awakening that they told Manwë in the Lost Tales. I can only keep that if there are all six of the Ambassadors. But it is a difficult decision, you have said it. Greetings |
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#4 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,330
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I think that in general Tolkien's late writings became much too concrete and literal for his own good. The "Dome of Varda" is a gimcrack replacement for the original flat-earth cosmology.
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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#5 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 1,036
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I dunno, for myself, I find the Dome of Varda quite magical with its Star-imagines. I wonder how it would have been received if it had been presented to readers first, or in a published tale without being accompanied by draft texts?
And I agree it was seen as part of a replacement in around 1959, or the MT "phase" in general, but not later -- at least in my current, pre-NOME opinion (!) . . . . . . and not that anyone said otherwise. Last edited by Galin; 09-24-2021 at 09:00 PM. |
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#6 |
Gruesome Spectre
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Heaven's doorstep
Posts: 8,039
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As a brief aside, could there possibly be any connection between that and the Dome of Stars in Osgiliath?
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Music alone proves the existence of God. |
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#7 | ||||
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
Posts: 3,971
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I don't know how he would have come down on the 3/6 ambassadors question. The fact that none of the Seniors joined the March shows that having the Three Fathers being stubborn and refusing to even visit Aman (or perhaps, too connected to their land, if we take the view that the March was a bad idea) was a very plausible idea. I'd forgotten the lovely account the Ambassadors gave to Manwe, but that could be kept by having it given to Orome at the Finding. (Later Manwe probably wouldn't even have asked!) (From a fan-writer perspective, I'd probably be cheeky and give it to the Three Elderwomen at the Finding, while their husbands refused to come near Orome. But that's me.) Quote:
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If it was the first story I'd heard, I think it would still have felt like a justification for some old legend of the Trees being the only lights in the world. And since that's not something from Primary World mythology, that would have felt a little strange. hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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