Tolkien 3.0

[Lord Varys]

Is there any evidence that the Drúedain are not white?

They are described as ugly with flat-noses, but I don't recall any descriptions clearly identifying them as non-whites.

As for Númenor - if this is supposed to be an adaptation done as close to JRRT's vision as possible then the island should be an ethnically homogeneous paradise, i.e. predominantly dark-haired whites. There is no indication that they ever allowed immigrants on their island. They certainly spread out, but we have no reason to believe that they ever invited any men from Middle-earth to their island. The fact that we never anything about the Eldar from Middle-earth visiting them there - and Gil-galad is writing letters rather than sending envoys - strongly suggests that they weren't they exactly keen to have visitors.

Granted, we don't get a day-to-day view of life on Númenor later than Aldarion and Erendis, so perhaps one could have slaves and the like in the latest days as well as, perhaps, some isolated communities of foreigners in the great harbors - sort of like it was done in certain eras of Chinese history - but the entire 'racial purity aspect' of the longevity thing (they believe it plays a role, even if it may not/does not) makes it increasingly unlikely that mingling with lesser men was permitted at least since the days of Tar-Atamamir the Great.

Even we want diversion in an adaptation, we look at the wrong stuff. And, frankly, casting non-whites as Drúedain would just be type-casting again - and bad type-casting at that, considering those people are supposed to short and ugly people with red eyes.

Proper diversion would mean to kick JRRT in the groin and actually don't give a damn that the Line of Elros are all tall whites with dark hair. But that would turn a key plot element of his works on its head, no?

[Corvinus85]

11 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

I'm currently in a reddit debate with someone who is insisting that the Numenoreans in the upcoming Amazon TV adaptation must be white. I pointed out that the Druedain settled Numenor too... whereupon I was told that the Druedain (even if they lived on Numenor for centuries) were not Ethnic Numenorean. Ugh.

(The kicker is that I am getting downvoted for this. How hard is it for people to imagine the Numenorean Empire as having people with a variety of different appearances? There were likely Haradrim merchants and diplomats in Armenelos, not to mention people from Middle-earth who had moved there on their own accord - or who, once things started going downhill, were taken there as slaves). 

If it's about the general populous of the Numenorean empire, I agree that there should be diversity. But what about the Dunedain? Didn't the Dunedain remain relatively pure until later in the Third Age, when the Gondorian Dunedain started mixing with Middle Men, resulting in the Kin-strife?

[The Marquis de Leech]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Is there any evidence that the Drúedain are not white?

They are described as ugly with flat-noses, but I don't recall any descriptions clearly identifying them as non-whites.

As for Númenor - if this is supposed to be an adaptation done as close to JRRT's vision as possible then the island should be an ethnically homogeneous paradise, i.e. predominantly dark-haired whites. There is no indication that they ever allowed immigrants on their island. They certainly spread out, but we have no reason to believe that they ever invited any men from Middle-earth to their island. The fact that we never anything about the Eldar from Middle-earth visiting them there - and Gil-galad is writing letters rather than sending envoys - strongly suggests that they weren't they exactly keen to have visitors.

Granted, we don't get a day-to-day view of life on Númenor later than Aldarion and Erendis, so perhaps one could have slaves and the like in the latest days as well as, perhaps, some isolated communities of foreigners in the great harbors - sort of like it was done in certain eras of Chinese history - but the entire 'racial purity aspect' of the longevity thing (they believe it plays a role, even if it may not/does not) makes it increasingly unlikely that mingling with lesser men was permitted at least since the days of Tar-Atamamir the Great.

Even we want diversion in an adaptation, we look at the wrong stuff. And, frankly, casting non-whites as Drúedain would just be type-casting again - and bad type-casting at that, considering those people are supposed to short and ugly people with red eyes.

Proper diversion would mean to kick JRRT in the groin and actually don't give a damn that the Line of Elros are all tall whites with dark hair. But that would turn a key plot element of his works on its head, no?

The Drúedain's skin colour is never explicitly mentioned, but between the repeated references to their incredibly dark eyes, Ghan-buri-Ghan's grass skirt, and their role within The Lord of the Rings (tribesmen who have been historically treated terribly by our white protagonists, thereby forcing said protagonists to finally come to terms with their imperialist legacy), I'd say the implication/coding is pretty blatant. I'd also point out that Turgon's hair colour is never explicitly specified either, but does anyone think he's anything other than dark haired?

As for visitors in Numenor - the Elves of Tol Eressea certainly visited, and Glorfindel seems to have returned to Middle-earth via a Numenorean ship. It's not as if an Elf visiting Numenor would have made for a particularly interesting story - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and all that.

I am actually not sure where you get this xenophobia vibe from Numenor. They increasingly disliked Elves, and they increasingly treated other Men terribly, but I have a hard time seeing a three thousand year naval Empire as ethnically homogenous - they were Anthropocentric Supremacists, not White Supremacists. Meanwhile, we don't actually know that the line of Elros were all tall whites with dark hair (and grey eyes,) - the biggest initial influx at the Founding came from the (blond) survivors of the House of Hador. Were most Numenoreans white-skinned? Almost certainly. Doesn't translate into a homogenous little paradise - the British Empire (a better model than the Chinese one) was pretty racist, but nevertheless also cosmopolitan. Armenelos was to the Second Age of Middle-earth what London was to the late nineteenth century.

(The racial purity affecting longevity thing seems to have been much more Third Age. In the Second Age, declining life expectancy was simply a stick to hit the Elves and Valar with, not a source of panic about racial mixing). 

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The Drúedain's skin colour is never explicitly mentioned, but between the repeated references to their incredibly dark eyes, Ghan-buri-Ghan's grass skirt, and their role within The Lord of the Rings (tribesmen who have been historically treated terribly by our white protagonists, thereby forcing said protagonists to finally come to terms with their imperialist legacy), I'd say the implication/coding is pretty blatant. I'd also point out that Turgon's hair colour is never explicitly specified either, but does anyone think he's anything other than dark haired?

They certainly would have a uniform, collective look, sort of like all races in Middle-earth have - Tolkien usually describes races of elves and men and other folk, rarely individuals (which is precisely why we don't get Turgon's hair-color but know how the average Noldo is supposed to look like ;-)) - but I don't think it is given that the Drúedain are non-whites. They could just be a white variety of men closer related to Hobbits than the other white men.

Type-casting them as non-whites actually would non-white roles in this show thing reduce to the roles of 'wild folk', inadvertently reinforcing racist stereotypes. Unless one would actually have some Drúedain among the king's council in Armenelos - but then I don't see any reason why such people of color should be Drúedain rather than, you know, your average Númenórean nobleman.

It would have nothing to do with JRRT's vision, of course, but if you want to change things change things that do count, rather than take obscure (and speculative) back doors. For instance, the last scions of the Line of Elros could certainly be non-whites considering that some king could have married a princess from Harad or Rhûn or wherever. Not Tolkien's vision, but certainly something that could be established and sold within the story in a reasonable fashion.

9 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

As for visitors in Numenor - the Elves of Tol Eressea certainly visited, and Glorfindel seems to have returned to Middle-earth via a Numenorean ship. It's not as if an Elf visiting Numenor would have made for a particularly interesting story - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and all that.

Sure, but those Elves who visited all came from the West, not the East. I certainly think that the Númenórean intervention in the case of Sauron, etc. wasn't triggered by Gil-galad writing letters, but we really don't know anything about this. What we do know does not establish that Númenor was welcoming foreigners on their blessed island.

9 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

I am actually not sure where you get this xenophobia vibe from Numenor. They increasingly disliked Elves, and they increasingly treated other Men terribly, but I have a hard time seeing a three thousand year naval Empire as ethnically homogenous - they were Anthropocentric Supremacists, not White Supremacists. Meanwhile, we don't actually know that the line of Elros were all tall whites with dark hair (and grey eyes,) - the biggest initial influx at the Founding came from the (blond) survivors of the House of Hador. Were most Numenoreans white-skinned? Almost certainly. Doesn't translate into a homogenous little paradise - the British Empire (a better model than the Chinese one) was pretty racist, but nevertheless also cosmopolitan. Armenelos was to the Second Age of Middle-earth what London was to the late nineteenth century.

Oh, I just meant the Chinese comparison as a parallel how to treat with outsiders, not as a parallel to the Númenórean empire.

But what little we know about the precious little island - and Númenor is pretty small - it is that the entire ship-building thing was a major environmental issue (cutting down too many trees, etc.) so that my guess is that until Sauron's appearance at least Númenor as such was the ruler of the world - while remaining the simple paradise it always was, sort of like a private little retreat or reservation where the terror Númenor inflicted on the outside was unseen and unfelt. And that doesn't fit well with the idea that the place was a global hub or even a melting pot. Armenelos is not London or New York. The mere fact that Tolkien's idea that the backbone of Númenórean supremacy is their ability to craft the best ships in the world - whereas there is no mentioning of any other race of men being able to even remotely equal Númenor in that field - pretty much settles things. Add that to the enormous distance between Númenor and Middle-earth (whereas the British Isles always were and still are the appendix of Europe, basically - they were never safe or even isolated on their islands - but the Númenóreans were until they started to build ships and explore the world) and the chances are very bad that anyone ever came to Númenor besides men who were invented to the place - or dragged their against their will - on ships made and captained by Númenóreans.

It would be different with Eldar visitors, of course. Gil-galad would have ships that could make the trip, too, even early in the SA.

9 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

(The racial purity affecting longevity thing seems to have been much more Third Age. In the Second Age, declining life expectancy was simply a stick to hit the Elves and Valar with, not a source of panic about racial mixing). 

But it was even an internal issue with the kings having - at least in one of the versions - a much larger lifespan than the lesser Númenóreans, etc. One assumes that at least when the unhappiness about them not being immortal started to vex them more and more the obsession to preserve and prolong the life they had became an ever more important issue.

And the Line of Elros certainly marries each other. Not first cousins, but second and third cousins. There should be a reason for that, too.

Keep in mind that the Dúnedain of Gondor and Arnor inherited the flaw of building great tombs and caring more about their ancestry and dead than the living, etc. from their Númenórean ancestors. The Faithful never forgot their friendship with with Eressea or the worship of Eru, etc., but they, too, were resentful about their lot in life. And one can even argue that this resentfulness is what eventually made them nothing but 'normal men' again. After all, if the whole expanded lifespan, etc. was actually just a gift from Eru and/or the Valar for the role their ancestors had played in the war against Morgoth, then where they lived and who they married shouldn't matter at all.

[The Marquis de Leech]

11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

They certainly would have a uniform, collective look, sort of like all races in Middle-earth have - Tolkien usually describes races of elves and men and other folk, rarely individuals (which is precisely why we don't get Turgon's hair-color but know how the average Noldo is supposed to look like ;-)) - but I don't think it is given that the Drúedain are non-whites. They could just be a white variety of men closer related to Hobbits than the other white men.

Type-casting them as non-whites actually would non-white roles in this show thing reduce to the roles of 'wild folk', inadvertently reinforcing racist stereotypes. Unless one would actually have some Drúedain among the king's council in Armenelos - but then I don't see any reason why such people of color should be Drúedain rather than, you know, your average Númenórean nobleman.

It would have nothing to do with JRRT's vision, of course, but if you want to change things change things that do count, rather than take obscure (and speculative) back doors. For instance, the last scions of the Line of Elros could certainly be non-whites considering that some king could have married a princess from Harad or Rhûn or wherever. Not Tolkien's vision, but certainly something that could be established and sold within the story in a reasonable fashion.

Sure, but those Elves who visited all came from the West, not the East. I certainly think that the Númenórean intervention in the case of Sauron, etc. wasn't triggered by Gil-galad writing letters, but we really don't know anything about this. What we do know does not establish that Númenor was welcoming foreigners on their blessed island.

Oh, I just meant the Chinese comparison as a parallel how to treat with outsiders, not as a parallel to the Númenórean empire.

But what little we know about the precious little island - and Númenor is pretty small - it is that the entire ship-building thing was a major environmental issue (cutting down too many trees, etc.) so that my guess is that until Sauron's appearance at least Númenor as such was the ruler of the world - while remaining the simple paradise it always was, sort of like a private little retreat or reservation where the terror Númenor inflicted on the outside was unseen and unfelt. And that doesn't fit well with the idea that the place was a global hub or even a melting pot. Armenelos is not London or New York. The mere fact that Tolkien's idea that the backbone of Númenórean supremacy is their ability to craft the best ships in the world - whereas there is no mentioning of any other race of men being able to even remotely equal Númenor in that field - pretty much settles things. Add that to the enormous distance between Númenor and Middle-earth (whereas the British Isles always were and still are the appendix of Europe, basically - they were never safe or even isolated on their islands - but the Númenóreans were until they started to build ships and explore the world) and the chances are very bad that anyone ever came to Númenor besides men who were invented to the place - or dragged their against their will - on ships made and captained by Númenóreans.

It would be different with Eldar visitors, of course. Gil-galad would have ships that could make the trip, too, even early in the SA.

But it was even an internal issue with the kings having - at least in one of the versions - a much larger lifespan than the lesser Númenóreans, etc. One assumes that at least when the unhappiness about them not being immortal started to vex them more and more the obsession to preserve and prolong the life they had became an ever more important issue.

And the Line of Elros certainly marries each other. Not first cousins, but second and third cousins. There should be a reason for that, too.

Keep in mind that the Dúnedain of Gondor and Arnor inherited the flaw of building great tombs and caring more about their ancestry and dead than the living, etc. from their Númenórean ancestors. The Faithful never forgot their friendship with with Eressea or the worship of Eru, etc., but they, too, were resentful about their lot in life. And one can even argue that this resentfulness is what eventually made them nothing but 'normal men' again. After all, if the whole expanded lifespan, etc. was actually just a gift from Eru and/or the Valar for the role their ancestors had played in the war against Morgoth, then where they lived and who they married shouldn't matter at all.

1. I was using the Drúedain as a counter-example to the suggestion that all Númenoreans are white, and that any attempt at showing a diverse Númenor is Political Correctness Gone Mad(TM). In terms of practical representation in the TV series, I wouldn't want a situation of the Drúedain (if they appear) as being the only non-white people on the island (I think one can reasonably argue that Númenor was not a homogenous society, but at least the Drúedain prove it).

(As a side note - I brought up Turgon because he's a funny one. I was compiling a database of Elven hair colour information a while back, and Tolkien specifies pretty much all the major First Age Elves - the Feanorians, the children of Indis, Thingol, et cetera. Just not Turgon. This isn't a matter of individuality/uniformity, since we get Fingon and Aredhel). 

2. Dismissing speculation as being inconsistent with Tolkien's vision of the place, and then noting that we don't actually have that much to work with... is a tad odd. How do we know what Tolkien's vision of Númenor was without getting speculative?

3. If the Elves of Tol Eressea visit as friends, doesn't that rather imply that the Númenoreans were fine with friends coming over to visit? Sure, there's no evidence that Gil-galad went himself, but there's no evidence he didn't either.

4. The British Empire was held together by the Royal Navy (you, know, ships). It was an Empire that stretched from Canada to Africa, to India, to Australia and New Zealand - which is a pretty big geographical spread well beyond Europe, with the raw materials of countless places being sent back to Britain for processing, and all sorts of dodgy imperial nonsense going on at the local level. The comparison with Númenor is obvious. Or to put it another way - do you honestly think Númenor was only using ships for military and exploration purposes? Rather than trade? And once trading becomes involved, the Haradrim and all the rest are going to be wanting to have a presence in Armenelos. Hell, it's the wealthiest place in the world - if you're a Second Age merchant, you're going to want to seek out some aristocrats to sell things to.

(Tolkien, of course, was very much aware of trade, and his world-building shows it. I am not sure why you think Númenor would be some sort of xenophobic autarky. This isn't Gondolin - even at the beginning, the Númenoreans at least had the ships they'd arrived in).

5. Yes, the Númenoreans became fixated on Death, and their declining lifespan didn't help. But in contrast to the Third Age Gondorians, there is no particular evidence they became obsessed with Purity of Blood. Which ties back to my general point that Númenor was likely a pretty diverse place.

[Lord Varys]

24 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

1. I was using the Drúedain as a counter-example to the suggestion that all Númenoreans are white, and that any attempt at showing a diverse Númenor is Political Correctness Gone Mad(TM). In terms of practical representation in the TV series, I wouldn't want a situation of the Drúedain (if they appear) as being the only non-white people on the island (I think one can reasonably argue that Númenor was not a homogenous society, but at least the Drúedain prove it).

Well, as I said, I don't think that the Drúedain are non-whites. Having red eyes and being small, unkempt, and ugly doesn't make you non-white. You are non-white if you are described as such, especially in a Tolkien book where being white is basically the default standard until you are told otherwise (not that he is exceptional in this, but it is rather obvious in his case).

24 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

(As a side note - I brought up Turgon because he's a funny one. I was compiling a database of Elven hair colour information a while back, and Tolkien specifies pretty much all the major First Age Elves - the Feanorians, the children of Indis, Thingol, et cetera. Just not Turgon. This isn't a matter of individuality/uniformity, since we get Fingon and Aredhel). 

He gives some descriptions of major characters and the like, but I'd have to double-check where exactly he does that in the case of the Feanorians and the less relevant characters. The women whose names often refer to aspects of their body get better descriptions in this regard.

24 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

2. Dismissing speculation as being inconsistent with Tolkien's vision of the place, and then noting that we don't actually have that much to work with... is a tad odd. How do we know what Tolkien's vision of Númenor was without getting speculative?

I'd go on what we have ... which isn't much. I mean, Númenor isn't a very well-defined place. You can choose to add or ignore the technological Númenórean war-machine, too. 

24 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

3. If the Elves of Tol Eressea visit as friends, doesn't that rather imply that the Númenoreans were fine with friends coming over to visit? Sure, there's no evidence that Gil-galad went himself, but there's no evidence he didn't either.

Sure they can. I never said they wouldn't or couldn't, just that I don't think many came. Especially not Elves from Middle-earth. 

24 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

4. The British Empire was held together by the Royal Navy (you, know, ships). It was an Empire that stretched from Canada to Africa, to India, to Australia and New Zealand - which is a pretty big geographical spread well beyond Europe, with the raw materials of countless places being sent back to Britain for processing, and all sorts of dodgy imperial nonsense going on at the local level. The comparison with Númenor is obvious. Or to put it another way - do you honestly think Númenor was only using ships for military and exploration purposes? Rather than trade? And once trading becomes involved, the Haradrim and all the rest are going to be wanting to have a presence in Armenelos. Hell, it's the wealthiest place in the world - if you're a Second Age merchant, you're going to want to seek out some aristocrats to sell things to.

Oh, trade is not something Tolkien cares much about in his books, does he? Thankfully he kept coin-counting out of his works ;-).

The impression I, personally, have of Númenor is that it is basically another fairy-tale version of the peaceful and rural 19th century England Tolkien also, in parts, imagines in the Shire. At least that's the Númenor we know in some detail, the Númenor from the description and 'Aldarion and Erendis'.

One can, perhaps, describe it as an idealized version of an imperial Britain without the messy things and the dirty hands. Splendor and power without one actually having to work. Sort of like Bilbo has on a much smaller level...

The island is also described as being essentially a paradise, with the people there having everything they could possibly need - temperate climate, ample fish, etc. - there was no need to trade. The Númenóreans started as explorers, not merchants and traders. And they came as teachers to the lesser men of Middle-earth, not as people who needed goods to buy and sell.

And once they sort of turned into an imperial power, one assumes they took what they wanted rather than bothering to give anything in exchange.

One can, perhaps, also imagine that certain regions in Middle-earth - Umbar, especially - served as a hub for Númenórean adventurers to carve out small 'kingdoms' of their own, to act as vice-kings or governors in the name of the distant king back home, 

24 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

(Tolkien, of course, was very much aware of trade, and his world-building shows it. I am not sure why you think Númenor would be some sort of xenophobic autarky. This isn't Gondolin - even at the beginning, the Númenoreans at least had the ships they'd arrived in).

Yeah, but they didn't make much of that until Aldarion, no? That's the entire point of his story, isn't it? It has been a pretty long time since I read that.

24 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

5. Yes, the Númenoreans became fixated on Death, and their declining lifespan didn't help. But in contrast to the Third Age Gondorians, there is no particular evidence they became obsessed with Purity of Blood. Which ties back to my general point that Númenor was likely a pretty diverse place.

Oh, I'm actually not sure that the Dúnedain were actually that much obsessed with purity of blood per se. But certain members of the elite and the extended royal family didn't like dilute (or pollute) the royal bloodline. After all, only a rather small fleet of Númenóreans came with Elendil, and especially in Gondor there lived other men before the Dúnedain came. Sure, there was Pelargir and all, so there may have been a considerable colony there before the arrival of the seven ships, but it wouldn't have been that many.

In the North, there were fewer men, hence the (apparently) heavily inbred Dúnedain of Aragorn's tribe, whereas in Gondor most Dúnedain should have slowly but surely mingled with the men they were ruling there, long before they were entering into political alliances with other men.

That marriages of the Line of Elros outside the usual gene pool were seen as problematic in Númenor can be seen, I think, not only in the case of Aldarion and Erendis, but also in the case of Ancalime, who had certainly had issues with finding a (proper) husband.

The idea that men who see themselves as rulers of the world and come ever more haughty and cruel due to this delusion certainly don't strike me as the people who would intermarry often with people they look down upon. And basically all Númenóreans were gods to the lesser men of Middle-earth.

[The Marquis de Leech]

The issue with Ancalime had less to do with gene pool, and more that she was brought up by her mother to really, really hate men - the only reason she has a child is to spite her cousin. She's a study in terrible parenting.

There's a lot of hair colour information in the Peoples of Middle-earth (HOME XII). It's where the red-headed Maedhros comes from.

On the ships: given the sheer scale of environmental destruction, Numenor had a lot of ships. What was it using them for? Explorers and teachers would only need a small handful (and, frankly, why bother to explore at all if you don't need to trade?). The navy could easily protect the Numenorean homeland with a tiny fraction of the number they actually had (as it is, it could blow everyone else's combined fleets out of the water. Why bother with a navy that size? Could it be that they're using them the same way the British did - protecting trade routes?). Frankly, Numenorean shipping only makes sense if you're assuming that they're carrying substantial amounts of commercial cargo. 

[Ran]

Pretty sure the Drúedain are "white" in Tolkien's conception (though probably "swarthy"), otherwise their black skin would have been remarked just as every other distinctive feature separating them from the Men of Middle-earth is remarked by Tolkien.

The Edain of Beleriand who went on to Númenor were all white in Tolkien's conception. It's absolutely the case that once Númenor began to expand, and especially establishing ports in the south of Middle-earth (such as Umbar in S.A. 2280) that there would have been a slow increase of "colonials" who were ethnically distinct from the Númenoreans. But I'm not sure I'd consider subjects of Númenor to be Númenoreans, or at least I don't think Tolkien viewed the term Númenorean as meaning anyone but natives of Númenor.

Then there's the question as to whether there'd be intermingling, and I'd guess there could be although it'd be pretty restricted to the lower ranks of Númenorean society. Sailors and merchants and maybe the rare minor noble. Then there would be non-white Númenoreans, but I'd guess they're rare. They'd certainly have an interesting story in the last centuries of Númenor as the divide between the Faithful and the King's Men worsened, though, with the King's Men being behind the policies that led to their existence but clearly seeing them as inferior.

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The issue with Ancalime had less to do with gene pool, and more that she was brought up by her mother to really, really hate men - the only reason she has a child is to spite her cousin. She's a study in terrible parenting.

Well, it depends - was she marrying and having a son to become queen or just to prevent her stupid cousin and his children to succeed her? That isn't exactly clear, is it? But the overall issue I meant is that the group of people Ancalime was apparently expected to pick her consort were, in fact, other descendants of the Line of Elros, not just your everyday man.

And if the concept stood - which we don't know as far as I recall - that the lifespan of the Line of Elros was significantly longer than that of 'lesser Númenóreans then this also makes sense. After all, a big part of the issues of Aldarion and Erendis is that she cannot really afford to be separated from her husband for long decades because she is not going to live as long as he is. If you will outlive your spouse for a 100-150 years, then it is actually stupid to pick such a spouse if you want to have a happy marriage.

In that sense, this is not so much about purity of blood but rather proper family planning.

9 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

There's a lot of hair colour information in the Peoples of Middle-earth (HOME XII). It's where the red-headed Maedhros comes from.

Oh, yes, I know, but that is really an in-depth text about the House of Finwe and all. Looks (and docile daughters) don't really play that much of role in the actual Quenta Silmarillion.

9 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

On the ships: given the sheer scale of environmental destruction, Numenor had a lot of ships. What was it using them for? Explorers and teachers would only need a small handful (and, frankly, why bother to explore at all if you don't need to trade?). The navy could easily protect the Numenorean homeland with a tiny fraction of the number they actually had (as it is, it could blow everyone else's combined fleets out of the water. Why bother with a navy that size? Could it be that they're using them the same way the British did - protecting trade routes?). Frankly, Numenorean shipping only makes sense if you're assuming that they're carrying substantial amounts of commercial cargo. 

From what we know from the Akallabêth they explored and mapped the entire (round, depending on the version) world, didn't they? These are not real people, anyway, they are idealized people from Atlantis/England. They do have everything they could want on their island and thus the only driving force they have is their spirit of curiosity and their aspiration for greatness. At least that's how the things are framed in the narrative.

Even their society is fairly egalitarian in their simpleness. Yeah, they have a king and all, but no visible feudalism, sort of like with the Rohirrim and stuff, there are simple people and all, but the average nobleman should still be, for all intents and purposes, just be a guy with a somewhat larger farm, etc. Very evocative of the Roman 'ideal way of life' and all - which no longer was real when they had an empire, of course, but it is fun to pretend. Tolkien usually doesn't like to pretend, though. He makes such things reality in his stories.

Once Númenor reached the apex of its power it seems that Sauron's power in Middle-earth - where he originally, after the completion of the One Ring, styled himself 'Lord of the Earth', meaning that he controlled all of Middle-earth aside from the coastal regions and forests still in the hands of the Eldar - possibly indicating that there were major Númenórean colonies not just in Pelargir and Umbar and farther down south, but possibly farther in the East, too.

That there was ever any seafaring power who could so much as threaten Númenor seems to be very unlikely. I mean, even their physical strength and height literally dwarfed other races, men included (I think that's very obvious in the piece about Isildur's death).

The Tal-Elmar fragment gives us a certain insight into the SA situation. And if Tolkien's own speculation is true that Agar is situation along the mouth of the Isen or Morthond then somewhat darker and not-so-fair men were living there in those regions (Tal-Elmar is a strange fellow due to be so fair-skinned and fair-haired) but considering the region I very much doubt that we talk here about men who were dark in a non-white sense.

Tolkien very much uses 'dark' to refer to dark hair (i.e. with the Noldor and the Dúnedain) not dark skin. In that sense, Tal-Elmar's people likely were supposed people related to Dunlendings, who, in turn, were kin to the Haladin, having common ancestors.

6 hours ago, Ran said:

The Edain of Beleriand who went on to Númenor were all white in Tolkien's conception. It's absolutely the case that once Númenor began to expand, and especially establishing ports in the south of Middle-earth (such as Umbar in S.A. 2280) that there would have been a slow increase of "colonials" who were ethnically distinct from the Númenoreans. But I'm not sure I'd consider subjects of Númenor to be Númenoreans, or at least I don't think Tolkien viewed the term Númenorean as meaning anyone but natives of Númenor.

Well, insofar as as mingling with native Haradrim, etc. would be concerned I'm not sure how 'non-white' those folks would be, and how different in looks they would be from the three tribes of the Edain from which all Númenóreans are descended. There certainly are brown-skinned and black-skinned men from Near and Far Harad in LotR, but at this point we do not have any reason to assume such people ever intermarried with the Númenóreans of the SA. At least not in Númenor proper. Men permanently settling in Umbar, becoming (perhaps quite literally) 'Black Númenóreans' may have done so, but that wouldn't have been a good thing. In fact, it may be worth to contemplate whether 'Black Númenórean' actually only refers to philosophical views and not also to skin color.

If there had been a slow racial mingling then Elendil's Faithful should also no longer have been, for the most part, prototypical Dúnedain - but even Aragorn himself and his folks are, and they, presumably, have at least some non-Dúnedail folk among their ancestors, although the population of the Dúnedain of Arthedain seem to have lived very much in isolation, especially after the destruction of the kingdom.

I mean, if they were truly cosmopolitan rulers of the world - and they ruled the world for over a millennium! - then they would, by the time Sauron came to their island - more or less have been as racially mingled as the United States in the great cities. But they are not. And considering the size of Númenor - which wasn't exactly a large island - then a steady influx of racially different foreigners would have certainly have severely impacted the looks and the customs of the Númenóreans on the island. But neither of that seems to have happened. 

Instead, the place remained as static and unchanged and as ethnically homogeneous as it had been in the beginning. There certainly would have been a reason for that. Even Sauron didn't bring any cronies with him, he bent the Númenóreans to his will, he did not install foreigners in high positions of power.

[Werthead]

7 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

From what we know from the Akallabêth they explored and mapped the entire (round, depending on the version) world, didn't they? These are not real people, anyway, they are idealized people from Atlantis/England. They do have everything they could want on their island and thus the only driving force they have is their spirit of curiosity and their aspiration for greatness. At least that's how the things are framed in the narrative.

The world did not become round - Arda into Earth if you like - until the Downfall. The reason for the rounding was that it removed Aman from the world and made it impossible for any but the Elves (sailing the Straight Road from Mithlond) to find Valinor again. So the Numenoreans may have mapped the world but, south and eastwards, not westwards (until Ar-Pharazon).

[Lord Varys]

4 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The world did not become round - Arda into Earth if you like - until the Downfall. The reason for the rounding was that it removed Aman from the world and made it impossible for any but the Elves (sailing the Straight Road from Mithlond) to find Valinor again. So the Numenoreans may have mapped the world but, south and eastwards, not westwards (until Ar-Pharazon).

Well, the reference was to those versions of the Akallabêth in which the world was round from the start. Those texts do exist.

[Werthead]

2 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, the reference was to those versions of the Akallabêth in which the world was round from the start. Those texts do exist.

Not in the canon, only in HoME material that Tolkien was playing around with that he never finalised before his death. That stays in the same realm as the "definitive" story of Celeborn and Galadriel, the mass-renaming of numerous characters in The Silmarillion and his reworking of the origins and conception of the orcs to be a bit less racist in the land of unrealised ideas. 

In the published LotR, both Tom Bombadil and the appendices confirm the world was flat once and then became a globe.

[Lord Varys]

9 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Not in the canon, only in HoME material that Tolkien was playing around with that he never finalised before his death. That stays in the same realm as the "definitive" story of Celeborn and Galadriel, the mass-renaming of numerous characters in The Silmarillion and his reworking of the origins and conception of the orcs to be a bit less racist in the land of unrealised ideas. 

In the published LotR, both Tom Bombadil and the appendices confirm the world was flat once and then became a globe.

Not sure whether one should care about a canon there, especially if one includes the Silimarillion stuff. Tolkien never finished that, either. Or rather, it only exists in more or less finished form for the pre-LotR-phase.

I, personally, don't care much about Christopher's Silmarillion and prefer Tolkien's last ideas to anything that exists in final form insofar as his intentions about unwritten stories (and the 'facts' supposedly portrayed therein) are concerned. This is a rather difficult canon, to be sure, but one can sift the nonsense out that way, too. How to deal with the cosmology is a conundrum, to be sure, but that Gil-galad is most definitely not Fingon's son is quite clear. And Orodreth isn't Galadriel's brother, either.

But drawing cosmological truths from a book of Hobbit tradition embellished by some Gondorian scholars in the FA is rather daring, if you ask me. Tom Bombadil is a character in the Red Book, and the appendices are (Hobbit versions of) Dúnedain scholarly tradition. They are not necessarily true.

Tolkien also makes this very clear in the theological and metaphysical speculations the Eldar are offering in various texts (and even the Valar, as characters is such texts).

[Werthead]

The primary Middle-earth canon is The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both published and indeed revised by Tolkien in his own lifetime. The published Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales are perhaps secondary or B-canon, representing in many case's Tolkien's final coherent thoughts on elements of the legendarium not expanded on elsewhere, only becoming problematic in the case of Celeborn and Galadriel where no final decision was made.

HoME is not canon at all, although I know people who accept bits of it as perhaps semi-canon where they do not clash with elements in the primary or secondary canon (Tol Fuin or Tolkien's own map of the north coast of Middle-earth, for example). Sifting through Tolkien's writings and musings as presented in HoME in an effort to construct a version of The Silmarillion in line with his last thinking as of 1973 is simply impossible (and note that CT has had 41 years to revise and update The Silmarillion and has chosen not to do so for this very reason). As a result, we have little choice but to default to Christopher's version of the text as the most reliable, although, as he notes, some of the later chapters are based on Tolkien's original 1920s material which was never revised to fit in with later conceptions of the story.

[Lord Varys]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The primary Middle-earth canon is The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both published and indeed revised by Tolkien in his own lifetime.

We can agree on that one. Not the other stuff.

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The published Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales are perhaps secondary or B-canon, representing in many case's Tolkien's final coherent thoughts on elements of the legendarium not expanded on elsewhere, only becoming problematic in the case of Celeborn and Galadriel where no final decision was made.

The Silmarillion as published by Christopher is a travesty because it merges older and newer versions of the text, completely ignoring a lot of crucial aspects to the narrative framework like the fictional narrators and the fact that those texts were handed down to later generations in the fictional world. Not to mention arbitrary decisions on the correct spelling of names, etc.

UT are in better shape, although Christopher also messed with Gil-galad there, which he later only confessed in the last volume of HoME, if I remember correctly.

One can certainly be of the opinion that Celeborn should actually be more the guy he is hinted at being in LotR considering that's what JRRT himself published and he should have stuck with, but apparently he did not in his later writings. He also reinvented Gandalf as some sort of angelic being, so changes such as this have to dealt with. It makes little sense to insist that published texts must be sacrosanct if we have evidence the author didn't consider them as such. He even messed with the Hobbit for the sake of his sequel and his 'Rings of Power' (which people usually don't even know because the majority of people doesn't know the original version of the Hobbit).

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

HoME is not canon at all, although I know people who accept bits of it as perhaps semi-canon where they do not clash with elements in the primary or secondary canon (Tol Fuin or Tolkien's own map of the north coast of Middle-earth, for example). Sifting through Tolkien's writings and musings as presented in HoME in an effort to construct a version of The Silmarillion in line with his last thinking as of 1973 is simply impossible (and note that CT has had 41 years to revise and update The Silmarillion and has chosen not to do so for this very reason). As a result, we have little choice but to default to Christopher's version of the text as the most reliable, although, as he notes, some of the later chapters are based on Tolkien's original 1920s material which was never revised to fit in with later conceptions of the story.

Well, there certainly are texts in there that are difficult to reconcile with the Hobbit-LotR tradition, but so what? There is the LT tradition which is canon in its own right, and the Lays do work perfectly fine as in-universe artistic and poetic expressions. The only complete Silmarillion we have is the one written and finished prior to the sequel of the Hobbit fused the universe of a children's book with the Silmarillion and Númenor complex. As such, it constitutes a canon, too, if you want to call it that.

The Hobbit doesn't really reference the Elder Days and all - what references there in there are not serious. They are just nods to Tolkien's existing legendarium. The Necromancer of the Hobbit is Sauron or Thû, either. Not yet. He is just a plot device explaining why Gandalf has to go elsewhere and why the dwarves cannot go around Mirkwood. Just as the Elrond in the Hobbit is most definitely not meant to be the son of Earendil.

Why Christopher never bothered to actually return to the Silmarillion to make it better I don't know. Probably because it is better not to confuse people who are supposed to buy the thing. 

[The Marquis de Leech]

The published Silmarillion is far from a "travesty." Could Christopher done better in hindsight? No doubt. Christopher's admitted it himself. Fact is though, you are dealing with an author who had spent six decades writing, re-writing, and completely revising the texts, and had J.R.R. Tolkien lived to be a hundred*, he'd have never come to a final version of the material, A Silmarillion that is coherent is an incomplete Silmarillion. Meanwhile, no matter whether Tolkien's later ideas favoured a round world (or rejected Orcs as corrupted Elves), he never did get around to rewriting the earlier stories - and, knowing Tolkien, he'd have probably changed his mind half-way through anyway and reverted to the older model. I mean, the Numenor tale falls flat with a round world, since it becomes possible to sail to Aman from the east (which IIRC he realised, and tried handwaving with suggestions that the world was too large to circumnavigate. Yeah, right. The Numenoreans - the greatest mariners the world has ever seen - couldn't pull off a circumnavigation).

As a I reader, I tend to prefer the older versions anyway. Later Galadriel is whitewashed, while the Tale of the Sun and Moon has a mythological beauty lacking in the Round World. And, to be honest, when you're considering the works outside The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, reader preference is a perfectly valid consideration. The thing's a mythology, with any number of conflicting versions and biases. Imposing a strict canon strikes me as silly as well as futile. 

*I once wrote a speculative alternate history that gives Tolkien another couple of decades. 

[Lord Varys]

3 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The published Silmarillion is far from a "travesty." Could Christopher done better in hindsight? No doubt. Christopher's admitted it himself.

One can discuss the word I used, but I wanted to express the fact that I don't like it and feel that publishing it the way it was was a disservice both to the readers and the author, considering that it lumped texts together that were not written to be ever published in that version, especially with the excision of the all fictional narrative framework. Frame narrative concepts usually play a rather crucial in any work they supposed to frame.

One can certainly understand why Christopher did what he did, but since his Silmarillion clearly was premature birth, so to speak, he should have revised it later on. He had had twenty years to do that since he finished the HoME, did he not?

3 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Fact is though, you are dealing with an author who had spent six decades writing, re-writing, and completely revising the texts, and had J.R.R. Tolkien lived to be a hundred*, he'd have never come to a final version of the material, A Silmarillion that is coherent is an incomplete Silmarillion.

But he had finished a version already, did he not? The old one, before he messed everything with his 'Hobbit sequel. That was pretty much finished and certainly could have been published without much trouble. It wouldn't have fit well with LotR and all, but it certainly would have given the readers the most complete version of the story.

3 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Meanwhile, no matter whether Tolkien's later ideas favoured a round world (or rejected Orcs as corrupted Elves), he never did get around to rewriting the earlier stories - and, knowing Tolkien, he'd have probably changed his mind half-way through anyway and reverted to the older model.

You do know that there is a version of the Ainulindale with a round world, right? This is not just some afterthought. And in the end the cosmology is irrelevant and doesn't have to fit the stories. The plan wasn't to make everything add up, but rather make the stories more, you know, just stories within a world model that wasn't completely infantile.

Emotionally I prefer the light myth and succession of the lamps, too. There is something very powerful to that. But we are mistaken if we *pretend* - in no small part to Christopher cutting the entire mythological narrative frame from his Silmarillion - that the cosmological information we get reflect the facts of the world accurately. They don't. All material we have comes either via the Red Book - which would make it basically Hobbit interpretation of Rivendell and Gondorian sources (or Gondorian additions to a Hobbit manuscript) - and that's no exactly information from the Noldor who were in Aman, nor information coming directly from the Valar.

In that sense, it is not that difficult to reconcile the two cosmologies. The world was always round - people just never knew it. Or morons corrupted the manuscripts and narratives while they passed them down through the ages. I mean, Elrond permits the presumptuous Hobbit to make his great father the protagonist of a silly poem without intervention. These guys were not taking everything all that serious. The Athrabeth very much shows that even guys like Finrod Felagund speculate a lot.

Did the Valar feed the Eldar the idea that the world was flat or was that a concept they came up with themselves and liked to use in their texts? We have no clue.

3 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

I mean, the Numenor tale falls flat with a round world, since it becomes possible to sail to Aman from the east (which IIRC he realised, and tried handwaving with suggestions that the world was too large to circumnavigate. Yeah, right. The Numenoreans - the greatest mariners the world has ever seen - couldn't pull off a circumnavigation).

Well, we don't know what's there down in the south and the far east. If beyond/behind Aman the Americas lurked, then one can certainly pretend the Númenóreans were not Magellan ;-).

3 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

As a I reader, I tend to prefer the older versions anyway. Later Galadriel is whitewashed, while the Tale of the Sun and Moon has a mythological beauty lacking in the Round World. And, to be honest, when you're considering the works outside The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, reader preference is a perfectly valid consideration. The thing's a mythology, with any number of conflicting versions and biases. Imposing a strict canon strikes me as silly as well as futile. 

That was more or less my point above. The are different 'canons' or rather: different versions of more or less the same or similar stories. And they all have the same merit. One should not try to reconcile them and distort them in this way - which is was Christopher did with his Silmarillion.

I mean, he himself understands that with his last two books. Giving all the versions of a particular story (complex) is, basically, the only viable way to look at them.

The Silmarillion complex isn't a novel. It didn't go to a writing process the way the LotR did - the HotLotR within the HoME is just reflecting the writing process and shows us literally discarded drafts and earlier versions of later finished chapters, etc. That stuff doesn't have artistic merit in his own right. But the Lost Tales, the Lays, - I don't include the Sketch here, because that's a joke - the Quenta Noldorinwa, the Quenta Silmarillion, and then the 'later Quenta Silmarillion' all stand as works in their own right.

JRRT certainly may have never published the Lost Tales or the Quenta Noldorinwa had he ever gotten around to finish a Silmarillion fitting LotR, but that doesn't change the fact that those works are (nearly) complete whereas the later pieces are not.

And in a very real sense the only *real stories* are the Lost Tales. Because that was the original and only collection of the longer tales of the myth cycle. The Quenta Silmarillion conceptually arouse out of the Sketch and was always just a summary of the actual stories. This is why this entire story consists of this dreadfully condensed prose.

As for Galadriel:

She is actually not part of the really old Silmarillion texts, considering she only popped up in LotR. That the man failed to figure out how to properly deal with her and what she was about, is somewhat sad, but we *really don't have* an accurate depiction of her actions during the Elder Days since even the older versions are not complete.

I don't think it matters much for her character whether she ran away with Celeborn or whether she ran around with Feanor's gang. Both was wrong. The Curse of Mandos always was a rather strange plot device. If Turgon and Finrod have to be punished, there is really no reason why Galadriel shouldn't be punished either. Especially since it is a rather unseemly desire for a woman to rule in her own right, etc., anyway.

[The Marquis de Leech]

The cosmology does matter to the stories, in the sense that the internal logic can get well and truly buggered:

• The aforementioned Numenorean Ban only works with a Flat World.
• Having the Sun and Moon exist from the beginning screws up the importance of the Two Trees, as well as the Darkening of Valinor.

Sure, there are work-arounds (the world is too big, Valinor has a unique veil of darkness over it), but these are weak. As for the Round World Ainulindale, we are talking half a torn page.

If we're going with in-universe stuff, sure, there will be an "historical bias" factor (the Akallabeth was written by Elendil, after all), but I wouldn't extend that to misrepresenting the shape of the world. Bilbo in Rivendell has access to Glorfindel, for goodness sake, while what purpose would the Valar have in lying about the cosmology? Not least because it is incredibly easy to tell the shape of the world for oneself.

Yes, Christopher took out the Pengolodh framing because of how he interpreted that 1958 note about The Silmarillion needing to be a Mannish tradition. It still hasn't stopped multiple people from reading those framing devices back in, whether it be actual scholars, or just fanfiction writers who want to be nicer to the Feanorians. And if you're going after Christopher for that, I take it you are also angry about Treebeard's line about "Orcs being a mockery of Elves" - an opinion (and Tolkien acknowledges it is an opinion) that many take as true because of the way it is presented?

As for The Silmarillion, I think it is of value because it is a Silmarillion. To go back and revise it would ironically be a much more overt stab at creating a definitive text ("X is wrong. It was really Y"). We know The Silmarillion isn't definitive, so why pretend?  

[SeanF]

7 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The published Silmarillion is far from a "travesty." Could Christopher done better in hindsight? No doubt. Christopher's admitted it himself. Fact is though, you are dealing with an author who had spent six decades writing, re-writing, and completely revising the texts, and had J.R.R. Tolkien lived to be a hundred*, he'd have never come to a final version of the material, A Silmarillion that is coherent is an incomplete Silmarillion. Meanwhile, no matter whether Tolkien's later ideas favoured a round world (or rejected Orcs as corrupted Elves), he never did get around to rewriting the earlier stories - and, knowing Tolkien, he'd have probably changed his mind half-way through anyway and reverted to the older model. I mean, the Numenor tale falls flat with a round world, since it becomes possible to sail to Aman from the east (which IIRC he realised, and tried handwaving with suggestions that the world was too large to circumnavigate. Yeah, right. The Numenoreans - the greatest mariners the world has ever seen - couldn't pull off a circumnavigation).

As a I reader, I tend to prefer the older versions anyway. Later Galadriel is whitewashed, while the Tale of the Sun and Moon has a mythological beauty lacking in the Round World. And, to be honest, when you're considering the works outside The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, reader preference is a perfectly valid consideration. The thing's a mythology, with any number of conflicting versions and biases. Imposing a strict canon strikes me as silly as well as futile. 

*I once wrote a speculative alternate history that gives Tolkien another couple of decades. 

Galadriel's rejection of the One Ring requires a much greater degree of self-sacrifice if she thinks she's still banned from returning West due to past sins, than if she is not.

WRT the discussion generally, I think the British Empire is a very good analogy for Numenor between from the reign of Tar Minastir until the ascendancy of Sauron.

[Lord Varys]

17 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The cosmology does matter to the stories, in the sense that the internal logic can get well and truly buggered:

• The aforementioned Numenorean Ban only works with a Flat World.

Does it? As I said, there could have been dangers/monsters, geographical hindrances preventing a circumnavigation of the world at that time. It is not that this world was completely without magic in the SA.

17 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

• Having the Sun and Moon exist from the beginning screws up the importance of the Two Trees, as well as the Darkening of Valinor.

It is true that a flat earth makes more sense in light of all that stories, but Tolkien actually had various possible explanation for all that. Some clumsy, some not that bad (the rape of Arien by Melkor is not that bad, especially since him not being able to control the light was always a part of his story).

The stuff about the Two Lamps is pre-Elven stuff, anyway, and could thus be completely made up.

17 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

If we're going with in-universe stuff, sure, there will be an "historical bias" factor (the Akallabeth was written by Elendil, after all), but I wouldn't extend that to misrepresenting the shape of the world. Bilbo in Rivendell has access to Glorfindel, for goodness sake, while what purpose would the Valar have in lying about the cosmology? Not least because it is incredibly easy to tell the shape of the world for oneself.

Various characters in the books also had access to angelic beings directly, but that doesn't mean that they admitted who they actually were, and what they knew and recalled from before the creation of the world. Even Gandalf the White - who is pretty open about the extent of his powers - doesn't really tell anyone in the story who and what he actually is, and in whose authority he is exerting the powers he has.

We don't even know whether Frodo and Bilbo actually completely understood who and what their friend was during the adventure - later on, after they consulted Elvish and Gondorian texts, etc. they may have figured that out.

I'm not necessarily saying anyone was lying. There is artistic license and there are misunderstandings. The original sources in Valinor may have depicted things accurately, whereas the manuscripts our guys had access to in the Fourth Age may have been copies of copies of incomplete or misunderstood texts, reinterpreted by various Dúnedain scholars. But Elven cosmology may have started before Orome ever came to them, and being as they were they may have just like to stick to that, never mind what was actually the case. They never did much in the kind of modern science, anyway.

At Rivendell there would have been certainly good information on the SA, but not so much about the Elder Days, aside from the War of Wrath, of course. Glorfindel, regardless when exactly he returned to Middle-earth, would have been bound by the same secrecy the Istari were. He wouldn't have been a fountain of metaphysical or cosmological truth.

17 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Yes, Christopher took out the Pengolodh framing because of how he interpreted that 1958 note about The Silmarillion needing to be a Mannish tradition. It still hasn't stopped multiple people from reading those framing devices back in, whether it be actual scholars, or just fanfiction writers who want to be nicer to the Feanorians. And if you're going after Christopher for that, I take it you are also angry about Treebeard's line about "Orcs being a mockery of Elves" - an opinion (and Tolkien acknowledges it is an opinion) that many take as true because of the way it is presented?

Oh, but that's just a note. You cannot, on the one hand, say things were never properly reworked, and then pretend an intention effectively is pretty much a rework. As long as the actually texts are supposed by various fictional authors - Aelwine, Rúmil, Pengolodh, etc. that's how the story should have been presented.

The way Christopher's Silmarillion is usually read by people who don't read and dig through the other stuff is that this is how it actually happened, not realizing that this was never what JRRT himself ever said. Pretending something is less complex than it is means to cheapen it.

The Silmarillion is the Reader's Digest version of Tolkien's actual work on the Elder Days, and should be treated as such. It is not the thing everybody should point to when asking about those stories - and certainly not when wants to know the intention of the author.

And with the hint in the appendices that Bilbo may have actually translated the Silmarillion from texts at Rivendell, there was actually a rather obvious way how to make this thing part of Mannish tradition - after all, in that form the great stories about the Elves would have been translated/reinterpreted by a Hobbit and pass into Mannish tradition from there.

How one could deal with the remarks in the Ainulindale manuscript is another issue, but there is no reason to believe that Sam couldn't have taken a copy of the Red Book with him to Eressea when he left.

17 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

As for The Silmarillion, I think it is of value because it is a Silmarillion. To go back and revise it would ironically be a much more overt stab at creating a definitive text ("X is wrong. It was really Y"). We know The Silmarillion isn't definitive, so why pretend?  

We do know that, but not exactly the general audience as I pointed out above.

And I'm not saying one should sell a revised Silmarillion as 'a definite text' (although one could certainly better the text that we have simply by correcting the faulty genealogy). Rather as a text that reflects the actual state of the various versions, referencing every editorial decision and leaving blanks where there actually are blanks. Or better still - just do it the way Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin were done. Start with the Sketch up to the last versions of the Quenta Silmarillion. The Lost Tales, the Lays, and the longer tales are not part of that specific 'outline tradition'.