- Here is the
first post where I noticed several quotes where the attack on the Dwarves at Sarn Athrad was carried out by Celegorm and Curufin.
So why do we have the published version in the Silmarillion which is so radically different from what is in the later notes? In short, Christopher Tolkien chose to go with the much earlier version of the story – and also add to it – so as to have something to fit with the rest of the published Silmarillion he was editing together. But, he admits, the version he wrote might have been a poor decision.
“This story was not lightly or easily conceived, but was the outcome of long experimentation among alternative conceptions. In this work Guy Kay took a major part, and the chapter that I finally wrote owes much to my discussions with him. It is, and was, obvious that a Step was being taken of a different order from any other ‘manipulation’ of my father’s own writing in the course of the book: even in the case of the story of The Fall of Gondolin, to which my father had never returned, something could be contrived without introducing radical changes in the narrative. It seemed at that time that there were elements inherent in the story of the Ruin of Doriath as it stood that were radically incompatible with ‘The Silmarillion’ as projected, and that there was here an inescapable choice: either to abandon that conception, or else to alter the story. I think now that this was a mistaken view, and that the undoubted difficulties could have been, and should have been, surmounted without so far overstepping the bounds of the editorial function.”
(All quotes are from HoMe 11 The War of the Jewels unless otherwise noted)
Now my goal in the first post wasn’t to state which version is “canon” and which isn’t, because that’s the very nature of The Silmarillion and the delight and issue of its fandom – that there are many versions. And I do not consistently choose one or the other when it comes to going with the published Silmarillion or favoring the version that is chronologically newer or more common. For instance, I firmly reject Teleporno and the last revised history of Galadriel and Celeborn. And for personal reasons I like Gil-galad as the son of Fingon. But part of being a Silmarillion fan is choosing which interpretations appeal to you. Which ones you feel have better internal story consistency and fit the characterizations.
(I will say that I tend to place the earliest rough draft versions, especially if contradicted by all following canon, as much lower in my consideration except as something for fun and AUs. Like Beren’s father being named Egnor. But it is something I don’t feel entitled to police other fans over.)
So I endeavored to give a little more thought and scrutiny to not only this revision(s) where the Fëanorians are responsible for the attack on the dwarves at Sarn Athrad (again, see the other post with relevant pulled quotes), but also how the death of Thingol arose. As I only pulled up the quotes from the timelines where Celegorm and Curufin are the ones to ambush the dwarven army on a whim as I was searching for something else, I think this and related issues deserve a full look:
Tag: silmarillion meta
Some thoughts on Numenor, the Valar, Dunedain, and Morgoth
- I can agree that the Valar choosing to completely destroy Numenor (given Tolkien’s assertion in the Letters that the power to do so came from Eru, but the Valar chose the method of wielding it) does seem like overkill, but I’ve generally just shrugged because Tolkien wanted his Atlantis. (I mean really the Numenorean fleet was not a substantial threat, just destroy the fleet and leave the island alone, that’ll probably take out the leaders anyway.) However, the Valar are as a rule not the type to take that sort of aggressive action. Even leaving aside that I firmly believe the Valar to be fair and just rulers, I just can’t think of any other time they take action that abruptly and dramatically. That leaves the question of why, exactly, the Valar chose to wipe out Numenor, and particularly in that specific and dramatic a fashion.
- The question of why exactly Numenoreans/Dunedain are so wildly different from regular humans – practically half-elves. @anghraine‘s posts about Numenoreans as parallels to orcs* seemed close, but not quite right, the orcs required a lot of hands-on intervention while the Valar seem to have been pretty hands-off w/r/t Numenor, and it doesn’t really explain the variance in lifespan we see with later descendants of Numenor or the general waning lifespan over the history of Numenor. Orcs stay orcs, but Numenoreans start losing some (some! not all) of their elvishness just from turning away from the Valar, even without the genetic dilution that happens in Middle-earth. (Other aspects seem to be stable traits that don’t need maintenance, so to speak.)**
- Valinor is what it is – deathless, holy, preserving various species that are extinct elsewhere, etc. – due to the presence of the Valar and not of it’s own nature by right. We know that Melkor dissipated a great deal of his power by sinking it into Middle-earth in order to contaminate and control as much of the land as he could. So it seems self-evident that a great deal of Valinor’s character is due to the Valar’s power having rooted there in the same way, though less-intentionally, and to a much lesser degree on an individual basis. Each of the fourteen Valar sinking a small fraction of their power into Valinor could easily have a cumulative effect just as substantial (if not more so) than Melkor’s influence on Middle-earth. Or, thinking about it from another angle – the Valar (and their Maiar) on some fundamental level are the spiritual manifestation of the [meta-]physical universe itself. I.e. we know their visible forms are just constructs they use to interact with the embodied races; their ‘true bodies’ are in a sense the physical and metaphysical matter which they are responsible for. So Melkor’s contamination of Middle-earth is at once a direct conflict with them over territory, a way of taking control of some portion of them, and an indirect method of poisoning their very nature both by metaphysical contamination and by forcing them to make no-win choices where every possible outcome makes them complicit in death, destruction, pain, despair – the Trolley Problem writ large, only Melkor is driving the trolley while the Valar can only control the tracks.
- In the Athrabeth, there’s discussion of whether the race of Men in their current state exist as they should and/or what influence Melkor has had on Men since he discovered them before the Valar did and thus had a chance to poison them unopposed. There’s a school of thought that says Men were originally immortal.
All this taken together, my conclusions are:
Regarding and Revisiting the death of Thingol and the subsequent ambush of the dwarven army
- Here is the
first post where I noticed several quotes where the attack on the Dwarves at Sarn Athrad was carried out by Celegorm and Curufin.
So why do we have the published version in the Silmarillion which is so radically different from what is in the later notes? In short, Christopher Tolkien chose to go with the much earlier version of the story – and also add to it – so as to have something to fit with the rest of the published Silmarillion he was editing together. But, he admits, the version he wrote might have been a poor decision.
“This story was not lightly or easily conceived, but was the outcome of long experimentation among alternative conceptions. In this work Guy Kay took a major part, and the chapter that I finally wrote owes much to my discussions with him. It is, and was, obvious that a Step was being taken of a different order from any other ‘manipulation’ of my father’s own writing in the course of the book: even in the case of the story of The Fall of Gondolin, to which my father had never returned, something could be contrived without introducing radical changes in the narrative. It seemed at that time that there were elements inherent in the story of the Ruin of Doriath as it stood that were radically incompatible with ‘The Silmarillion’ as projected, and that there was here an inescapable choice: either to abandon that conception, or else to alter the story. I think now that this was a mistaken view, and that the undoubted difficulties could have been, and should have been, surmounted without so far overstepping the bounds of the editorial function.”
(All quotes are from HoMe 11 The War of the Jewels unless otherwise noted)
Now my goal in the first post wasn’t to state which version is “canon” and which isn’t, because that’s the very nature of The Silmarillion and the delight and issue of its fandom – that there are many versions. And I do not consistently choose one or the other when it comes to going with the published Silmarillion or favoring the version that is chronologically newer or more common. For instance, I firmly reject Teleporno and the last revised history of Galadriel and Celeborn. And for personal reasons I like Gil-galad as the son of Fingon. But part of being a Silmarillion fan is choosing which interpretations appeal to you. Which ones you feel have better internal story consistency and fit the characterizations.
(I will say that I tend to place the earliest rough draft versions, especially if contradicted by all following canon, as much lower in my consideration except as something for fun and AUs. Like Beren’s father being named Egnor. But it is something I don’t feel entitled to police other fans over.)
So I endeavored to give a little more thought and scrutiny to not only this revision(s) where the Fëanorians are responsible for the attack on the dwarves at Sarn Athrad (again, see the other post with relevant pulled quotes), but also how the death of Thingol arose. As I only pulled up the quotes from the timelines where Celegorm and Curufin are the ones to ambush the dwarven army on a whim as I was searching for something else, I think this and related issues deserve a full look:
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