Stephen Colbert questions Jackson

where is he?

well Nora , active soldiers usually go to the gym a lot

dunno where he is, maybe one day he'll come back.

I'm not sure if this helps, or if this is even true, but I was reading UT yesterday, and as Colbert said, Sindarin elves are in charge and Silvan elves are subjects. The same goes for the elves of Lorien. I always thought that the green elves of Ossiriand were somehow correlated to elves of Mirkwood, but I'm probably wrong about that.

The Silvan elves and the green elves were akin. Both abandoned the Great March and lingered in what would later become Wilderland, but the green elves eventually decided to cross the Blue Mountains and settled in Ossiriand.

Centuries later, after the destruction of Beleriand (of which Ossiriand was a part), some of the Sindar joined the Silvan elves and became rulers.

Eldorion is quite right, as usual.

It is somewhat interesting to me that [also in Unfinished Tales, late note] Tolkien describes that the Silvan Elves had invented no forms of writing...

'The Silvan Elves had invented no forms of writing, and those who learned the art from the Sindar wrote in Sindarin as well as they could.' JRR Tolkien, Unfinished Tales, Appendix A to The History of Galadriel And Celeborn, The Silvan Elves And Their Speech.


The first edition of The Lord of the Rings seems to describe Celeborn the Sindarin Elf as migrating to the south of Greenwood the Great [arguably with a number of other Sindar]. One assumes that he became Lord of the Silvan Elves at this point, and was later joined by Galadriel -- see also Galadriel's line about 'before' the Fall of Nargothrond and Gondolin however [as Celeborn was probably a Nandorin Elf when Tolkien wrote that].

Tolkien changed this bit about Celeborn however. However again, in my opinion it's still implied [at least] that Thranduil founded his realm in Mirkwood early in the Second Age, rather than after Oropher's death [Unfinished Tales].

Celeborn is in the second edition not noted as going to Greenwood early in the Second Age, and with the publication of The Road Goes Ever On, it is stated that with Galadriel he went to Eregion rather. So who went to Lorien early in the Second Age? Amdir it seems, a Sindarin Elf again, who had a son named Amroth. Amroth is at least noted [in The Lord of the Rings] as a former ruler of Lorien, before Galadriel and Celeborn -- who now take up rule there well into the Third Age!


So there are some grey areas here... I mean white areas... no I mean grey areas.*


I think Robert Foster agrees with me when the posthumously published accounts of Oropher are not in play, as he writes: 'Thranduil: Sindarin Elf, King of the Woodland Realm, father of Legolas. At the beginning of the Second Age, Thranduil lived in Lindon, but before Second Age 1000 he established a kingdom in Greenwood the Great. This Kingdom survived, despite attacks by the great spiders and the orcs and a war with the Dwarves, for more than two ages of Middle-earth.'

As that is the implication of Appendix B. Arguably Tolkien could claim that the wording in Appendix B is simply much compressed, and so only seems to leave out the more detailed history of Oropher's kingdom [which itself has two versions in any case] -- but again there is really no reason to inject any Oropher, from Appendix B alone anyway.

We have to inject Amroth however. Even if Celeborn was early considered a Nandorin Elf, Amroth was yet:

'Of old he was an Elven-king,
a lord of tree and glen,
when golden were the boughs in spring
In fair Lothlorien'

And Cerin Amroth was 'the heart of the ancient realm as it was long ago'

In the early drafts, Amroth seems indeed an ancient king of Lothlorien, which appears to have been golden boughed before [later conception] Galadriel introduced the golden mallorn-trees there.

So, if any of this is correct [it's mostly from memory from my 'Galadriel studies' years ago] maybe I just blew your mind in that this post was arguably not necessary. I mean not at all.

_______________
*this entire post was simply so I could write this line.

So there are some grey areas here... I mean white areas... no I mean grey areas.*

*this entire post was simply so I could write this line.

 

Oh... did I write that out loud?

Drat.

a war with the dwarves? i am super confused.

Don't worry, Norc. The "Galadriel and Celeborn" section is one of the most convoluted, contradictory, revised-multiple-times-with-no-clear-final-version elements of the entire legendarium. I think just about everyone is confused by at least some part of it (except maybe Elthir ).

That said, I'm not entirely sure what Foster is referring to unless he means the abortive Elf/Human vs. Dwarf conflict that preceded the Battle of the Five Armies. Perhaps he based that statement on the mention in The Hobbit of a previous Elf/Dwarf conflict that was the cause of the Elven-king's mistrust of Thorin and Co., although that is usually interpreted as referring to the Ruin of Doriath.

oh god i give up..

Actually though, I feel the need to quibble with something in Elthir's post (though in general I like it a lot ).

Elthir wrote:I think Robert Foster agrees with me when the posthumously published accounts of Oropher are not in play, as he writes:

I don't think this means much, because the last substantial revision to Foster's Complete Guide to Middle-earth took place in 1978, and so the Guide has never incorporated material published later than The Silmarillion.  Oropher was not, to my memory, mentioned anywhere outside of Unfinished Tales, which would make his exclusion from Foster inevitable.  However, there is certainly a case to be made for not applying too much information from Tolkien's incomplete posthumous notes to material that was published in his lifetime if it's not clear how (or sometimes even if) Tolkien intended the two to be related.  Then again, if we didn't do that, there'd be very little we could say about the First or Second Ages with any degree of certainty.

Yet to go back to the other (first) hand, one could argue that we already can't say much of anything about the First or Second Age with certainty because anyone who is well-read in Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth can usually find an alternative passage and make a case for why that should be given precedence if they want to.

Norc wrote:oh god i give up..

If you want to study Tolkien, you need to accept the wisdom of So-crates.



"The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing."

oh ha ha very funny.

I'm actually being serious (sort of).  There are no concrete answers to most questions regarding Tolkien's stories outside of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  There's just a mass of unfinished, largely contradictory and writing and whatever arguments different people can make for following one or the other. Some arguments are pretty strong, but others are down to little more than personal preference.

Eldorion wrote:Don't worry, Norc.  The "Galadriel and Celeborn" section is one of the most convoluted, contradictory, revised-multiple-times-with-no-clear-final-version elements of the entire legendarium.  I think just about everyone is confused by at least some part of it (except maybe Elthir ).

A vote of confidence! Thanks Eldorion.

My Galadriel studies did indeed include this tangle, at least [understanding it all or not], and I think I have uncovered even more possible tangles by digging deep.

A few 'problems' simply can't be solved, at least easily -- but as I put author-published text first and foremost, that in itself solves more than some people might realize -- that is, when you want to imagine Celeborn and Galadriel's history from an internal perspective.

Of course not all people put what Tolkien published first and use it not simply to knock out contradictory descriptions, but use it to question some of Tolkien's posthumously published work. I do, especially since I am fairly convinced that often enough JRRT wrote without his own sources in front of him, despite his concern for consistency; but that's just me.



Concerning Foster and Oropher you are correct again, and that also was sort of my point: when we do not consider the posthumously published material on Oropher -- especially as if we have never read it, and thus read Appendix B without its influence -- Foster seems to 'agree' with the natural implication that Thranduil founded his realm in the Second Age, that realm being the one the reader is already aware of from The Hobbit [natural enough to think so]...

... but yes as you note, Foster doesn't take Unfinished Tales into account because he can't [or couldn't at the time], and that to me is good, because he then interprets Appendix B more freely. That is why I would quote [well, in potential] Foster's first Guide too, written before The Silmarillion was available, as there he will interpret The Lord of the Rings and other author-published sources without the influence of posthumously published texts.

Sorry this idea intrigues me. Maybe a bit similar to: does Bombadil really seem to describe a once 'flat earth' to first time readers?

However, that said, I forgot [drat!] about an interesting bit concerning the foundation of Thranduil's realm and Appendix B, as within the text of The Lord of the Rings itself, I think it is Legolas who says [something like]: the people of the Wood did not build underground until the Shadow came.

Well realm and underground fortress are different things of course, but the arguable implication for Thranduil's underground halls here is Third Age [Shadow falls on Greenwood], rather than early-ish Second Age.

Elthir wrote:A few 'problems' simply can't be solved, at least easily -- but as I put author-published text first and foremost, that in itself solves more than some people might realize -- that is, when you want to imagine Celeborn and Galadriel's history from an internal perspective.

Interesting.
The Silmarillion is a great read, but it does tangle the Galadriel/Celeborn story a bit. I'll admit since reading the Silmarillion I don't look at The Hobbit and The Lord of Rings to get the history of Middle Earth without considering the Silmarillion; that is to say I find looking at the history from an internal perspective, as you put it, to be difficult, for me at least.

Elthir wrote:However, that said, I forgot [drat!] about an interesting bit concerning the foundation of Thranduil's realm and Appendix B, as within the text of The Lord of the Rings itself, I think it is Legolas who says [something like]: the people of the Wood did not build underground until the Shadow came.

Well realm and underground fortress are different things of course, but the arguable implication for Thranduil's underground halls here is Third Age [Shadow falls on Greenwood], rather than early-ish Second Age.

I think it's neat to see the evolution of some of this...

Hmm, intriguing Recovery, if I may call you that

The Silmarillion, the constructed version I mean, basically represents my internal version of Galadriel's history [Celeborn is barely mentioned, although he is Sindarin], but it does bring up a point, for example, when one considers The Road Goes Ever On in tandem with a statement in The Lord of the Rings, about when Galadriel passed out of Beleriand, and whether or not Celeborn was with her.

I think the constructed Silmarillion agrees with two 'major' author-published points anyway: that Galadriel was part of the Rebellion of the Noldor [from The Road Goes Ever On, which explains Galadriel's song in The Lord of the Rings in light of her actions], and that Celeborn was Sindarin [The Lord of the Rings, The Road Goes Ever On].

The Silmarillion does not recount much of Galadriel and Celeborn in the later days of the First Age, but The Lord of the Rings seems to say that Galadriel passed [perhaps not truly alone, but the arguable suggestion is: not with Celeborn anyway] over 'the mountains' before the Fall of Nargothrond, and 'together' with Celeborn they fought the Long Defeat.

"He has dwelt in the west since the days of dawn, and I have dwelt with him years uncounted; for ere the fall of Nargothrond or Gondolin I passed over the mountains, and together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat."

Which mountains, the Blue Mountains? Christopher Tolkien seems to think so, and he thinks that when Tolkien wrote that the idea was that Celeborn was a Nandorin Elf, and Galadriel left Beleriand 'early' to ultimately meet him in 'Lorien'.

But Tolkien later changed his mind, and the published first edition relates that Celeborn was Sindarin [thus he lived in Beleriand until some point], and The Road Goes Ever On describes that after the Fall of Morgoth, Galadriel with Celeborn crossed the Blue Mountains [now named] and passed to Eregion. This agrees well enough with his Sindarin status, at least.

In short, even for the second edition Tolkien never revised The Lord of the Rings here, which at least suggests variant movements.

For my internal consistency here, I have tried to 'alter' which mountains Galadriel is talking about in The Lord of the Rings, given [at least] that they are not named.

One example anyway

Brain officially melted.

I've read Unfinished Tales and The Sil multiple times, and I'm halfway through the HOME, but I've got to admit you had me totally lost after your first five posts Elthir-in a good way of course, and I was the bloke who wrote a 25,000 word essay on Cirdan the shipwright...it's always nice to have a loremaster around the place.

We moan about Jackson not sticking to canon, but after this thread it becomes quickly apparent Tolkien did the same!

'(...) and I was the bloke who wrote a 25,000 word essay on Cirdan the shipwright...'

Wow 25,000 words! I mean I've probably already read all 25,000 words somewhere, but not in the same order that you put them in for your essay on Cirdan.

Sorry, I am silly. Is the essay here somewhere? Did I read it at another forum? If you put it here you might qualify for votes, and when you get enough votes you might then take my place in the Tower. I'm getting comfortable there however, so make sure to dot your tees and cross your eyes...

... sorry I went silly again.

If the essay is here already I apologize. Ah my memory. Getting old doesn't always help with mastering things, even lore. Of course if your essay succeeds in casting me out, I might spread horse-berries around the place before I leave, as a pungent comment on the ignominy...

... but I only do so to better illustrate the high honour of the Tower. Something untoward is expected I would think, in any case. Eldorion was too nice, although I suspect him of shrinking my hat before I arrived.

The message was well made no matter who it was.

Here you go, on my old blog:

http://paulashwellreviews.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/an-explanation-of-why-i-consider-cirdan-the-shipwright-the-greatest-character-in-jrr-tolkiens-imagined-timeline-for-hard-core-tolkien-fans-only/

Be warned I have a habit of getting bored and making it even longer (I haven't yet finished all of the H.O.M.E so I'm sure there is more I could dig out...), and I might have been slighty drunk writing it...



I was also tempted to write essay's on Dain Ironfoot, Thorin and The atalking purse  (though 25,00 thousand words on that might be a little hard)

Thanks Malickfan, I'll read it.

And if you add essays on Dain and the talking purse my time in the tower may be up soon. If so before I go I'm taking the rose bush I planted. And some silver spoons.

And maybe some other stuff.

I honestly wouldn't have thought 25K words could be written on Cirdan, until I read it. Nice work, very interesting, very honestly balanced.

And now [on the 'repor' as I'll spell it] we have a recent characterization, by Stephen Fry, of Boyens as a notable Tolkien expert -- as Stephen Colbert beat Boyens in a Tolkien quiz.