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Post by fanuidhol on Feb 9, 2008 19:39:34 GMT -6
I have some information on the Tevildo/Thu/Sauron warp but I can't take time this morning to go into it. I'm taking my mother-in-law shopping and then we have a play later tonight. I may try to get back on here this afternoon if I have time. Hang in til I get back! There may be some info on the timeline structuring in Shaping of Middle Earth...do you have that HoME book? Thanks for this, Stormrider! I took a look at Shaping of Middle-earth and found a number of interesting things. One of the reasons Tolkien might have taken out the Beren/Tinuviel reference is because of the genealogy problem it created. I hope everybody can understand my logic in the following senario. Remember Beren/Tinuviel could have only destroyed Thu's castle within the last 100 years. In the chapter "The Earliest 'Silmarillion'" dated about 1926 - 1930, Elrond is already the son of Elwing, who is already the daughter of Dior, who is already the son of Beren/Tinuviel. On Elrond's dad's side, we have Earendel, son of Idril, daughter of Turgon. If Elrond was 20 - 38 at the time of the Hobbit and everybody had their babies when they were 20.... ...Beren and Tinuviel could have destroyed Thu/Sauron's castle 81 - 99 years prior. But, Gondolin therefore had to have been destroyed only 39 -57 years prior to H, since Earendel was already born. Considering all the turbulence that occurs after the destruction of Gondolin...I can see why Tolkien wanted to remove H to a more idyllic time. The easiest way to do this is remove the time constraints that the Beren/Tinuviel reference created. Shaping of Middle-earth also, contains the first reference to The First Age that I've found in the "Earliest Annals of Valinor" chapter written earlier than the late 30's. It looks like there is more great stuff in this book but, I have to call it a night. Fan
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 10, 2008 2:18:11 GMT -6
Yep, Stormrider, THANKS! You provide us with good summation material for the various characters who played "second fiddle" to Morgoth through the developmental sequence of the mythology. But, we have to remember that the quotes you give us for BLT1 p.49, and BLT #2 pp 52-55 where the term Necromancer shows up, are all from the section of commentary-notes, not the actual JRRT text. For BLT #1, p. 49 pb, 52 hb, Chris Tolkien uses the term "demonic", but in the actual JRRT text, p. 47 in the hb version, there is no use of demon or demonic. Likewise, we have to go back to pages 6 - 50 of BLT2, for example, to see if the actual "Lay of Tinuviel" (in this early version) ever uses the term Necromancer/ necromancer. I've pored over these pages, no Necromancer that my weary eyes can see, nor did I find any mention of Tevildo "speaking to" or controlling ghosts, the function of a necromancer. So, in this case, we can be fairly sure Chris Tolkien (pp, 52-53 in BLT#2) is using the term Necromancer anachronistically, that is, before it actually appears in any JRRT text.
One item of interest, for me, in this first version of LT, is that in the actual JRRT text we have an early example of the term "fay" being used in conjunction with one of Melko's evil lieutenants: " ... for long has it been said that Tevildo was an evil fay in beastlike shape." (BLT#2, p. 28). This may be useful later in trying to define whether Fay = Maia. In the second version LT, pp 40 -50, we have another piece of information identifying Queen Melian as a "sprite" (p. 41), and a bit later, Melian is now called a Fay: Tinuviel's "... mother was a fay, a child of Lorien" and a second version adds Tinuviel's "mother was a fay, a daughter of the Gods." (BLT #2, p. 42). So now we have the possibility that fay = sprite = maia? P. 44 ibid, also gives us one more alternate name, Tevildo = Tiberth. A proper title of Tevildo/ Tiberth is given on p. 46, properly capitalized: "Prince of the Evil Heart," but still there is no mention of Necromancer.
I'll keep working through the HOME volumes, trying to find where Chris Tolkien "inappropriately" uses the term Necromancer, and simultaneously check the actual JRRT texts for any appearance of Necromancer/ necromancer/ ghost talker. I'll bet Fan's presentation of little "n" necromancer, in the April 1928 Lay of Leithian, Canto VIII, lines 2064 - 2079, will prove to be our first actual JRRT use of the term!
RE Fan's: "One of the reasons Tolkien might have taken out the Beren/Tinuviel reference is because of the genealogy problem it created."
Hmm, maybe, IF we can accept that the long-lived Elves (or were they such in the early tales?) produced a new generation every 20 years, certainly Arwen does not do so in the very late LotR material. Do we have any evidence for such "quick-fire" reproduction among the Elves of the early-version mythology? I think, Fan, you do provide us with a possible mechanism for getting the Beren/ Tinuviel reference into a plausible time connection for a Hobbit tale thought to have taken place in what would have been the First Age, and I can't find any thing at hand to deny it, but somehow it doesn't feel comfortable to me.
RE Fan's: "Shaping of Middle-earth also, contains the first reference to The First Age that I've found in the "Earliest Annals of Valinor" chapter written earlier than the late 30's. It looks like there is more great stuff in this book but, I have to call it a night."
GREAT, thanks for this bit, maybe that helps us here if we posit the Beren/ Tinuviel inclusion (subsequently excluded) came 1930 to 1933, The Hobbit may come after the system of Ages was shaping up, or in place?
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Post by fanuidhol on Feb 10, 2008 5:05:00 GMT -6
Andorinha wrote: "Hmm, maybe, IF we can accept that the long-lived Elves (or were they such in the early tales?) produced a new generation every 20 years, certainly Arwen does not do so in the very late LotR material. Do we have any evidence for such "quick-fire" reproduction among the Elves of the early-version mythology? I think, Fan, you do provide us with a possible mechanism for getting the Beren/ Tinuviel reference into a plausible time connection for a Hobbit tale thought to have taken place in what would have been the First Age, and I can't find any thing at hand to deny it, but somehow it doesn't feel comfortable to me."
Of course! That was my point! Everything would be too rushed and also put the Fall of Gondolin in an uncomfortably close timeframe...most likely AFTER Bilbo was born. Take out Beren/Tinuviel from The Hobbit and then the Fall of Gondolin could recede into ancient times because the babies could be born in their own sweet time rather than generations in quick succession. Fan
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Post by fanuidhol on Feb 10, 2008 6:01:59 GMT -6
In my mind, I am jumping up and down with glee. ;D
I had a strong gut feeling that Sauron = Thu rather than Sauron being a brand new being with some attributes of Thu. HoMe vol V: The Lost Road.... Fall of Numenor chapter which I think was written 1936-1937: "[The Last Alliance] came at last even to Mordor the Black Country, where Sauron, that is in the Gnomish tongue named Thu, had rebuilt his fortresses."
Quote #1,000,024 -- keeping accurate count, Andorinha?
"Second Age" is mentioned three times in this book, however, only by CT and not by JRR. Fan
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 10, 2008 10:28:14 GMT -6
RE Fan's: "Everything would be too rushed and also put the Fall of Gondolin in an uncomfortably close timeframe...most likely AFTER Bilbo was born. Take out Beren/Tinuviel from The Hobbit and then the Fall of Gondolin could recede into ancient times because the babies could be born in their own sweet time rather than generations in quick succession."
Makes sense to me, still "uneasy" as a silent watcher about it, but can't find anything definite. I need to look at (or find!) material that would allow us to better pin down JRRT's first presentation of a scheme of Ages -- pre Hobbit, or post?
**********
Good Research, Fan!
"HoMe vol V: The Lost Road.... Fall of Numenor chapter which I think was written 1936-1937: '[The Last Alliance] came at last even to Mordor the Black Country, where Sauron, that is in the Gnomish tongue named Thu, had rebuilt his fortresses.' " * on page 15 we have a similar passage -- "... Sur (whom the Gnomes call Thu) came in the likeness of a great bird to Numenor..." Here, JRRT acts like he is very concerned that we now know Sur = Thu, as if it just occurred to him to make this amalgamation? lol, maybe just making sure he gets across, to his own mind, the alteration in names?
If we can accept the dates given for HOME V, p. 1 as 1937-38, this is still "late days" in the scenario. The quote here, drat can't find a page number, gives us at least a ten year period for the development of Thu and a gradual movement towards Sauron. What this quote does give us, is an understanding that by 37/ 38, JRRT had decided to merge the two characters, and subsume Thu under the new name Sauron. I gots no troubles with that. It does not mean Thu = Sauron in ALL particulars back in 1928.
RE Fan's: "I had a strong gut feeling that Sauron = Thu rather than Sauron being a brand new being with some attributes of Thu."
Never said, a "brand new" entity. This is a tough one here. You and Stormrider, I think, are seeing the glass half-full, lol, stressing the continuities between Thu and Sauron? To my mind also there ARE more continuities here (between Thu and Sauron) than between Tevildo and Thu. But I keep harking back to CT's admission that we cannot be sure how much of Thu is AUTOMATICALLY reiterated in the later version, Sauron. This is what I'm still trying to work out. So, maybe I'm just seeing the glass "half-empty," stressing the discontinuities? But, I do gotta admit, you and Stormrider have forced me to see that there is at least some water in the cup after all, and -- if we find more points of similarity as we go on, sigh, it gets ever more full even to my sceptical eye...
"It would scarcely be true, I think, to say even that Sauron 'originated' in a cat: in the next phase of the legends the Necromancer (Thu) has no feline attributes. On the other hand it would be wrong to regard it as a simple matter of replacement (Thu stepping into the narrative place vacated by Tevildo) without any element of transformation of what was previously there." CT in BLT#2, p.p 53
RE Fan's: "In my mind, I am jumping up and down with glee."
Humph, you may NEED such exercise soon -- your "excessive celebration" could land you in a sticky Role Play scenario together with that dratted DA, Stormrider and Megn1 -- then you'll ALL suffer! Nyah-nyah-nyah! Of course it'll be a "closed RP," totally under my control! (Crash of thunder here, rising swells of heavy organ music, Fugue & T. in D minor stuff).
LOL -- "Over #1,000,024 come-up-ances served!"
Yea, grumble-mumble, well, humble pie's still got lots of vitamins, even if it tastes like rhubarb-spinach-castor oil...
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Post by Stormrider on Feb 10, 2008 17:22:00 GMT -6
Ok, I guess I did pick up on CT's commentary regarding Tevildo/Thû/Sauron and will now start looking for something in JRRT's own words to confirm what CT is drawing his assumptions from.
"Muhahahahaha!" Evil demonic laughing bursts overhead as Stormrider pulls out the forum administration keys and dangles them before the small Green Dragon's bloodshot eyes. "There will be no CLOSED RP's while I hold the keys to the forum. Muhahahaha!"
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 10, 2008 20:41:05 GMT -6
RE Stormrider's:' "Muhahahahaha!" Evil demonic laughing bursts overhead as Stormrider pulls out the forum administration keys and dangles them before the small Green Dragon's bloodshot eyes. "There will be no CLOSED RP's while I hold the keys to the forum. Muhahahaha!" '
"Curses! Foiled again!"
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Post by fimbrethil on Feb 10, 2008 21:19:40 GMT -6
Fanuidhol - hooray for finally linking Thu with Sauron. That seems the final link.
I re-read Tolkien's Letters #17 and 19, and they seem to make it clear that The Hobbit "intruded" (let 17) into the world about which Tolkien had already written much.
The mention, and then removal, of Beren and Tinuviel seems to show that he wasn't sure where in the backstory the Hobbit fit. I like the geneological solution. Perhaps it was when Elrond showed up as a character in the story that JRRT realized he had to remove the earlier reference. Without that, he could have left the Hobbit story in the first age.
Now I've got a new problem for you all. It has to do with geography. But I think I'll stick it in a new post.
Fimbrethil
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Post by fimbrethil on Feb 10, 2008 21:41:19 GMT -6
Way back in message #4 of this thread, Fan said
The major evidence of an early link to M-e is the map of Fimbulfambi. (Fimbulfambi=Thror). This ancestor of Thor's map is also the precursor to the map of Wilderland. I'm having a difficult time summarizing Rateliff's essay on this subject. "Comparison of the first Silmarillion map in Volume IV of The History of Middle-earth with Fimbulfambi's Map shows a striking parallelism in the former's placement of Taur-na-Fuin and Dor-na-Fauglith, the ruined plain to the north between Beleriand and Thangorodrim also known as Anfauglith, and the latter's Wild Wood and Withered Heath..." (pg 20) Rateliff places Lonely Mountain just off the Eastern edge of the Silm map, near where Tolkien would later place the Hill of Himring. In Silm, Anfauglith is where the dragons were first seen. The Withered Heath is where dragons used to live at this stage of H. Later on there was shifts in the geography.
In message 42 Andorinha said This act (were there others?) then left The Hobbit with few connections to the mythology save the large ones regarding the use of the same geography, and all the material that mentioned Elrond and Rivendell.
Here's my question: What is the relationship between the geography of the Hobbit world, and the Sil world? If I read Fan's post correctly, early on JRRT intended that they happen in the same locations. But though he later stitches them together in the same world, it clearly isn't the same places. Sil is located in Beleriand - which is drowned at some point - I think at the end of the first age, but I'm not finding that at this moment. Did Tolkien decide to drown Beleriand simply to explain the radical change of geography for the Hobbit? Or did it always end that way?
(I know that the drowning of Numenor was always integral to that story, but what about Beleriand?)
In other words, my question is, WHERE was the Hobbit originally supposed to happen? In the same general area as the Necromancer's castle - the one that Beren and Tinuviel overthrew? Or some other place?
(Hope that made sense...)
Fimbrethil
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 11, 2008 10:24:13 GMT -6
Keeping in mind that this is another statement by CT rather than a primary quote from JRRT, p. 25 The Lost Road, has an interesting passage to offer: " The last alliance leading to the overthrow of Thu is seen as the last intervention of the elves in the affairs of the World of Men, in itself hastening their inevitable fading. The 'dark forest' to which Thu fled (cf the 'Iron Forest' in the original outline) is doubtless Mirkwood. In The Hobbit all that had been told of the Necromancer was that he dwelt in a dark tower in the south of Mirkwood."* Bold face mine.
Lower on the page comes the explanatory footnote with regard to the manuscript as it was when lent to C.S. Lewis: *Letters #257, referring to The Hobbit. 'the (originally) quite casual reference to the Necromancer, whose function was hardly more than to provide a reason for Gandalf going away and leaving Bilbo and the Dwarves to fend for themselves, which was necessary for the tale.' "
Further quotes from this Letter give some insight into just how "insecure" was its original placement in the general scheme of the mythology: "The Hobbit was not intended to have anything to do with it [the mythology]. I had the habit while my children were still young of inventing and telling orally, sometimes writing down, 'children's stories' for their private amusement ... The Hobbit was intended to be one of them. It had no necessary connection with the 'mythology', but naturally became attracted toward this dominant construction in my mind, causing the tale to become larger and more heroic as it proceeded. Even so it could really stand quite apart, except for the references (unnecessary, though they give an impression of historical depth) to the Fall of Gondolin, ... the branches of the Elfkin... and the quarrel of King Thingol, Luthien's father, with the Dwarves."
"The magic ring was the one obvious thing in The Hobbit that could be connected with the mythology. To be the burden of a large story it had to be of supreme importance. I then linked it with the (originally) quite casual reference to the Necromancer, end of Ch. vii and Ch. xix, whose function was hardly more than to provide a reason for Gandalf going away and leaving Bilbo and the Dwarves to fend for themselves, which was necessary for the tale." Letter 257, p. 346
JRRT then goes on to admit that even his use of Elrond in the early versions of The Hobbit was more of a lucky accident than a designed attempt to put this tale within the embrace of the mythology, and, even here, I get no sense that JRRT ever considered the issue of time, that is, he seems not to have thought out any implications of Elven genealogy and a count of the years. "The passage in Ch. iii relating him [Elrond] to the Half-elven of the mythology was a fortunate accident, due to the difficulty of constantly inventing good names for new characters. I gave him [the elf lord of The Hobbit ] the name Elrond casually, but as this came from the mythology (Elros and Elrond the two sons of Earendel) I made him half-elven. Only in The Lord was he identified with the son of Earendel, and the great-grandson of Luthien and Beren, a great power and a Ringholder." (Letter 257, pp. 346-47 bold face mine)
Hmm, I'm seeing a bit less water in the cup today, but not enough less to allow my legs an unwonted flexibility, no jumpings of joy transported, yet.
I think the connection between Thu and sauron is well established now, thanks to Fan and Stormrider, and the connection of Sauron with the hobbit's Necromancer is strong from the Letter 19 reference (thanks Fan!). But the overall status of the Hobbit as a stand alone work, only secondarily and lightly impressed into the mythology, seems yet strong in my mind.
Here, following up Fimbrethil's concern now with the geographic matrix of The Hobbit, especially determining, if we can, when these specific references were slipped into the tale, might be another avenue for exploring just how The Hobbit fits into the mythos?
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 11, 2008 19:03:17 GMT -6
OK, I need a time-out, I'm confused here (yeah, common state of my mind, I should be used to it).
How many open questions do we have at present?
1. When does the scheme of Ages come into JRRT's mythology.
2. Where would the Hobbit fit into this scheme? Was it from the beginning thought of as being a very late piece, that is its events occurred ages and ages after the sinking of Beleriand; or did Bilbo take off for his adventures from a Hobbiton address IN Beleriand , just a short while after Sauron was tossed out of his castle, and Morgoth was ejected.
Or, was The Hobbit so fundamentally a separate work that it had NO real place in the mythology and its chronology until much later, say the mid 1940s period of LotR's composition?
3. Geography. Can we tell from the text of the Hobbit just WHEN the story should be placed, that is, are we talking about a Hobbiton in Beleriand, or a Hobbiton far east of the Blue mountains and a time long after Beleriand became a sea-bed bit of real estate?
Fan, could you explain the ramifications of your post concerning the Beren/ Tinuviel (destruction of Tol Gaurhoth) episode? Does this mean that you think because JRRT included this reference, he was at one time considering that the action events of The Hobbit occurred within a hundred or two years of this castle destruction? And that later, say post 1937, JRRT developed a chronological scheme with several Ages, and then re-assigned The Hobbit to a late date, Third Age?
THANKS!
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Post by fimbrethil on Feb 11, 2008 19:44:49 GMT -6
Andorinha,
Yes, I think you've got the questions correct. But I'm afraid questions 2 & 3 may be best answered by my earlier comment about randomness. See message #35 on this thread (from you):
RE Fimbrethil's: "Alternatively, he had no intention of putting Hobbit in the same world as his other stories, he just borrowed names and references from his epics and tossed them into his children's story for seasoning. Kind of like the way he stuck Tom Bombadil into LOTR. There may have been no intention to try to have it make sense as a whole cloth. This idea suggests a randomness to the original creation, with lots of clean-up later to make it work."
I LIKE IT! Bold thinking, but it seems to fit with my gut feeling here. Making the mythos, the Hobbit and LotR less a well-planned history than it seems later, after he went back to join things up into a single-flow narrative. Yeah, I REALLY LIKE IT! Thanks. But now, do we have to find quotes to "prove" it tonight?
The letters that you cited earlier seem to confirm this hypothesis. Especially the quote: The passage in Ch. iii relating him [Elrond] to the Half-elven of the mythology was a fortunate accident, due to the difficulty of constantly inventing good names for new characters. I gave him [the elf lord of The Hobbit ] the name Elrond casually, but as this came from the mythology (Elros and Elrond the two sons of Earendel) I made him half-elven.
You liked this idea of randomness. I do not. I don't like JRRT treating his own myths so lightly. But, on the other hand, I don't think he ever had any expectation that the Hobbit would be taken seriously. It was a light-hearted romp, at first. So sticking in the names of others, from older tales might have just been for fun.
I'll toss in another question: At the time that he was writing the Hobbit, did he have any expectation or hope that the Sil tales would ever be published? I know that he offered them to his publisher after the Hobbit was a success (and they were rejected). But was he trying to create a unified, publishable, "authoritative" whole version of these stories? Or were they just something he wrote for himself, his family and friends? If the latter, they would not need to be completely consistent or connected.
I'm sure he never expected that intelligent people would spend the kind of time and energy that we have spent asking these sorts of questions. What would he think of us?
(I've actually often asked myself this question - what would Tolkien think of me, given that I was shaped by his world and therefore am partly his creation? I'm afraid he would not understood most aspects of my personality, and those which he understood he would not have approved. Sigh...)
Sorry that I seem to be better at asking questions than answering them!
Fimbrethil
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 11, 2008 21:10:28 GMT -6
The Following is just MY reaction, I'll bet all the others have their own personal takes on this...
RE Fimbrethil's: "You liked this idea of randomness. I do not. I don't like JRRT treating his own myths so lightly. But, on the other hand, I don't think he ever had any expectation that the Hobbit would be taken seriously. It was a light-hearted romp, at first. So sticking in the names of others, from older tales might have just been for fun."
Hmm, did not mean to imply I like the "idea" of randomness that may be implied by this situation, what I like is the interpretation that the ME mythos grew topsy-turvy-like, rather than trying to see each work originally as just a part of the whole. I think, JRRT would have a bright idea, or a happy configuration of words, and it would suggest a deeper story to him, and in the heat of the moment he would write down in a rush whatever came to mind. I see this in his "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." After which bit of nonsense, he asked, what's a hobbit, and spent the next 10 years developing the answer in a publishable form. Meanwhile, other bits of writing, like the early tales of Eriol, BLT 1 and 2, sat waiting for his attention to return to them. Years might go by, before he would attempt a revision that might subsume all of his works to that date under the umbrella of the general ME mythos. By fits and starts, he was working first on one leaf, and then another, and only gradually realized that soon he had enough bits to form an entire tree -- after some editorial pruning, and a little paste and fill.
Here I don't see him necessarily ripping-out random parts of an older story, (cannibalizing his own works) to stick the parts into a new tale. I'm wondering if such "add-on" bits, like the name Elrond in The Hobbit, might not have been picked up as quick place-holders? He needs someone Elvish, or a venerable wizard type, can't come up with a suitable NEW name at the moment, adds Elrond to the new tale, intending a bit later to change it something like Legolam, or Rackolam. But later on he sees how this name (and the Old character it was attached to) just might fit nicely into the new tale. So, after a little editorial work, Elf Lord X in The Hobbit now assumes the personality and prior history of Elrond. Where such connections did not work, he would, when he got the time, substitute a new name: Bladorthin becomes Gandalf; and the chief Dwarf, Gandalf, becomes Thorin. He needs an excuse for Bladorthin/ Gandalf to leave the Dwarves and Bilbo so they can grow on their own, so he grabs the first thing that comes to mind: The Necromancer needs minding way down south. Boom, suddenly JRRT needs to know, who is this Necromancer -- a totally new character, or is there a suitable "baddie" already at hand to fit the bill? Why not use Thû/Sor/Sauron? But then, how does the earlier "historical baggage" of Sauron fit into the new tale? Does the Tol-Gaurhoth event work here? Yes, it does work! Oops, but what does this do to the chronology? It puts Tol-Gauhoth and Bilbo only a hundred or two hundred years apart, because originally the unrelated hobbit's tale had no ME mythos chronology. Now, suddenly it does have a chronology, and Tol-Gaurhoth just won't work. Well, better cut that bit, and set up a new castle down south, Dol Guldur. LOL, all this then suggests to JRRT some of the basic material that he can "cannibalize" for the next work, LotR. Suddenly, an independent tale, Bilbo's, has been willy-nilly reduced to conformity with the ME mythos...
This is the sort of randomness I see in JRRT's writing.
__________
RE: "But was he trying to create a unified, publishable, 'authoritative' whole version of these stories? Or were they just something he wrote for himself, his family and friends? If the latter, they would not need to be completely consistent or connected."
At first, I think he had no reason to smooth and force into a single mythos any of his tales. Some remained entirely outside ME, like Farmer Giles, and Smith of Wooton Major; others, like Tom Bombadil (severely reworked) got partly dragged into the centralized story just because he liked them. The Hobbit, originally with (as I argue, but maybe not Fan?) minimal ME connections really got worked over to make it VERY consistent with the mythos and the sequel, LotR. So, when faced with the realization that he could better feed his family with the proceeds of his fiction, IF it could appear as a well-joined narrative, he began the rush of his life (after 1938) in trying to make the whole mass consistent. He died before he could re-work the Silmarillion material one last time in order to sell it more easily as the pre-quel to The Hobbit and LotR.
_____________
RE Fim's: "I'm sure he never expected that intelligent people would spend the kind of time and energy that we have spent asking these sorts of questions. What would he think of us?"
Hey, who YOU calling intelligent!? Oh, you mean Stormy and Fan, and Megn1, Desi, Fredegar, Vanye, Fangorn, Androga, Illadria? OK.
LOL! No argument from me on this one at all! Yeah, should I not be spending all this time working in the gravel beds that surround my house, plucking weeds? But, since we are largely doing what JRRT himself considered the most important thing in his scholarly life (reading old texts and trying to analyze them the way he did OE literature!), I suppose, it might actually please the old boy greatly. Then again, catch him in a grumpy mood and he just might ask "can't you people find anything better to do!?"
_____________
Any body else remember an answer to this one: "At the time that he was writing the Hobbit, did he have any expectation or hope that the Sil tales would ever be published?"
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 11, 2008 21:30:24 GMT -6
Just want to "bump" this part of Fim's post to the foreground here, needs answers!
"Here's my question: What is the relationship between the geography of the Hobbit world, and the Sil world? If I read Fan's post correctly, early on JRRT intended that they happen in the same locations. But though he later stitches them together in the same world, it clearly isn't the same places. Sil is located in Beleriand - which is drowned at some point - I think at the end of the first age, but I'm not finding that at this moment. Did Tolkien decide to drown Beleriand simply to explain the radical change of geography for the Hobbit? Or did it always end that way?
(I know that the drowning of Numenor was always integral to that story, but what about Beleriand?)
In other words, my question is, WHERE was the Hobbit originally supposed to happen? In the same general area as the Necromancer's castle - the one that Beren and Tinuviel overthrew? Or some other place?
(Hope that made sense...)
Fimbrethil"
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Post by Stormrider on Feb 12, 2008 7:08:09 GMT -6
It seems to me, too, that Tolkien wrote many different stories of the different races, picking out several predominant characters to focus on. Eventually those stories began to fill into an actual history that he could work with and decide on timelines and ages. I think he had always hoped to publish The Silmarillion stories, but in what form, I am not sure. If he started shortly after The Hobbit was published, I feel that they may have been the individual stories rather than the whole since he was still working on the entire history when he died. I would say that JRRT had an idea of how his world affected people like us. The Letters of JRRT indicate that! Look how many letters he had received from people and tried to answer. How many letters did he actually send off in the mail with answers? He may not have realized how deep and widespread the affect of his story had but he must have been getting an idea that people were curious and wanted to know more. I wonder what JRRT would have thought of websites and forums dedicated to his story! I don't know how widespread this was during the time he died--I think the internet was just starting to emerge back then. Wouldn't it have been cool to have HIM as a member here?
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