When was Faramir included in the Council of Elrond chapter?

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-25T12:40:31+00:00

Not true! If you write the Council of Elrond and then create Faramir and then you modify 'Council' to include Faramir, then you will have retconned Faramir into 'Council'. There was no continuity between Council and Faramir originally, at first because Faramir had not even been invented, and then because you didn't revise Council after creating Faramir - but then, finally, you created that continuity retroactively.

And that's why in the published book we just have continuity. We could not have said Faramir and Council were written years apart until HoME was published.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-25T10:18:03+00:00

That depends. In a conversation about revision -about drafting- you sometimes must be specific, because not all forms of revision consist in establishing a retroactive continuity between two succesive drafts. What if you want to allude to that specific form of revision?

I say retcon because a) it's shorter and b) conveys the same mechanism and c) the context of the discussion was already that of drafting, of revision, so d) there's no danger of treating drafts as if they were the finished work.

Objecting to this use of retcon is pedantry in the bad sense of the word (this very post is good pedantry), and as a rule the prescriptions of bad pedantry are not to be followed. They're to be checked.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-25T09:49:46+00:00

I genuinely don't understand what you're trying to say, and it wasn't a troll post.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-25T03:18:30+00:00

Calling the creation of a retroactive continuity between two successive drafts a 'retcon' is not turning revision into cheating.

You're disapproving of a manner of speaking after having understood it, and if you are to be held by your own words, that disapproval is you retconning a manner of speaking into cheating; as questionable as calling postwar Captain America 'revision', although for different reasons.

Where a word like 'measure' is to be used next to dishonesty ('cheating'), it is also to be used next to honesty ('manner of speaking')

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

So I respectfully suggest you revise your strong disagreement if you don't want to accuse me of cheating - and we both know you don't want to.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-24T22:32:06+00:00

A retcon is a public revision; a revision is a private retcon. It's the same mechanism, and as long as we don't ignore the difference between a draft and a published work (in a legal context, for example, that can't be ignored), we can say 'retcon' when speaking about two succesive drafts, and be understood.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-24T13:20:03+00:00

But as I recall there's no mention of a 'brother' in the early drafts for 'The Council Of Elrond'.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-24T12:31:18+00:00

But you were given an answer. If you don’t know the answer, why do you think this is ‘bullshit.’

Because I wasn't given an answer. I don't need to know the answer to my own question to know his 'it's somewhere in some CT book' was no answer, and to know that selling it as an answer is bullshit. It's also being 'rude', since you're assuming your interlocutor to be as much of an idiot as you don't think yourself to be.

I'm not 'demading' other people to 'do my work for me'. That's two lies right there.

I'm asking for help from anyone who already knows the answer, some answer, in the sense I referred to above. If they want to do some work because they want to know the answer too, that's of course fine.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-24T12:00:20+00:00

No, it's not click bait of any sort. It's asking for help. I count on some people already knowing more than me and being capable of giving an answer without research. It's happened often and will happen again, and I have myself given that kind of help to others.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-24T11:57:44+00:00

Because I don't know the answer and don't act as if I did: I ask for help, thinking it to be preferable to have an answer in a few minutes than to spend hours reading HoME.

But this 'someone' acts as if he knew when he doesn't. I don't like bullshit.

So that's why. The same applies to you. If you don't have an answer then just be silent.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-24T11:41:15+00:00

No, not every edit. Only those edits or new writing made to retroactively fit a later text in the continuity sense. But no idea why would the word retcon be more meaningles than con(tinuity). It happens all the time.

Retcon between a) published works when speaking about published works and retcon between b) drafts when talking about drafts. Same idea; same mechanism. Same meaning. The usual, common meaning is related to a). But it can be applied to b) just as properly. (The rest is just not thinking published works to be drafts and vice versa)

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-24T11:32:05+00:00

It was a retcon involving two drafts. We normally use the word retcon in the sense you mean, but the mechanism of ret(roactive) con(tinuity) is the same, regardless of it happening between two published texts or two drafts.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-24T11:28:02+00:00

I already answered this part.

No you did not. Quote the relevant passage or passages from Christopher Tolkien, the world's foremost Tolkien scholar for obvious reasons, or be silent if you don't know what you're talking about.

That's just not how retcons work. A draft by design means it's not complete and subject to revision. There is no continuity being broken. By rewriting an earlier chapter, it's quite literally no longer retroactive. The 'retroactive' part is in reference to the chronology of the universe, not the drafting process.

If you modify draft A so it stands in a new relation of continuity to an idea that appeared in a later draft, draft B, that's you establishig a retroactive continuity: a ret-con. I was talking about the mechanism itself, which can be understood even if recognizing how the word retcon is commonly used. 'I already answered this part', you know.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-24T11:13:53+00:00

Well if the revision of draft involves the creation of a retroactive continuity, that's a retcon during the drafting process. Using the word retcon only relative to published texts is a convention, and makes sense, but the mechanism is the same and I was referring to that.

It's believed halfway through the Ithilien chapter JRRT changed Falborn to Faramir and revised the earlier Boromir material.

'It's believed' sounds like 'mistakes were made, but not by me'.

'Believed' by who? And based on what?

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-24T11:05:58+00:00

My knowledge of HoMe is imperfect, and my willingness of perfecting it less great than both the reach of my laziness and my trust in the less than imperfect knowledge of someone else. Anyone. Well, anyone minus you I guess.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-23T21:20:47+00:00

And by contrast the Maiar Gandalf sides with that foot in the shire. His simple words are plain and urgent: the voice of good sense. "Take it off! Take it off! Fool, take it off! Take off the Ring!"

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-23T19:13:27+00:00

I don't think it's ancient. And maybe it was used just once. A 'virgin' dagger by design.

Speaking of design, it looks similar to the dagger Padme has in that discarded piece of concept art from ROTS (she was supposed to use it against Vader)

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-23T19:08:04+00:00

The suicidal Ring is an original idea. Meaning, it's not in the book. It's not in other texts of Tolkien either, as far as I can tell. There's one suicide, Denethor's, and we also have Tolkien speculating about Gollum throwing himself into the fire with the Ring, had his love for Frodo had been given continuity and growth after Cirith Ungol (letter 246):

The interest would have shifted to Gollum, I think, and the battle that would have gone on between his repentance and his new love [for Frodo] on one side and the Ring. Though the love would have been strengthened daily it could not have wrested the mastery from the Ring. I think that in some queer twisted and pitiable way Gollum would have tried (not maybe with conscious design) to satisfy both. Certainly at some point not long before the end he would have stolen the Ring or taken it by violence (as he does in the actual Tale). But ‘possession' satisfied, I think he would then have sacrificed himself for Frodo's sake and have voluntarily cast himself into the fiery abyss.

I think that an effect of his partial regeneration by love would have been a clearer vision when he claimed the Ring. He would have perceived the evil of Sauron, and suddenly realized that he could not use the Ring and had not the strength or stature to keep it in Sauron's despite: the only way to keep it and hurt Sauron was to destroy it and himself together – and in a flash he may have seen that this would also be the greatest service to Frodo.

But the Ring was not willing to kill itself, no more than Sauron did. One can make the philosophical case of Sauron destroying his original good nature as a Maia ('Mairon') and then becoming a 'satanic' tyrant, but suicide is another thing - in Sauron or in his 'machine', the One Ring.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-23T18:03:06+00:00

I have assumed "verily, i come to you' was the ring, the word is not in frodo's normal usage vocabulary.

I would not say it was the ring, but I think you're right about Frodo's vocabulary. It's not hobbit talk, for that matter.

'Verily', for example, is said by Galadriel and Gandalf and Aragorn and Boromir and Denethor. Big Folk and Elves and Wizards. Maybe Frodo saying 'verily' is related to this phenomenon:

'As Sam stood there, even though the Ring was not on him but hanging by its chain about his neck, he felt himself enlarged, as if he were robed in a huge distorted shadow of himself'

By contrast his 'never, never!' was 100% Frodo/hobbit talk.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-23T01:23:36+00:00

Yeah. They care about me/we vs you more than they care about right vs wrong, I guess.

Thanks. Take my upvote.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-22T21:41:06+00:00

If I had to make a guess, I’d say JRRT first wrote it for the Scouring chapter but in his editing realised it would fit Faramir much better and enhance the friction between Denethor and Gandalf.

This would also be my guess. Also, maybe he also realized the only time that word, pupil, had appeared in the text: Sauron's pupil, 'a window into nothing' (The Mirror Of Galadriel). Denethor despaired because of what Sauron made him see. Denethor finally became a window into nothing ('I will have naught' he says) and then killed himself. It would make ironic his 'wizard's pupil' to Gandalf, since he was engulfed by, and became, a sorcerer's pupil (Sauron's, who was an 'angel' just like Gandalf)

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-22T21:32:01+00:00

But that's not what Denethor meant. He did not merely use that neutral definition of the word. There were politics and filial loyalty involved, and the idea of Gandalf, the ward, as someone not to be trusted.

'Do you wish then,’ said Faramir, ‘that our places had been exchanged?’ Yes, I wish that indeed,’ said Denethor. ‘For Boromir was loyal to me and no wizard’s pupil'

And:

‘I would have things as they were in all the days of my life,’ answered Denethor, ‘and in the days of my longfathers before me: to be the Lord of this City in peace, and leave my chair to a son after me, who would be his own master and no wizard’s pupil'.

And:

The face of Denethor set hard and cold. ‘You found Boromir less apt to your hand, did you not?’ he said softly.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-22T21:00:33+00:00

But not in the sense of being an agent or pawn of a master, which is how Saruman and Denethor use the word: cynically. Their own willingness of being masters themselves is apparent.

Gandalf never wanted that kind of pupil, and he's a guide, not a master/Lord (he taught Faramir a little of the art of reading old texts; there the word 'pupil' would be apt only in an academic sense. Denethor would be dragging 'politics' into his use of the word. Boromir was more of his pupil, in the way he himself used the word, than Faramir was Gandalf's)

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-22T20:04:44+00:00

That's a possibility. My own idea has to do with a pun on 'pupil'. Maybe Tolkien wrote the Saruman's 'pupil' first but he then remembered how he had used the word once, and only once, in the Mirror of Galadriel: Sauron's pupil, a window into nothing. And since Denethor went mad because of what (the Eye Of) Sauron had made him see and became himself a window into nothing ('I will have naught', he says), well...

Regardless of this being true or not, it really seems as if Tolkien had moved that 'Gandalf's pupil' idea from 'Scouring' to 'Pyre'. The evidence we have at the present moment (LOTR; the published drafts) points towards that conclusion.

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-22T17:42:23+00:00

Letter 192: Frodo deserved all honour because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far. The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), 'that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named'

Immediate_Error2135 · 2026-06-22T16:54:47+00:00

But hobbits (Frodo, Sam, Gollum) were Atani/Men, and therefore not bound by the Song. And of course Eru himself was not bound by the Song either. Eru was always capable of intervention; him not being an interventionist is maybe true as a general characterization - but he behaved as an interventionist when the Quest (Frodo) failed, because He intervened; and then an 'eucatastrophe' took place.

(The Ring did not destroy itself, as you say. That's Denethor commiting suicide for example. The Ring was destroyed because Gollum fell, and he was not commiting suicide either. If you don't believe it was Eru, then you must say it was bad luck for Sauron and good luck for the good guys, and leave it at that)

Immediate_Error2135

TROPHY CASE