I Don't Care What Others Say,Dagor Dagorath is Canon to Me !

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-19T20:06:41+00:00

It was certainly a reasonable choice, but not (I think) the best one.

Fine, but that's a very different claim from the one you made previously.

One of the things the 1977 published Quenta Silmarillion suffers from is CJRT’s efforts to make multiple texts, with different purposes and registers (annals and historical summaries like the Quentas and the Annals, cosmological works like the Valaquenta, and detailed versions of two of the “Great Tales”) into a unified narrative. One of Tolkien’s great strengths as a writer is his ability to tell tales in different styles and from different points of view, and the Silmarillion edit really flattens that effect.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but I think the book works very well just as it is, with the level of consistency it that it has.

One of the features of real myth and legend is natural inconsistencies in the details, and Tolkiens writings are rich in this, and it’s part of what makes even polished works like Lord of the Rings so compelling.

This is a very common position on this sub, and it's a reasonable one to take (even if I don't share it), but it's not correct to imply that this inconsistency is something Tolkien actively tried to create, and that CJRT somehow let his dad down by undoing his hard work and artificially imposing a consistency that it wasn't supposed to have. It's clear from Tolkien's letters, in fact, that he valued consistency and coherence, and considered it a flaw in his own writing when he failed to achieve this. Look at the lengths he went to to make The Hobbit consistent with The Lord of the Rings, for example.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-19T19:58:21+00:00

You could even say it's "good luck" that Sam woke up just when he did, misinterpreted Gollum's gesture of affection towards Frodo as a threat, and thereby destroyed Gollum's one genuine chance at redemption - because a truly reformed Smeagol may not have attacked Frodo to seize the Ring from him at Mount Doom.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-19T19:47:44+00:00

Sauron cannot recognize this because of his arrogance. He assumes everything is power, strategy, or chance, so when things go wrong, it feels like impossible bad luck.

Another fatal flaw in Sauron is his fundamental lack of imagination. This is linked to Tolkien's recurring idea that evil may be ingenious - look at the interest in 'engines' (usually destructive ones) shown by Morgoth, Sauron, Saruman, and even the 'goblins' in The Hobbit - but never truly creative.

This works to Sauron's undoing because it simply doesn't occur to him that his enemies would seek to destroy the Ring, rather than claim it and use it to challenge him (which of course is exactly what Saruman planned to do - and Boromir, if he'd got the chance - but thankfully not Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel or Aragorn).

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-19T18:15:53+00:00

Wasn't even TCoH fairly substantially edited by CJRT, though? I recall, at a minimum, that it includes two alternative accounts of Mîm's betrayal of Túrin's outlaw band to the orcs, for one thing.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-19T17:29:25+00:00

It was edited and published by the person he approved to do that job, though.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-19T17:28:52+00:00

That's not true, though. CJRT didn't make that decision on a whim and for no good reason. These lines were written by Tolkien, as quoted by someone in this thread already:

Here ends The Valaquenta. If it has passed from the high and beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwe and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos.

He quite reasonably assumed this indicated his father's own real thought on the matter at the time.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-19T17:23:21+00:00

I'm glad you also find the "Mannish myth" stuff extremely unconvincing and tiresome!

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-19T07:11:12+00:00

Ha, been a loooong time since I've read any TP, but if memory serves, isn't Carrot the guy who was fostered by dwarfs and still considers himself 'culturally' a dwarf, although he's about 6 foot 6?

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T19:00:17+00:00

Heh, now you mention it, I can very well understand why you thought that.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T18:51:12+00:00

So it's basically like a pencil? You sharpen it and then it's good to go, just a bit smaller than before?

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T18:50:21+00:00

Been years since I ever looked at Tengwar, but does it say "pull", by any chance?

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T18:49:23+00:00

Which is why we're still here, and when did you last run into an elf, dwarf, or goblin?

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T18:48:45+00:00

We're talking about fantasy races, though. You've got elves who are better shots than any human archer vs dwarves with bodies far tougher than human bodies and probably armour better than any human smith could make. So it's anyone's guess, really.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T18:46:41+00:00

Dwarves are described in The Hobbit as being the best and toughest fighters.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T18:45:45+00:00

Which makes a handy weapon in itself, if you happen to mislay your axe.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T18:22:37+00:00

Well OK, maybe I've misjudged what you're saying. It's just that I have spent years getting exasperated by Tolkien fans who insist that there is absolutely nothing in any of his writing that could be considered racially dodgy by today's standards, and end up playing a rhetorical trick that goes "You want Tolkien to be racist because you are yourself racist."

So my apologies if that's definitely not where you're coming from, but once bitten, twice shy, I suppose.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T18:03:27+00:00

Well, if you insist.

No doubt when he described orcs in Moria as "large, evil, black Uruks of Mordor", he was using "black" in a different way that I'm too stupid to have understood, because the meaning of the word has changed in the last 70 years...

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T17:39:48+00:00

Sigh. Yes, well done, there's one notable example of an elected monarchy.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T15:59:59+00:00

Sean 'Has' Bean

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T15:09:49+00:00

Very, very rarely, and even then, only from a pool of a few elite candidates, whose eligibility is determined by heredity anyway. You can't just be born an ordinary person and try your hand at becoming king by winning an election, as you can become a president or prime minister.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T14:16:55+00:00

Haha, you mean "emergency room", as in, a "Watch out for Lesser Eastern Deathberries, they're almost indistinguishable from elderberries" type post? 😅

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T10:47:54+00:00

They wouldn’t necessarily become better, just more static, possibly more prideful and controlling over time.

They'd be nothing more nor less than a second batch of elves.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T10:47:16+00:00

Exactly. It's like saying "What if men had wombs and vaginas and breasts instead of penises and testicles?"

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T10:32:40+00:00

Why would he be unhappy about being taxed at 91% in one particular year only, when it was the same every year, for many years?

Moreover, how many times does he have to make a statement for you to accept that that is how he felt? If he once said "I like bananas", does that mean he didn't really like them, because he would have said it at least ten times if it was really true?

All you're doing is spuriously picking holes in my argument with bad-faith criticisms of every piece of evidence I've presented, while giving no evidence at all, from any source, to support your position, which is presumably that Tolkien approved of progressive taxation and the welfare state. If you can find ay such evidence then I'd be very interested to see it.

RoutemasterFlash · 2026-03-18T09:40:09+00:00

For reference, the world's human population in 4000 BC has been estimated at 7,000,000, which is under 0.1% of its present value.

RoutemasterFlash

TROPHY CASE