"Fuck Man" or "We're Talking About The Lord Of The Rings Now"

[synkr0nized]

Originally Posted by EckScizor

Because Christopher is a better writer than John was.

That's not really fair, as it was my understanding all of that information was written down and planned out by Tolkien before he even set out to tell the trilogy. Unless his son re-worked it extensively?

[Magus]

I think they are referring to Christopher Tolkein's writing style, which is kind of faux-mythic, but who knows if J.R.R. didn't write it down that way for the most part? Christopher has only ever considered himself an editor, I don't think he's overly responsible for the use of poetic language in the Silmarillion...then again I haven't read the 12 volume, 30,000 page thing he wrote ABOUT WRITING the Silmarillion/Children of Hurin/Lord of the Rings, even wanting to is somewhat incomprehensible to me, like someone else felt about reading Return of the King, so I mean someone who's actually read those tomes may be able to set me straight...

@Smarty: The Valar are isolationist jerks, as I mentioned. They come off as pretty selfish and self-centered since they refuse to help out in the war against Morgoth, THEIR OWN FORMER BUDDY, until he gets so powerful they're like "Oh, uh, maybe he'll start attacking us now?" I mean, never mind the fact he ALREADY PULLED A SNEAK ATTACK ON THEIR HOMELAND THAT DESTROYED THE GREAT TREES AND PLUNGED THE WORLD INTO TWILIGHT AND MURDERED FINWE STEALING THE MAGIC SILMARIL ORBS, CAUSING UNTOLD SORROW AND DESPAIR FOR GENERATIONS. But y'know we'll give him a few more thousand years to wreak havoc before getting involved and throwing him out the Door of Night.

I mean they can't even be half-assed to actually destroy him, that'll be up to Turin after ANOTHER gigantic ass war involving him when he breaks free.

[RickZarber]

GOD DAMMIT. I just spent more than an hour typing up a nicely succinct and neophyte-friendly summation of the History of Middle-Earth and its relationship to the published Silmarillion, and then I HIT THE FUCKING BACK BUTTON AND LOST IT ALL. Time to start over.

Originally Posted by Magus

I think they are referring to Christopher Tolkein's writing style, which is kind of faux-mythic, but who knows if J.R.R. didn't write it down that way for the most part? Christopher has only ever considered himself an editor, I don't think he's overly responsible for the use of poetic language in the Silmarillion...then again I haven't read the 12 volume, 30,000 page thing he wrote ABOUT WRITING the Silmarillion/Children of Hurin/Lord of the Rings, even wanting to is somewhat incomprehensible to me, like someone else felt about reading Return of the King, so I mean someone who's actually read those tomes may be able to set me straight...

Anyways, the upshot was that the Silmarillion, as published, is a bit of a faux text--drawn from all of Tolkien's work on the tales throughout his lifetime. The only version of the story which was completed from beginning to end, the Quenta Nolderinwa, was written in the 1930s, just before The Hobbit. And that was simply an expanded version of Tolkien's Sketch of the Mythology (c.1926), which he wrote to accompany the Epic Poem versions of two of the three Great Tales* from the Book of Lost Tales (the original version of the myths, written from 1918-20s). He never wrote out everything in full length ever again, but just kept updating the Quenta and the Annals of Beleriand (his Tale of Years chronology which was developed simultaneously).

It didn't help that the Hobbit was so successful; the publishers clamored for a sequel, and Tolkien spent the next 15 years writing the Lord of the Rings. But that required not only the creation of that story, but also the whole history of the Second and Third ages (for they had never existed previously--even the Hobbit was originally only tangentially related to the tales of the Elder Days). After the publication of LotR, he started on several full-length prose versions of the Great Tales, but none were ever brought to completion, for Tolkien had a habit of starting every new revision from the beginning.

So basically, by the time of his death, he'd greatly altered the cosmology of the opening "myths" (his interests having shifted from mythology to religious philosophy), and had pretty much finalized the first half of what we consider the Silmarillion, but the only version of the end of the story came from the 1930s Quenta.

So the published Silmarillion actually is a mash-up of all the latest extant versions of the material--some drawn from the Quenta, some from the Annals, some from prose texts--with an editorial eye towards keeping out contradictions. But it is still just a summation.

The only long-form prose version we have is the Great Tale that Christopher Tolkien decided was complete enough to publish: the Children of Húrin. And even that required quite a bit of taking bits from other sources to make it continuous.

* The Great Tales are the Lay of Leithian (the tale of Beren and Lúthien), the Narn i Chîn Húrin (the tale of the children of Húrin), and the Fall of Gondolin.

[Archbio]

Honestly, while I prefer The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings, I remember some of the Silmarillion being like the first fourty seconds of that.

Some of it is pretty fluid, with dialogue and events and such... but I think rythm really should count for something and some of it is pretty ackward even by Tolkien standard.

I think the Valar are supposed to be unwilling to fight Morgoth directly again in Middle-earth to avoid wrecking the place and killing the Men when they're still dormant somewhere unknown.

[Magus]

Well they did destroy like a good sixth of the continent in the War of Wrath but they could have done that earlier and saved thousands of lives. Plus Sauron also destroyed some more of the landmass too when he corrupted the Numenoreans before the War of the Last Alliance banished him for a while, again killing thousands of people. Seems like they might as well have got it over with sooner than later, but I guess the mortals did manage to take Sauron out without too much of their help so all's well that ends well! Except for the thousands more who were slain in the War of the Ring, I mean...

[Archbio]

Isn't the War of Wrath mostly fought by elves sent by the Valar from Valinor and stuff?

But yeah, even then, waiting for Morgoth to beat everybody else (and make a hill out of the corpses of his enemies at one point) and for someone to come to them to plead for intervention before doing that really doesn't speak highly of their priorities.

[Magus]

Yeah that was my point they saved the day...way after there was much left saving.

Of course the Noldor did kind of piss everybody off with their kinslaying before heading out for Middle-Earth so that was probably factoring into their decision. Like even after they are kind enough to defeat Morgoth and save everybody and retake the Silmarils that Oath of Feanor still causes two of his sons to steal the things from Eonwe and lose them like assholes cause they did so much evil shit to retake the things in the past that they can't even touch them without causing themselves searing pain. So maybe the Valar had to be convinced that the Noldor were worth saving from Morgoth.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

The Children of Hurin was the shit. Totally engrossing tragedy from start to finish.

I feel like once the Hobbit films have all been released, the studio will move towards adapting stories from the Silmarillion in tv miniseries one channels like HBO. It's the only way to really adapt any of the Silmarillion without losing significant context the informs each and every story.

[Magus]

I'd love that, though if I understand correctly there are three main stories that Christopher Tolkein wanted to do detailed versions of so maybe they could do three big budget movies? But then again Children of Hurin has a little too much murder, incest, and main characters all dying to appeal to mainstream movie audiences...wait, it's pretty much just like Game of Thrones, this is a nobrainer for HBO!

[RickZarber]

Except nobody will ever wrest the rights away from the Tolkien Estate. You know they'd take back LotR and Hobbit if they could; Tolkien only sold those rights to help pay off his wife's medical bills.

Originally Posted by Magus

though if I understand correctly there are three main stories that Christopher Tolkein wanted to do detailed versions of

Not exactly. The other two Great Tales (Beren and Lúthien, Fall of Gondolin) don't exist in long-form prose in any amount that covers the whole story. I don't know how far Lúthien goes, but the prose Gondolin only gets as far as Túor coming through the seven gates. So there will probably never be stand-alone publications of those.