Talk:Northern Waste

From Tolkien Gateway
Latest comment: 5 October 2022 by Mord in topic Rename to Forodwaith (region)

Eazy E15, I deleted a bunch of your content because alot of it is not true or not factual, for instance:

1. Arvediu did not hide in Mount Gundabad he hid in a abandoned Dwarf-mine near the far northern tip of the Blue Mountains.

2. We don't know really anything about the Lossoth execept that they were the remnants of the Forodwaith, they lived mainly on the cape of Forochel out of reach of enemies, and that they travelled sometimes to the southern coasts near the feet of the Ered Luin, as king Arvedui found.

3. Yes, it's possible that Snow trolls could lived there but not alot of people have been beyond the grey mountains or the mountains of Angmar except for maybe Dwarves and Orcs. They are more likely to have lived high up in the snowy slopes of the Misty Mountains., where they were far more likely to have been seen.

I'm not trying to put you down, but next time study the facts, and then make assumpations and theories.--Dwarf Lord 15:32, 27 November 2006 (EST)

Rename to Forodwaith (region)[edit source]

Based on the recognizability criterion for naming pages on Tolkien Gateway people are more likely to enter Forodwaith when they search for information about the region in the map, because the name Northern Waste is only used in maps that were published with older editions of The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and the proper name Northern Waste (i.e. with a capital N and a capital W) is not used in the text of LOTR or in the text of The Silmarillion and is only used once in the text of Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth (UT). On the contrary the name Forodwaith is used on maps that were published with newer editions of LOTR and UT. I propose that Forodwaith redirects to a disambiguation page, which leads to Forodwaith (people) and Forodwaith (region). We can debate if Lossoth should redirect to Forodwaith (people) or should have its own page, but the information on both pages would overlap so much to be virtually the same. An advantage of having the page named Forodwaith (region) is that it will have an etymology section for the name of the region and an Other versions of the legendarium section that explains that the name was used for the region that would Lager be called Eriador on the first map of The Lord of the Rings. --Akhorahil (talk) 08:08, 7 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I disagree with that, as it would be confusing for readers to see the name appear as the title of a page for the region and the people. Also, in the text of TLOTR, the name refers only to the ancient people of that land and that is once in the text. The reference on newer versions of the map is either a reference to the people or pointing out that the region took its name from the people. It cannot be said for certain which reference it is. I think it is fine the way it is now. Though there are some problematic implications about the recognition policy on the wiki that I do think should be discussed. Here is a quote from the "Unfinished Tales":
"Forodwaith only occurs once in The Lord of the Rings (Appendix A, I, iii) and there refers to ancient in habitants of the Northlands, of whom the Snowmen of Forochel were a remnant; but the Sindarin word (g) waith was used both of regions and of the peoples inhabiting them (cf. Enedwaith). In one of my father’s sketch-maps Forodwaith seems to be explicitly equated with ‘The Northern Waste’, and in another is translated ‘Northerland’"
― (footnote)

.

Dour1234 (talk) 11:59, 7 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It would not be confusing for readers. Forodwaith would simply redirect to the disambigution page, and Forodwaith (region) as the title for a page about the region ist not confusing in any way and Forodwaith (people) as the title for a page about the people is not confusing in any way. J.R.R. Tolkien and Christohpher Tolkien did not write the names of races on maps for regions. The names of larger regions are always written in capital characters and they did not use "Haradrim", but "Haradwaith", because Haradwaith or Enedwaith are also the names of regions and J.R.R. Tolkien explained in the entry for the root WE in PE17 on page 190 that gwaith is often used for regions in proper names. The name of peoples on the map (if ever used, such as "Woodelves on the General Map) are not written in capital characters. Having Northern Waste as the title of the page does not fulfill the Recognisability and Naturalness criteria of the Tolkien Gateway:Naming policy, because it is used rarely on an old map that most readers probably do not have and only used once in the text of Unfinished Tales, but not on the map that was published with Unfinished Tales. --Akhorahil (talk) 12:25, 7 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The name being "Northern Waste" brings awareness to the name to people who do not have the "Unfinished Tales". If we were to only use recognizable terms, then we are excluding a whole group of people who use wikis to find more information on a subject. Also, the appendix mention in TLOTR refers to the people, not the region. However, I just found a reference in TLOTR that convinced me of your argument. Yet I still believe that the recognition policy has some problematic implications that I believe should be discussed. Should I edit the page from Northern Waste to Forodwaith before you move it?Dour1234 (talk) 13:16, 7 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Please do not edit the Northern Waste page. I am not going to move/rename the page before I have received more feedback from other users. It is not urgent and LorenzoCB probably has more important things on his mind and his head is probably spinning from all the different versions about Galadriel. --Akhorahil (talk) 14:38, 7 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ok, I will not change the wording from Northern Waste to Forodwaith. However, I noticed two names within the "Unfinished Tales" quote I posted earlier on this talk page: the Northlands and Northerland. I think that these two names should be added to the page contents (maybe the other names section of the infobox). Also, on a side note, I think that the "Forodwaith (people)" page moving to the "Lossoth" page could potentially be discussed rather than discussing moving the "Lossoth" page to the "Forodwaith (people)" page.Dour1234 (talk) 14:45, 7 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]
My $0.02: I think the article about the place should be moved to "Forodwaith" and the disambiguation page for "Forodwaith" should be retired, rather expanding the "did you mean" box at the head of this article to: "This article is about the region of Middle-earth. For the people who inhabited it, see Lossoth. For the MERP supplement, see The Northern Waste." I think searches for "Northern Waste" should redirect to "Forodwaith".
Furthermore, I would merge the separate article on the Forodwaith people into the Lossoth article owing to the fact that the Forodwaith people are only ever mentioned once and that mention is in direct reference to their descendants the Lossoth. I think the article about this people, based on frequency of use in the text of LOTR (which I feel most informs a hypothetical casual user's search preferences), should be "Lossoth" (4 uses, also is the preferred term in the index). "Snowmen" and "Snowmen of Forochel" are also used 4 times together, while "Forodwaith" is used only once to refer to the people. --Mord 17:15, 5 October 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Presence of Dragons[edit source]

While I thank User:Akhorahil for his edits of the page, I will have to disagree with his last edit regarding reverting the information about the presence of dragons. In Appendix A, it is mentioned that "there were dragons in the wastes beyond [the Grey Mountains]." According to the map known as The West of Middle-earth at the End of the Third Age, these wastes to the north of the Grey Mountains are referred to as the "Forodwaith" and thus synonymous with the "Northern Waste." The Withered Heath is not referred to as being a waste "beyond" the Grey Mountains, but rather a long valley running west to east between two arms at the eastern end of the Grey Mountains. A region (almost) encircled by a mountain range is not considered to be "beyond" said mountain range. The term "beyond" is most easily defined as "far away" from a specific frame of reference and if the Grey Mountains is the frame of reference, then "beyond" will easily fit the description of the Northern Waste (which is a seemingly endless wasteland beyond the Grey Mountains) than it would the Withered Heath. Additionally, the nomenclature for "wastes" cannot be better ascribed to another place than the Northern Waste. Hence, I move for that specific edit to be reverted to my previous one with the note with the clarification.--Tolkienator (talk) 02:03, 11 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you for taking the time to discuss this matter on the talk page before editing. I did not revert your edit using the revert function, in essence I added a statement that explains that it is not clear if the "wastes" in "But there were dragons in the wastes beyond" (the Grey Mountains) in Appendix A During's Folk of the LOTR mean the Northern Waste or the Withered Heath. Since J.R.R. Tolkien used "wastes" with a lower case "w" rather than the proper names "Northern Waste" or "Forodwaith", we do not know for certain that these "wastes" beyond the Grey Mountains refer to the Northern Waste or the Forodwaith. If you look on the page about the Withered Heath and read the references to dragons in The Hobbit ("the Withered Heath where the great dragons bred" in the chapter An Unexpected Party, or even read the book The History of the Hobbit) and if you look at the location of the Withered Heath on the General Map of Middle-earth or on The West of Middle-earth at the End of the Third Age map, you will see that the label "Withered Heath" is to the north-east of the longer southern spur at the eastern end of the Grey Mountains where this spur of the Grey Mountains is no longer "covered" by the shorter northern spur at the eastern end of the Grey Mountains, because the nothern spur already ends further west of it. So in terms of the meaning of "beyond" (which means "behind" or "on the other side" (Collins Dictionary) or "on the farther side" (Merriam Webster Dictionary) the Withered Heath lies north of and thus "beyond" the Grey Mountains from the point of view of the south of the Grey Mountains where the action of The Lord of the Rings takes place and the Hobbits and the Dwarves used to live. In short, because J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in The Hobbit that dragons bred in the Withered Heath beyond the Grey Mountains we can not rule out that the "wastes beyond" the Grey Mountains could also refer to the Withered Heath. It would be interesting to know a bit more about you as a user, such as your native language or your age on your user page. --Akhorahil (talk) 10:29, 12 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]