Talk:Round World version of the Silmarillion

Year of emergence

"This version emerged in writings from 1958-1960" Are you sure of that ?

HOME 10 foreword of Ainulindalë : "as will be seen in a moment there is certain evidence that the text C* was in existence by 1948. "

Should not be "1948-1950" ? —Unsigned comment by Erendis (talk • contribs).

This article is about the revision of the whole Silmarillion that was intended in later writings. Like explained in the article, the Ainulindale C* was an experimental text that was rejected and had no impact in the Legendarium at that moment. --LorenzoCB 15:17, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

But the Ainulindalë C*, where the new conception emerged is about 1946-48 it seems, so this conception emerged before 1958. I don't understand why theses dates have been chosen for the "emerge time" —Unsigned comment by Erendis (talk • contribs).

sorry, i'm not from english culture, so may be I don't understand what is really meaning.

You can forget my last talk :) —Unsigned comment by Erendis (talk • contribs).

Nonetheless, the description of this conception (Arda = solar system, no lamps, moon wrought from a piece of earth...) is what we can found in the Ainulindalë C*

I only found one second text where these this other version : the Myths transformed # 2 in the Home 10 (with a brief mention in the fifth).

But the article says : "The Round World version is one of the variants of J.R.R. Tolkien's Legendarium, published in the final volumeS of The History of Middle-earth. "

Is there other texts in other HOME ?

If not, it should be more precise to say : "The Round World version is one of the variants of J.R.R. Tolkien's Legendarium, treated in the second text of the Myths Transformed, published in the HOME 10"

Shouldn't it ?—Unsigned comment by 88.121.55.128 (talk).

"Legends" and canonicity

The subject of canonicity is a thorny one, about which TG has had considerable internal debate in the past, but is now very much settled: as TG:CANON states, "It is not - and can not - be our place to decide what is canon and what is not." (Obviously this applies to the writings of JRRT, not adaptations!) Consequentially, we concern ourselves first and foremost with documenting what the man wrote, and we strive to interact with the question of what "counts" as little as possible.

JRRT himself regularly referred to his stories as "legends" and "myths" - as folks who are here to document his work, we can't help but do the same. Here are a few fuller excerpts from the letters referenced in the article that show this:

As the high Legends of the beginning are supposed to look at things through Elvish minds, so the middle tale of the Hobbit takes a virtually human point of view – and the last tale blends them.

[...]

These tales are 'new', they are not directly derived from other myths and legends, but they must inevitably contain a large measure of ancient wide-spread motives or elements. After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reapper.
—J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 131, (undated, written late 1951)

Actually in the imagination of this story we are now living on a physically round Earth. But the whole 'legendarium' contains a transition from a flat world (or at least an οικουμένη with borders all about it) to a globe: an inevitable transition, I suppose, to a modern 'myth-maker' with a mind subjected to the same 'appearances' as ancient men, and partly fed on their myths, but taught that the Earth was round from the earliest years. [...] The particular 'myth' which lies behind this tale, and the mood both of Men and Elves at this time, is the Downfall of Númenor: a special variety of the Atlantis tradition. That seems to me so fundamental to 'mythical history' – whether it has any kind of basis in real history, pace Saurat and others, is not relevant – that some version of it would have to come in.
—J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 154, (dated 25 September 1954)

JRRT himself freely called his writings "stories," "legends," and "myths," and to all appearances thought of them as such. Therefore, I can't agree with you that referring to them with the same language he used diminishes them in any way. Additionally, given TG's stated policy of canon neutrality, I believe it is inappropriate to insert statements regarding "canonicity" into an article whose purpose is to document the (considerable) evolution of JRRT's written ideas over time. --Mord 01:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I've made another revision, this time entirely removing the problematic "legend" terminology and letting JRRT speak in his own words - metatextual stuff gets messy but I hope the quotes make things clear enough. --Mord 02:14, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

"The subject of canonicity is a thorny one, about which TG has had considerable internal debate in the past, but is now very much settled: as TG:CANON states, "It is not - and can not - be our place to decide what is canon and what is not." (Obviously this applies to the writings of JRRT, not adaptations!) Consequentially, we concern ourselves first and foremost with documenting what the man wrote, and we strive to interact with the question of what "counts" as little as possible." - As much as I agree with everything else you said in this post, I can't help but disagree with you on the "it isn't our place to decide what is and isn't canon" part of your argument.

For better or worse, each and every editor on TG decides what does or doesn't count as 'canon' whenever they make even a seemingly minor decision while editing, much less creating brand new articles.

And also (again, for better or worse), TG is and has been a go-to reference source for a whole lot of the fandom (my former teenage self included) - so, while the goal of being impartial in regards to 'canon' is admirable (and preferred), it's simply not practicable IMO. See my recent post on the Template talk:History of Arda (or basically any article with an OVOTL) to get a feel for what I'm talking about. IvarTheBoneless (talk) 05:50, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

"each and every editor on TG decides what does or doesn't count as 'canon' whenever they make even a seemingly minor decision while editing"

I don't think that's necessarily true. Someone who goes about trying to enforce a "canon" would act according to a desire to establish this word as "true" and that word as "false." Obviously, when the mood strikes a person to edit one article versus another, that person displays a preference for or interest in that subject, but ideally that person isn't doing that out of a conscious desire to promote any one option among the choices available as "true" and the rest "false."

Impartiality is not always possible and often the need to organize the wiki in a usable manner takes precedence. As you point out, we have separate History and OVOTL sections on many pages. However, I see this as a necessary concession to usability for the hypothetical average user. For characters with a lot of history (both Primary and Secondary World), any attempt to assemble a coherent narrative understandable to the average reader demands that sources be separated in some manner.

In some articles, such as those about broader concepts - such as Orcs/Origin - it's possible to take a stand of principled agnosticism and fully present all options on equal terms. I believe the Round vs Flat World topic is of this kind. --Mord 03:49, 14 July 2023 (UTC)