The disappearance of Maglor and Daeron

[Darth Tater]

Big words pretty

[Ñólendil]

Woe to they who stand in the Hither Lands and challenge Michael Martinez, historian most high.

[Michael Martinez]

It's been a long week.

[Findegil]

Dear Mr. Martinez,

sory for answering so late, but I was very buisy this week.
What you call a fact is at best the interpretation of the literary work of JRR Tolkien by the best scholar known (that Christofer Tolkien suggest it does not make it a fact).
I can agree with you in a that their is no taking of stuff out of The Book of Lost Tales that isn't in total accordance with the later stuff. But your statement is much to hard in my view.

Some of statements in particular:

There were no wars against men in the Second Age of Middle-earth.

What kind of army do you think had Sauron lead against Eriador? All Orks? I can't think so and we both know that it isn't stated clearly. So you are right I have stretch probabilities here without especially stating it.

You are very, very confused about the completely distinct histories and worlds of these books.

Okay I was may be to loosely in my quotation. I hope to make things clearer. The first quote is out of text (1) of chapter VI The History of Eriol or Ælfwin in The Book of Lost Tales II:

Release of the Noldoli. War with Men as soon as Tulkas and Noldorin have fared back to Valinor. Noldoli led to Valinor by Egalmoth and Galdor.

The next comes from text (3) of the same chapter:

Defeat of Melko.
Breaking of Angamandi and release of captives.
Hostility of Men. The Gnomes collect some of the jewels.
Elwing and most of the Elves go back to dwell in Tol Eressëa.

So what you called "very, very confused" is the war of "the childerns of the Valar". I am sorry if it disturbed you. I was hesitating here how to name that war since if I had said "the War of Wrath" you would have rightly blamed me also of confusing things too much. To name the children of the Valar here was really wrong it would have been better to call it "the war that ended Angamandi" or "march of the Elves of Kôr". But that doesn't make wrong what I said about the time that elapsed. And further on we go with a quote of the same chapter text (4):

After the departure of Eärendel and the coming of the Elves to Tol Eressëa (and most of this belongs to the history of Men) great ages elapse; ...

What else will you call that when not ages that passed after the destruction of Melko's fastness Angamandi? And what else was the seconde and third age of the later history?

The essays on Suite101 are speculations which occasionally reiterate the facts.

I do not think that you are producing facts in your essays so I don't blame you of doing speculations in them. But if you can do so, then anybody else can do it also. But I will not deny that I never thought Maglor lived with Elrond in the second age, and some of our companions here had brought up some nice quotes against that speculative idea.

There are no such associations in either The Lord of the Rings or The Silmarillion.

Well that isn't right. It is right for The Silamrillion. But with that book we have a compilation of the best known scholar of JRR Tolkien and not of JRR Tolkien himself. So if there is no mention of any connection between Arda and the world we know that can not be taken as "fact" as you call it. And that Quote out of The Lord of the Ring shows a association:

Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and the shape of all lands has been changed; but the regions in which Hobbits then lived were doubtless the same as those in which they still linger: the North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea.

Since you have recently quoted the letter in which Tolkien explained that statement more clearly I in the thread "The shape of Middle-Earth" I will not bore us with repeating all this statement in the letters here. But one further text I will quote briefly; The War of the Jewels, Part Three, chapter II Ælfwine and DÃ*rhaval:

Here begins the tale which Ælfwine made from the Húrinien...:

What more is needed to show that Ælfwine was never completely lost? Of course you can argue that The Book of Lost Tales was written with or by (if like that more) Eriol. But that isn't really true because it was changed over to the mariner of England.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Michael Martinez]

Originally posted by Findegil

What you call a fact is at best the interpretation of the literary work of JRR Tolkien by the best scholar known (that Christofer Tolkien suggest it does not make it a fact).

No. It's an incontrovertible fact. I haven't had any need to resort to interpretation.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There were no wars against men in the Second Age of Middle-earth.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


What kind of army do you think had Sauron lead against Eriador? All Orks? I can't think so and we both know that it isn't stated clearly. So you are right I have stretch probabilities here without especially stating it.

You obviously are not paying attention to what is written in the books. The "wars against men" did not occur in a Second Age of Middle-earth -- there was no Second Age of Middle-earth when Tolkien alluded to those supposed wars, which were a result of the conflict between Anglo-Saxons and faeries, neither of which are found in the history of the Three Ages of the Sun.

You can cite as much stuff out of context as you wish. All you're doing is badly rewriting the history of Tolkien's literary worlds.

If you want to prove there is some connection between the imaginary events of The Book of Lost Tales and the imaginary events of the later mythologies, you're going to have to prove that Christopher Tolkien either lied or didn't know what he was talking about.

Quite frankly, I don't expect to see you or anyone else do either.

You cannot mix the material from The Book of Lost Tales with the material from the later mythologies. Any attempt to do so is foolish, misguided, and reveals an extremely naive approach to the analysis of Tolkien's works.

I do not think that you are producing facts in your essays so I don't blame you of doing speculations in them. But if you can do so, then anybody else can do it also. But I will not deny that I never thought Maglor lived with Elrond in the second age, and some of our companions here had brought up some nice quotes against that speculative idea.

The facts in the essays are obvious to anyone who bothers to read them. They are the citations or summations of what is contained in the books, and are easily checked against the books.

Anyone can certainly speculate about what Tolkien might have intended or where he might have gone with some ideas, but that is all we can do.

Well that isn't right. It is right for The Silamrillion. But with that book we have a compilation of the best known scholar of JRR Tolkien and not of JRR Tolkien himself. So if there is no mention of any connection between Arda and the world we know that can not be taken as "fact" as you call it. And that Quote out of The Lord of the Ring shows a association:

Then you obviously don't understand what constitute facts. Facts are not conveniently made up. They are decided by the contents of the books, and not by how we might contrive a rearrangement of those contents.

The Lord of the Rings has no connection with The Book of Lost Tales. Christopher Tolkien clearly stated on numerous occasions that his father abandoned The Book of Lost Tales, and anyone who bothers to actually [i]read[i] the book will see that it is set in England. Tolkien's comment in The Lord of the Rings does not imply in any way that there is some connection between the geography of England and the geography of The Lord of the Rings.

The Lost Tales were SET IN ENGLAND. Period. There is no interpretation involved. They were intended to be an English mythology, told from an Anglo-Saxon perspective, reconstructed according to the opinions of a linguist who had studied Anglo-Saxon and ancient Germanic languages.

The Lord of the Rings was a story written for the mass market, an unforeseen sequel to a children's book, which combined elements from older stories and mythologies to produce a new mythology.

If there were truly any such connection between these two books, that fact would not have escaped the notice of Christopher Tolkien. Since he speaks against your point of view, I suggest you devote some time to rethinking your arguments.

At the very least, you're not going to topple Christopher Tolkien's assessment of these stories by citing things out of context.

[Findegil]

Dear Mr. Martinez,

to answer your reply had taken me some time. I had taken your advice to go again through the discussion and think a new about all the arguments. (By the way, this is ever and for anybody taking part in a discussion a good advice.)

At first I checked what I personally expected as the benefit of these discussion when I started it and what I still expect to come out of it. My expectations had lowered greatly. But I still find the debate worth the effort. So I will go one. (Other wise I would have only written a short message that I still disagree but wouldn't find the discussion any longer effective.)

After that decision, I think we both could go one endlessly with disproving the comments of one each other. But that wouldn't bring us any nearer to any point in which we both had gained some profit out of the discussion other then higher numbers of posts. We have long left the real topic of the thread behind. (I really wonder why this discussion started out of such a question.) And we had also left the goal of our discussion behind in commenting on one each other.
So in my view it is time for a break. But still I feel some of your reply need to be commented. I will try to clear them up as good as possible.

quote:
Originally posted by Michael Martinez:
There was no "Second Age" when Tolkien worked on The Book of Lost Tales.

quote:
Originally posted by me:
Well its was of course not named so, but if you read again what is preserved of JRR Tolkien's ideas about the events after the war of the children of the Valar against Melko you will find a much longer time that could have elapsed before the Elves left the ruins of Beleriand. (Remember the wars against men).

quote:
Originally posted by Michael Martinez:
There were no wars against men in the Second Age of Middle-earth.

quote:
Originally posted by me:
What kind of army do you think had Sauron lead against Eriador? All Orks? I can't think so and we both know that it isn't stated clearly. So you are right I have stretch probabilities here without especially stating it.

Originally posted by Michael Martinez:
You obviously are not paying attention to what is written in the books. The "wars against men" did not occur in a Second Age of Middle-earth -- there was no Second Age of Middle-earth when Tolkien alluded to those supposed wars, which were a result of the conflict between Anglo-Saxons and faeries, neither of which are found in the history of the Three Ages of the Sun.

Reading this again, I wonder about us. As I explained, my first post was revering only and exclusively to The Book of Lost Tales. It was of course meant to show a similarity between it and the Later Versions. But that similarity was in the first degree meant in the long time that elapsed after the overthrow of Morgoth. The wars against men were taken into my post to show which time period was meant and what happen in it. That they could be taken as similar to the wars reported of the second age as it is reported in the later books entered our discussion with your reply.
In your system of speaking which is clearly not mixing up the versions of the story out of different books, your reply could only be understand as: There was no war of the Elves against Men in second age as we know it out of the The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. On this I replied by showing which wars in the second age could be called wars against men, I didn't mixed up anything because here I only used the later books. Now you turn your own words to mean: The "wars against men" did not occur in a Second Age of Middle-earth -- there was no Second Age of Middle-earth when Tolkien alluded to those supposed wars. That I had already granted in my first reply. Overall I can see here not much more than series of misunderstandings in a rather over ambitious discussion.
One further question aroused out of your last post: Where did you find that the 'wars against men' to which I refer "were a result of the conflict between Anglo-Saxons and faeries"?

About the essays of Suite 101, you got me completely wrong. I used them only to show that speculating about what Tolkien might have intended couldn't be forbidden. That at least you granted. In none of my posts I criticised your essays. I have of course read some of them with great interest. I praise them as clearly stating what is taken out of the sources and what is speculative. And some of the speculations are much to my liking and were quite new for my. What I meant with 'I do not think you are producing facts' is that I had clearly understand in reading them that they are in parts speculative and that you do not imply in them that your speculations should be read as facts. I did not mean that I think you do not "reiterate facts". That you do so is obvious to each reader of the essays.

quote:
Originally posted by me:
It is right for The Silmarillion. But with that book we have a compilation of the best known scholar of JRR Tolkien and not of JRR Tolkien himself. So if there is no mention of any connection between Arda and the world we know that can not be taken as "fact" as you call it. And that Quote out of The Lord of the Ring shows a association:

quote:
Originally posted by Michael Martinez:
Then you obviously don't understand what constitute facts. Facts are not conveniently made up. They are decided by the contents of the books, and not by how we might contrive a rearrangement of those contents.

It is to be wondered that we use the word "fact" in different meanings? But that makes your point not untrue. I have clearly overdone thinks here. I agree that no "such associations" as you explained them clearly in the text following my quote are found in either the Lords of the Rings nor in The Silmarillion as published, but that is no prove to your over explicit statement that there is no connection between these books at all.

Originally posted by Michael Martinez:
You can cite as much stuff out of the context as you wish.

It is in inherent fault of any quote that it is taken out of its context. I had thought that what we try with them is to point out partners in a discussion to a special spot in a source up on which we build our understanding of the topic under discussion. Especially in discussions like the one we had here, were it seems that the main participants are well read in the texts quoted. At least we are both equipped with the books, so that we can take them an dread the context if we need it. And in contrast to me you gave not even the source of the quotes from the Foreword of The Book of Lost Tales, which were also cut out of their context, as I will show.
It is interesting that you corroborate your so called 'fact' only with a text of Christopher Tolkien, but we can of course use that text for some evidences if you like so.
It is a incontrovertible fact, which we have shown in this discussion many times, that any kind of communication is imperfect including written reports of thought's. It is imperfect form the part of writer as well as from the part of the reader. So I can't understand you at all in sticking to your understanding of the texts so hard.

Originally posted by Michael Martinez:
If you want to prove there is some connection between the imaginary events of The Book of Lost Tales and the imaginary events of the later mythologies, you're going to have to prove that Christopher Tolkien either lied or didn't know what he was talking about.

I never attempt one way or the other and I will not do so in future. But there is obviously a third option that you didn't mention. That is, that you had put to much force on the passages that you quoted out of Christopher Tolkien's Foreword. I will give here a passage that seems to me you had lost out of sight in you arguments (The Book of Lost Tales; Foreword):

The tracing of this evolution is to me of deep interest, and I hope that it may prove so to others who have a taste for this kind of enquiry: whether the major transformations of plot or cosmological theory, or such detail as the premonitory appearance of Legolas Greenleaf the keen-sighted in the tale of the Fall of Gondolin. But these old manuscripts are by no means of interest only for the study of origins. Much is to be found there that my father never (so far as one can tell) expressly rejected, and it is to be remembered that 'The Silmarillion', from 1926 'Sketch' onwards, was written as an abridgement or epitome, giving the substance of much longer works (whether existing in fact, or not) in a smaller compass. ...

Christopher Tolkien goes then on to talk about the stile of the language of the books, before he approaches the section, which you quoted about the state of the manuscripts, which were far from public able.
Before you now start blaming me that I took one sentence to put all the weight on and left the rest of the Foreword out of count, I would like to remember you that it is not any queer opinion of taking The Book of Lost Tales as the better Silmarillion that is under discussion. I never stated such things. I only attacked the exclusivity of the following statement of yours:

Originally posted by Michael Martinez:

Nothing in The Book of Lost Tales is relevant to the stories of either The Lord of the Rings or The Silmarillion.

Please note also that in my second post I agreed with your general feeling of the reliability of The Book of Lost Tales in view of events reported or not in the later books. But you persisted without even taking notice of my remark as it seems.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Finrod Felagund]

So we've discussed Maglor. What about Daeron who went east over the mountains (what later became Eriador?) and lamented for many ages!
Many ages is a long time. Where is he?

[Finmandos]

He either died ot faded. (Better ask MM about fading, I'm not really sure about it.)

[Ñólendil]

Fading occurs when the strength of an Elf's spirit becomes stronger than that Elf's body, and the latter is sort of "consumed". It eventually becomes part of the Unseen World. That is, the spirit of the Elf still has a body, but you can't see it. All Elves who lived in Middle-earth and did not die would eventually fade. No one faded in the Blessed Realm, which is a big reason the Eldar wanted to go there.

There's some really cool information on this in Laws and Customs Among The Eldar, an essay published in Morgoth's Ring.

I've been studing the Beren and Lúthien story lately. As it turns out, the passage talking about the disappearance of Maglor was written by Christopher Tolkien. His father indicated this was to happen, but he never wrote it.

[Michael Martinez]

Originally posted by Ñólendil
I've been studing the Beren and Lúthien story lately. As it turns out, the passage talking about the disappearance of Maglor was written by Christopher Tolkien. His father indicated this was to happen, but he never wrote it.

I think you mean Daeron, not Maglor.

Daeron (and Maglor) could have ended up living in the distant east among Avari.

It's also possible that they would have been killed in the Second Age, in the wars with Sauron, despite the "ages" suggestions in the Silmarillion texts. There was very little coordination between the Silmarillion tales and the larger history for Middle-earth. The notion that these two Elves spent many ages singing sadly by themselves should be regarded as more romantic than factual.

[Ñólendil]

Yes, I meant Daeron.

Why should it be regarded as romantic? Because of a lack of hard evidence, or what?

[Michael Martinez]

Originally posted by Ñólendil
Yes, I meant Daeron.

Why should it be regarded as romantic? Because of a lack of hard evidence, or what?

Yes.