# What is considered canon



## SmokeMonkey (Jan 29, 2004)

Ok i don't know if all you tolkienites use that phrasing or if my Trekieness is coming through but i was reading The Silmarillion today(for the first time) and I remembered the story of Tuor from The Book of Unfinished Tales (Which i actually read first stupid me). So i glaced over the story from the UT and I know the story is alot short in UT but the beginning is much more detaled than the Sil version. And this got me thinking about canon, I started wondering if everything in this story is considered "offical" or if only the one published in the Sil was the right now. They didn't necessarly contridict each other, but what if they had? Which one would have been right?

So ive decieded to put this up for debate or at least for some one to give me the answer.


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## Niniel (Jan 29, 2004)

I think hardly anything of Tolkien's work is considered canon, because he wrote so many versions of his stories. When you read HOME, you will find at least 10 more different versions of the stories in the Sil. The only thing that counts is whether Tolkien wrote it himself; if someone makes claims based on something Tolkien didn't write himself, then his argument often is not accepted, but as long as someone's argument can be supported by claims from Tolkien's work it's okay. Most people have not read the whole of HOME, so for them the published Sil is sort of canon, but it's definitely not the version Tolkien would have published if he had published it himself.


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## Aulë (Jan 29, 2004)

Yes, the only things that can be called 100% canon are the things that JRR Tolkien had published whilst he was alive (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Of Fairy Stories, Farmer Giles of Ham, Leaf By Niggle, Smith of Wootton Major, The Road Goes Ever On and The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth).

Of the things that he didn't publish and his son Christopher compiled (eg, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, History of Middle Earth, etc), usually the most recently written text is used if two (or more) things contradict.


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## Inderjit S (Jan 29, 2004)

Onl 'The Hobbit' and 'LoTR', 'Road Goes Ever On'.can be considered canon in the published sense. Published works usually over-ride works that were not published when Tolkien was alive. 

The Silmarillion is no more canon then HoMe or UT and is derived from a lot of HoME (4,5,10,11,12) and U.T. HoME charts the development of Tolkiens work. HoME can at time represent Tolkiens latter view on certain subjects.


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## GuardianRanger (Jan 29, 2004)

This is a topic that has always interested me. You can click here to see a post I made on the subject a while back. That thread was titled "Silmarillion - To be taken as authority?". 

I think, with Tolkien's works, there is going to be a lot of debate on what is, and what is not "canon." My view changes frequently.

My question is, what is the source material for The Encyclopedia of Arda? And where was Robert Foster's book compiled from.


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## Inderjit S (Jan 29, 2004)

EoA uses the 'Published Silmarillion'.

One the one occasion in which I have seen a reference to HoME, in explaining the etymology of Maedhros's name it uses a out-dated and rejected version (HoMe 5) rather then the 'correct' version given in the Shibboelth (HoME 12.)


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## Hirila (Jan 29, 2004)

What we can all do, considering that Tolkien himself didn't manage to give his stories a fixed and final enfind, is to do just like he did. Look through his works, read what he has written, compare the differences and just pick the details we believe fit best together.
For example what I did with the story of Tuor: I take the beginning from UT and finish it with the Sil. That way I have a wonderful story. 

We can never be sure what Tolkien would have conceived wold be the finished version, an das long as he doesn't come back to tell us, I think the safest way is to read his stories the way I just described it.


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## SmokeMonkey (Jan 29, 2004)

After reading through some of this topic and the one GuardianRanger linked too my question is this then: I have the second edition of the Sil and in it CT writes the forward and puts a letter by JRRT to someone (i don't remember and im too lazy to look it up  ) and in that letter i remember him saying that he had this idea for the story since 1917 (or there about) and it was in an almost completed form. Now i know CT did some editing but it sounds to me like the one that was published was a near completed book


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## Snaga (Jan 29, 2004)

The idea of a "canon" is bogus IMO. This is a piece of (or collection of pieces of) literature, not a religious work. You can do exactly as you please.


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## aragil (Jan 29, 2004)

SmokeMonkey said:


> After reading through some of this topic and the one GuardianRanger linked too my question is this then: I have the second edition of the Sil and in it CT writes the forward and puts a letter by JRRT to someone (i don't remember and im too lazy to look it up  ) and in that letter i remember him saying that he had this idea for the story since 1917 (or there about) and it was in an almost completed form. Now i know CT did some editing but it sounds to me like the one that was published was a near completed book


 CT did EXTENSIVE editing. JRRT died in sept, 1973. He had already asked that when he passed, CT would edit the notes as best he could, and then submit them for publication. CT started the editing process shortly after his father's death- say early 1974. The Sil was not published until 1977. That's a long time just for editing. In any case, read HoME and you'll get a good appreciation of just how much editing was required. Quite a bit.


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## Lantarion (Jan 30, 2004)

Inderjit S said:


> HoME can at time represent Tolkiens latter view on certain subjects.


It is indeed this that I think should be held as the ruling view of all matters of and in Eä. And as I understand it (still having not yet read the HoME) the Published Silmarillion does have at least for the most part JRRT's lattermost or most coherent thoughts on the stories. That is speculation of course on my part, but I would assume it to be so.

But realistically, I take the Published Silmarillion to be the authorative work of Tolkien's; if there are some ideas which were radically changed in his later life then I do suppose I would adopt them as the 'truth', but smaller 'changes', i.e. deviations from the PS would not bother me.


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## Arvedui (Feb 2, 2004)

I consider the Published Silmarillion to canon. After all, it is the *Published* Silmarillion.
But! I am very aware of the fact that CT missed some minor details when editing, and one example of this is Galadriel's motives for leaving Valinor for Middle-earth. In the Published Silmarillion, I get the impression that she was an active participant in the Rebellion. _The Shibolleth of Fëanor_ gives a different view. And there is a third variation to be read in _Letter #353._

But anyway there are enough loose ends in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to make for a lot of debates, so it is perhaps impossible to ever agree on what is canon when it comes to Tolkien's main work?


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## SpencerC18 (Feb 4, 2004)

The sil is pretty much the bible of middle-earth. It even paralles the bible at points and other writings. I think that's what helped Tolkien make a believable world.


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