# Christopher Tolkien was a grave robber and cashed in



## cart (Oct 14, 2022)

https://youtu.be/WMKN27xZ_14?t=168  <- youtuber says some wild xxxx about Christopher in this video

Click bait title. But it does make me curious if others here hold this opinion or just what kind of opinions are out there on the topic of everything JRR didn't publish or write word for word himself. Alot of experts have popped up out of no where on youtube all of sudden and really seem to "care" about the lore and whatnot (which is odd considering their backlog of videos generally don't have a single video about Tolkien till RoP was getting decimated by anyone with a social media account.)

So, not a whole lot for me to add to this other than I'm very grateful for what Chris did.. I own them all.. i've read it all.. even HoME.

Well Nature of Middle Rarth i didn't really read cause there is ALOT of very tedious material in there and anyone who owns the book knows what im talking about.. and for those that don't you can probably read the chapter titles online.. and that's EXACTLY what you're going to get.

And well it's easy to say he was doing it for the money.. cause a man's got to eat even if he was doing this for the fans and I can understand some gripes, especially with material that is reedited again and again and now it's my third time reading it in some form. Though. at the same time I never felt like it wasn't worth my time reading it or that it wasn't done without care and consideration. In other words I welcome it all, and grateful Christopher basically made it his life's work putting these works together.

But what do you think?


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## Tar-Elenion (Oct 14, 2022)

Yeah, I commented there telling him he was wrong. But his channel is big enough that I doubt he reads the individual comments.


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## Olorgando (Oct 14, 2022)

To quote from the introduction to the 2022 book "The Great Tales Never End" by co-editor Catherine McIlwaine:

"In 1967 Tolkien named Christpher as his literary executor and *co-author* [emphasis mine] of 'The Silmarillion', thereby acknowledging that he was unlikely to complete the work and giving his son the authority to finish and publish it."

Mental diarrhea by Internet imbeciles is simply too tiresome (and often predictable) for me to bother with. 🥱


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## Ugluk (Oct 14, 2022)

Ah yes, YouTube. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum, villainy, and ignorance (except perhaps twitter)


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## Ent (Oct 14, 2022)

Envy and jealousy cause a lot of people to say a lot of things without doing a lot of thinking.

Christopher was always tied together with JRR's works. Always. And in choosing to do what he chose to do, he took on for himself an extremely difficult task.

Would it have been better to turn all JRR's 'stuff' over to someone else entirely? And someone not involved through the years with his thinking and developments as they moved forward?

We must forgive those who speak these kinds of things without thinking, remembering always that they are doing the best they can with the mental capacities they've got to work with, as they seem to continue to choose not to improve upon their current state of development.


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## Ugluk (Oct 14, 2022)

People keep saying that ROP is based on the Appendices of LOTR but, from comments here on the series, I can't see any meaningful connection.


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## Ent (Oct 14, 2022)

Ugluk said:


> ROP is based on


...characters and concepts originating from and within Tolkien. And that's about it.
With a lot of conjecture, additives, alterations, and pure inventions. 
But that's all they could (and wanted to) do.

It's pretty much pure fanfic. And for some, it's probably 'bad' fanfic as they could have done several things much closer to what we know from Tolkien.

For myself, I've almost divorced it from 'fanfic' even at this point, and am just viewing it as a spin-off fantasy. 

Makes it easier to 'swallow' all the issues and differences.

As a spin-off fantasy it's not so bad at all.


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## CirdanLinweilin (Oct 14, 2022)

Well Christopher basically got the Hobbit going so that's all the confirmation you need that it was his mission.


CL


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## Ugluk (Oct 15, 2022)

The Enting said:


> ...characters and concepts originating from and within Tolkien. And that's about it.
> With a lot of conjecture, additives, alterations, and pure inventions.
> But that's all they could (and wanted to) do.
> 
> ...



Spin off fantasy might be Wheel of Time. But this?????

Assuming this season is a success then we can expect further departures from the source in the future. This is the Hollywood way. Even PJ did not deviate from the sources too much initially.


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## Ent (Oct 16, 2022)

Ugluk said:


> we can expect further departures


Yes, we can.
But you see... we're existing in entirely different realms.
You are in the realm of 'comparatives'.
I am in the realm of 'not comparing'. 
Thus... our perspectives are entirely different.


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## cart (Oct 16, 2022)

Olorgando said:


> To quote from the introduction to the 2022 book "The Great Tales Never End" by co-editor Catherine McIlwaine:
> 
> "In 1967 Tolkien named Christpher as his literary executor and *co-author* [emphasis mine] of 'The Silmarillion', thereby acknowledging that he was unlikely to complete the work and giving his son the authority to finish and publish it."
> 
> Mental diarrhea by Internet imbeciles is simply too tiresome (and often predictable) for me to bother with. 🥱


Right i mean as far as i remember JRR wanted the Silmarillion or at least thought the content of the Silmarillion should be included with the LoTR books? Or something like that. He ran into a number of publishing issues and various concerns back in the day.. I forget why/what this was considered unacceptable and thus he focused elsewhere. Though wasn't just because the publishers at the time thought people wouldn't be interested in that type of writing at the time?

Is there any sense in THIS community (or prior to this community) that Chris perhaps has crossed some line at some point.. I mentioned the republications of what can be interpreted as the same work essentially, but also explain why I don't view any issues with any of that.



The Enting said:


> Envy and jealousy cause a lot of people to say a lot of things without doing a lot of thinking.
> 
> Christopher was always tied together with JRR's works. Always. And in choosing to do what he chose to do, he took on for himself an extremely difficult task.
> 
> ...



Well I understand the backlash of the RoP.. I haven't seen it myself and wasn't interested in it prior to its release (didn't even know it existed till I joined this site actually) and not interested in it now. But the little I have seen is, pretty funny stuff. While I can see how people can be quick to blame the "estates" like Lucas estate is basically filled with Disney workers I imagine at this point. And then some might draw some relation to Brian Herbert and there are people that certainly view him in a negative light. And just in general feeling (or truth rather) that all their favourite works of fiction (in whatever form) are being bastardized in some way or another... I can see how you get there.

But Tokien's literary world that circled him the only individual I ever really thought of as wrong is david day, but at the same time I also don't really view that particular opinion as a hill to die on and admit that his "artistic flair" maybe got the better of him, and maybe he deemed his head canon to be canon enough.. and so it goes to print.

I just find it so odd that the one individual I think most of us felt we could trust to hold the Tolkien estate together and to not allow a mockery of JRR's works and themselves is somehow the one getting thrown under the bus.

I mean if Chris was a problem... I can promise these people it's going to get alot worse without him as the years go on. I can already see the day where some large entertainment company buys the whole of the Tolkien estate and pulls a Disney and basically says anything that isn't LoTR or the hobbit isn't canon and as they rub their greedy little hands together say "meat's back on the menu boys!"

Fortunately, like most of you I've read and own the books. Which is mostly why I have had so little interest in RoP.

I remember reading comments prior to RoP saying "they are going to change the lore.. the canon!! the canon will never be the same!!!!!" just thinking... you people are dumb.. just read the books and if you haven't done that, then you don't care about the canon to begin with.. so what are you getting so worked up about.

But the internet does what people do.. and that's getting worked up about stuff that really isn't all too important in the scheme of things and doing whatever they can to ignore the things that actually matter.. while digesting any little bit of self gratifying media they can to distract from the tedium of there day to day. (Not that I'm any better.. well maybe a little.. but just a little.)


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## Ent (Oct 17, 2022)

cart said:


> JRR wanted the Silmarillion or at least thought the content of the Silmarillion should be included with the LoTR books?


He actually wanted to finish and print the Silmarillion RATHER THAN LoTR. But could not get it accepted. LoTR became, because SIL could not.


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## Elthir (Oct 17, 2022)

I think *Cart* is referring to JRRT's hope with respect to Milton Waldman -- at this point Tolkien wanted _The Silmarillion_ and _The Lord of the Rings_ published -- briefly put, things didn't work out with Waldman
-- Tolkien ultimately ends up "back" with Allen and Unwin -- and at the time, A&U were only willing to publish _The Lord of the Rings_.

But yes, long before this, Tolkien had sent parts of his Elder Days material for feedback -- with respect to a possible publishment [a word?] of the larger work [Silmarillion stuff].


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Oct 17, 2022)

Right -- the "reader" for A&U couldn't make head or tail of it. Tolkien was particularly annoyed that he considered it "Celtic".

Aside: 
How long, O Lord, shall we suffer this publishment of the English language?


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## Elthir (Oct 17, 2022)

LOL!

Hmm. I looked it up: _archaic --_ another name for publication.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Oct 17, 2022)

*THIS IS FOWLER!!!
*
(He could be a bit vehement on occasion)


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## Elthir (Oct 17, 2022)

This *be* Sparta! 

to subjugate verbs in the archaic tense, anyway.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Oct 17, 2022)

I try to subjugate verbs as often as possible.


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## Elthir (Oct 17, 2022)

*“They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”*

Humpty Dumpty


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Oct 17, 2022)

And we know what happened to him.


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## cart (Oct 17, 2022)

Elthir said:


> I think *Cart* is referring to JRRT's hope with respect to Milton Waldman -- at this point Tolkien wanted _The Silmarillion_ and _The Lord of the Rings_ published -- briefly put, things didn't work out with Waldman
> -- Tolkien ultimately ends up "back" with Allen and Unwin -- and at the time, A&U were only willing to publish _The Lord of the Rings_.
> 
> But yes, long before this, Tolkien had sent parts of his Elder Days material for feedback -- with respect to a possible publishment [a word?] of the larger work [Silmarillion stuff].


Sorry I missed this comment. However this was what my wandering, forgetful mind was referring to.
Thanks for the bullet point.


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## Amon Rudh (Dec 8, 2022)

If he promised his dad that he'd bring the words to the people and publish whatever he had available then what was he and others such as Sibley, Foster et al supposed to do? Personally I want all I can get and appreciate the work being done to package it up. If that means a few beautiful duplicates of work brought together from various sources already published to make them more accessible (e.g. Fall of Numenor) sitting on my bookshelf then it's a small price to pay. I for one hope they continue.
Buy, don't buy. Read, don't read. Nobody is forcing anyone 🤷


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## Ent (Dec 8, 2022)

Welcome aboard @Amon Rudh. Don't hesitate to introduce yourself in our 'new members' thread.
Your above post really hits the nail with the head..!!


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Dec 8, 2022)

Seconded! And it's right here:








New Members


Meet and greet the newest TTF members. -- [ One thread per new member only! ] --




www.thetolkienforum.com


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## Erestor Arcamen (Dec 8, 2022)

Amon Rudh said:


> Buy, don't buy. Read, don't read. Nobody is forcing anyone 🤷


That's a hard concept for some people on Tolkien and many other topics, unfortunately.


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## Gloranthan (Dec 8, 2022)

So, I've read the _Silmarillion_, _Children of Hurin_. I shall get around to _Beren and Luthien_ at some point. C. Tolkien had a big hand in all of them.
They're better than, uh, 90% of fantasy novels published since _Lord of the Rings_. A large part of this is, no doubt, due to JRR's notes. Nonetheless, Chris put them in their final form.
And how can a man's heir be a 'grave robber'? What sense does that make? He was _already _entitled to Tolkien's work. You can't 'steal' what's yours.


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## Ent (Dec 8, 2022)

Gloranthan said:


> And how can a man's heir be a 'grave robber'? What sense does that make? He was _already _entitled to Tolkien's work. You can't 'steal' what's yours.


I fear there is great risk in pursuing this line of discussion, as many are quite vociferous about many things.
That said, I BELIEVE the feeling boils down to this:
. it's not that he 'owned' and 'had the rights' to it... it's that he DID something with it (in fulfillment of his father's wishes.)
Though of course, it's not stated in those terms.

And some of what was done with it is quite disagreed with, though it's all been quite legally done.
It boils down to a moral vs. a legal line of thinking, morals of course being quite a different and more fluid matter than the Law.

Some will no doubt feel I'm being overly simplistic. Yet we do have a tendency to over-complicate things.


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## Amon Rudh (Dec 8, 2022)

I think that's part of the problem. People feel so invested in some things they believe it's their property. It's a bit like football teams (I am a big football fan) where people are very vocal about how a club should be run but God forbid they put their own money where their mouth is. 🙈
Alternatively, it's as though they are trying to earn money on YouTube via clicks and likes using sensational headlines. Who'd have thunk it.🤣


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## Gloranthan (Dec 8, 2022)

To me, even if Chris had done a slapdash job and produced junk he'd still be on the level of a lot of best-selling authors today. I would, of course, criticize bad work as bad work, but I have no principled objection to people writing bad books inspired by the works of others, whether their father or not.
As they're _not terrible_, but actually fairly interesting books, I just don't see any problem.



Amon Rudh said:


> I think that's part of the problem. People feel so invested in some things they believe it's their property. It's a bit like football teams (I am a big football fan) where people are very vocal about how a club should be run but God forbid they put their own money where their mouth is. 🙈


The opposite sort of phenomena is equally ridiculous to me, where people assume that because Marvel or whomever has the legal rights to something that I must accept and praise the product, or else be a traitor. I like _good comics_, I couldn't care less about whether some corporate dinosaur has the legal rights or not, and I have no 'brand loyalty' whatsoever. If Image comics started publishing _Superman _tomorrow I'd probably stop buying DC comics.


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## Amon Rudh (Dec 8, 2022)

Agreed. That said, I could be accused of that in some ways as (at risk of going wildly off topic) I seem to be more or less on my own in (genuinely) liking the Hobbit 'trilogy' and the Rings of Power. Not so much for accurate portrayal of the texts but for films in their own right. Artistic license is OK with me.
I have no issue with personal preference and the right to like what we like.


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## CheriptheRipper (Dec 8, 2022)

Ugluk said:


> Spin off fantasy might be Wheel of Time. But this?????
> 
> Assuming this season is a success then we can expect further departures from the source in the future. This is the Hollywood way. Even PJ did not deviate from the sources too much initially.


Wheel of Time itself might be classed as a spin off fantasy of the book 😂😭


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## Ugluk (Dec 8, 2022)

Ent said:


> I fear there is great risk in pursuing this line of discussion, as many are quite vociferous about many things.
> That said, I BELIEVE the feeling boils down to this:
> . it's not that he 'owned' and 'had the rights' to it... it's that he DID something with it (in fulfillment of his father's wishes.)
> Though of course, it's not stated in those terms.
> ...


What possible moral objections could there be to CT's work?


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## Ent (Dec 8, 2022)

Ugluk said:


> What possible moral objections could there be to CT's work?


I have no idea. you would need to ask those who consider him a 'grave digger'. i believe it has solely to do with his use of his father's works to 'make money' and that alone. from that springs a feeling of 'moral indignity'. (it also applies to many other of the things people fuss about with regard to Tolkien's work.)


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## Gloranthan (Dec 8, 2022)

Ugluk said:


> What possible moral objections could there be to CT's work?


Well, practically no philosopher in history can agree to precise defintions of what morality is, what constitutes a moral or immoral [thing/act], and while a lot of 'popular' moralism has overlap a lot of 'popular' anything is rubbish which they can't possibly defend with reason. Therefor it is quite plausible for someone to find almost anything 'morally objectionable' and defend it just about as well as anything else.
Personally, I think it's all feelings and opportunism, but I am a nihilist.


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## Ugluk (Dec 8, 2022)

Ent said:


> I have no idea. you would need to ask those who consider him a 'grave digger'. i believe it has solely to do with his use of his father's works to 'make money' and that alone. from that springs a feeling of 'moral indignity'. (it also applies to many other of the things people fuss about with regard to Tolkien's work.)



To get the material published it has to be sellable. If _The Silmarillion_ or _The book of lost tales_ been commercial failures we would not have seen the rest in print. CT would presumably then simply sorted and edited the unpublished material and then donated or sold it to a suitable institution. The fact is the work proved sellable, and the rest is (to coin a phrase) history. Why should this cause moral indignation? What was CT supposed to do? Self publish the lot? Donate it to a library on masse?


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## Gloranthan (Dec 8, 2022)

Ugluk said:


> To get the material published it has to be sellable. If _The Silmarillion_ or _The book of lost tales_ been commercial failures we would not have seen the rest in print. CT would presumably then simply sorted and edited the unpublished material and then donated or sold it to a suitable institution. The fact is the work proved sellable, and the rest is (to coin a phrase) history. Why should this cause moral indignation? What was CT supposed to do? Self publish the lot? Donate it to a library on masse?


People (often rightfully) feel that when people do art with the explicit goal of making money they often compromise their product. On the other hand, I would say that making art solely for yourself is narcissistic, and often ends up with a 'product' nobody else cares about. I'd imagine a large part of the Nerd Rage is people who are disappointed by the final form of the work and, rather than blame JRR for dithering and not finishing his products, they blame Christopher for finishing it for him.
Really, though, I find it's best to just not engage people when you don't share their valuations, because there's usually a lot more rationalization than rationality involved in such things.


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## Ent (Dec 8, 2022)

Gloranthan said:


> I find it's best to just not engage people when you don't share their valuations, because there's usually a lot more rationalization than rationality involved in such things.


May we all say the "Amen"..!!! (This assumes folks know what "amen" means, of course.)


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## Ugluk (Dec 8, 2022)

Gloranthan said:


> People (often rightfully) feel that when people do art with the explicit goal of making money they often compromise their product. On the other hand, I would say that making art solely for yourself is narcissistic, and often ends up with a 'product' nobody else cares about. I'd imagine a large part of the Nerd Rage is people who are disappointed by the final form of the work and, rather than blame JRR for dithering and not finishing his products, they blame Christopher for finishing it for him.
> Really, though, I find it's best to just not engage people when you don't share their valuations, because there's usually a lot more rationalization than rationality involved in such things.


Yep, don't argue with idiots or trolls.


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## Ent (Dec 8, 2022)

Ugluk said:


> Why should this cause moral indignation? What was CT supposed to do? Self publish the lot? Donate it to a library on masse?


I dunno. Perhaps encase it all in indestructible plastic and bury it underneath the worlds largest and deepest buried deposit of nuclear waste...! 

I think what gripes them the most has been identified above somewhere...

'some things that have been done' have displeased their 'moral perspective' of how it should have been handled, so 'all things' related to anyone connected with it subsequent to JRR's death receive rancor to one extent or another, however unfitting or unrealistic. 

and yet... both C.T. and the Tolkien Estate have the right to do as they wish with what they've been entrusted.
So again we return to the simplistic 'ambiguous moral' vs. 'clear legal' contexts within which the 'reality' of the issues lie.

Not everyone likes reality. Rather they prefer an ideological world where all works according to their own design.


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## Gloranthan (Dec 8, 2022)

Ent said:


> Not everyone likes reality. Rather they prefer an ideological world where all works according to their own design.


In my Universe, Tolkien is alive, Moorcock can still write good novels, and Robert E. Howard published 300 Conan novels. Reality sucks.


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## Ent (Dec 8, 2022)

Gloranthan said:


> In my Universe, Tolkien is alive, Moorcock can still write good novels, and Robert E. Howard published 300 Conan novels. Reality sucks.


Then of course, we have those who are just outright deluded. 😁


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## Olorgando (Dec 8, 2022)

Ugluk said:


> To get the material published it has to be sellable. If _The Silmarillion_ or _The book of lost tales_ been commercial failures we would not have seen the rest in print. CT would presumably then simply sorted and edited the unpublished material and then donated or sold it to a suitable institution. The fact is the work proved sellable, and the rest is (to coin a phrase) history. Why should this cause moral indignation? What was CT supposed to do? Self publish the lot? Donate it to a library on masse?


Oh yes, especially the publishers are interested in sales and profit. But then, Sir Stanley Unwin was willing to risk losing a thousand Pounds Sterling (that was *serious* money in the mid-1950's!!!) on LoTR, and told his Son Rayner so in a telegram, IIRC, on the condition that the latter considered the book to be a work of genius.

But have any of these trolls actually *read* anything of HoMe - or even "Unfinished Tales"? These are academic works by a professional scholar once working for the English School of Oxford, fer cryin' out loud! So many people have found "The Silmarillion" difficult going compared to LoTR. Oh, really? Try slogging through the commentary-, footnote- and endnote-riddled 5,000-odd pages of HoMe, you weenies. 😈

I don't know any sales figures for the 12 volumes of HoMe, either for single volumes or in aggregate. Compared to the at least 100 million and counting for LoTR, and the perhaps one, maybe two million for the Sil, they are likely to be an order of magnitude smaller. What I know for a fact is that only the first two volumes of HoMe, Book of Lost Tales volumes 1 and 2, ever got translated into German. To put it another way, these ain't "Conan the Barbarian" comics (and never mind films and TV shows. I'll add that the CtB *books* seem to be at least a notch above the popular fluff I just mentioned, from comments I've read.).


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## Olorgando (Dec 8, 2022)

Ent said:


> Not everyone likes reality. Rather they prefer an ideological world where all works according to their own design.


Yup. And often that fantasy world makes all of JRRT's writing look like a dry-as-dust documentary.
What's that phrase that seems so appropriate so often? 🤔
Oh, right ...
"Get a life!" 😈


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## Ent (Dec 8, 2022)

Olorgando said:


> o many people have found "The Silmarillion" difficult going compared to LoTR. Oh, really? Try slogging through the commentary-, footnote- and endnote-riddled 5,000-odd pages of HoMe, you weenies.


But sir Olorgando, other than this do you have any feelings on the matter? 
(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)
😇


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## Gloranthan (Dec 8, 2022)

> But have any of these trolls actually *read* anything of HoMe - or even "Unfinished Tales"? These are academic works by a professional scholar once working for the English School of Oxford, fer cryin' out loud! So many people have found "The Silmarillion" difficult going compared to LoTR. Oh, really? Try slogging through the commentary-, footnote- and endnote-riddled 5,000-odd pages of HoMe, you weenies.


You're basically paraphrasing me complaining about the 12 year olds on Quora giving me their "expert opinion" on Superman. _There are over two thousand comics with the man in it, I've read them, have you?_
I don't have all of the HoMe volumes, and I read selectively (I tend to skip over a lot of draft versions of published stuff) but anything to do with Elves, Morgoth and the Numenoreans I have consumed voraciously. And as for _The Silmarillion _being hard going in the opinion of some, I personally found it more interesting than either _the Hobbit_ or _The Lord of the Rings_. Because it's got elves, Morgoth, and lots of wars; these are the things that really drew me to Middle-earth.

I wouldn't have minded much if Chris Tolkien went off on his own and started writing Middle-earth novels. If Frank Herbert's son can spin off his own father's novels, why not Chris?


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## Ent (Dec 8, 2022)

Gloranthan said:


> complaining about the 12 year olds on Quora


Just wait 'til you're 71, youngster... but we must keep in mind it's the kids who know everything.


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## Olorgando (Dec 8, 2022)

Ent said:


> Just wait 'til you're 71, youngster... but we must keep in mind it's the kids who know everything.


Eh? Practically everything I learned in high school is obsolete by now (graduated 1973). You can probably add to that everything up to 1981, when I left the academic college / university ivory tower. And the odd decade later. Those kids need to do some serious reading of Socrates ...


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## Gloranthan (Dec 8, 2022)

Olorgando said:


> Those kids need to do some serious reading of Socrates ...


You mean, Plato. Socrates didn't write anything. _Memorabilia _presents a Socrates more to my liking.
To steer this back to Chris Tolkien and not a bunch of old people complaining about illiterate children, I really have no knowledge about the actual history/behind the scenes events which led to Chris finishing out the works he did. Upon completing _The Silmarillion_ I was pleasantly surprised to find _The Children of Hurin_ on sale for $5 at Barnes & Noble (surplus or something), so I bought and read it immediately. I noted some differences between it and the events in _The Silmarillion _(which I am sure others on here can detail better than I can). There is something of a stylistic difference between _The Children of Hurin_ and the novels Tolkien completed in his life, but it still felt true to the spirit of Middle-earth. I have no idea if those differences were a result of Chris interpolating his father's drafts into a whole, if Tolkien simply wrote differently later in his life, or if he would have revised it stylistically when his notes were completed.

Whatever the case I can appreciate the work Chris must have done to put it together and, being satisfied with the finished product (a top-notch fantasy novel for five bucks, come on!) I am glad he did it. I certainly prefer that outcome to sifting through piles of notes myself and trying to haggle a narrative out of it (as often is the case reading _The History of Middle-earth_).


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## Olorgando (Dec 8, 2022)

Gloranthan said:


> You mean, Plato. Socrates didn't write anything. _Memorabilia _presents a Socrates more to my liking.


Correct. I mean what Plato wrote about Socrates. Jesus, Mohammed and Kong-fu tse (Confucius) were others that never wrote down anything themselves ...
The part of Plato's writing I have been most fascinated by is the uncompleted (of all of his works?) trilogy "Timaeus" (completed), "Critias" (incomplete) and "Hermocrates" (probably never written). It's our *sole* source for the "Atlantis" legend, and very likely suffers from multiple, decisive translation errors.


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## Gloranthan (Dec 8, 2022)

Olorgando said:


> Correct. I mean what Plato wrote about Socrates. Jesus, Mohammed and Kong-fu tse (Confucius) were others that never wrote down anything themselves ...
> The part of Plato's writing I have been most fascinated by is the uncompleted (of all of his works?) trilogy "Timaeus" (completed), "Critias" (incomplete) and "Hermocrates" (probably never written). It's our *sole* source for the "Atlantis" legend, and very likely suffers from multiple, decisive translation errors.


My favorite is _Gorgias_, because Callicles was right and Plato knew he couldn't come up with a good counter-argument to stuff in Socrates' mouth, so had the character Callicles leave the scene without a proper rebuttle or counter-argument. Coward!


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## Deimos (Dec 8, 2022)




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## Amon Rudh (Dec 9, 2022)

I wonder what creators of this sort of garbage think of those losers that messed about with such an historical artifact as the broken Narsil just so they could remake it into a new shiny one for personal gain.
In his own writings JRRT, it seems, predicted even the events related to in this thread 😁


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## Gloranthan (Dec 9, 2022)

Amon Rudh said:


> I wonder what creators of this sort of garbage think of those losers that messed about with such an historical artifact as the broken Narsil just so they could remake it into a new shiny one for personal gain.
> In his own writings JRRT, it seems, predicted even the events related to in this thread 😁


This just makes me wish I had Narsil. Broken or not. I'll take _any magic sword_.
Though the analogy kind of falls apart, because who are they going to blame for breaking Narsil? Did Sauron muss up Tolkien's drafts? lol
*the deceiver*


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## Elthir (Dec 9, 2022)

Gloranthan said:


> There is something of a stylistic difference between _The Children of Hurin_ and the novels Tolkien completed in his life, but it still felt true to the spirit of Middle-earth. I have no idea if those differences were a result of Chris interpolating his father's drafts into a whole, if Tolkien simply wrote differently later in his life, or if he would have revised it stylistically when his notes were completed.



I think there are large enough sections to attribute the style to JRRT. We know that the latter part of the Narn, from the section headed "The Return of Turin to Dor-Lomin" to "The Death of Turin" was written circa *1951* (thus before _The Lord of the Rings_ was published), and according to Christopher Tolkien (here referring to the _Unfinished Tales_ version) *"has undergone only marginal editorial alteration."*

And the part of the Narn dealing with Turin's earlier life is a work of the *later 1950s*. It includes
a twelve-page typescript composed ab initio, for example, and a section [to the end of Turin in Doriath] *"required a good deal of revision and selection, and in some cases some slight compression, the original texts being scrappy and disconnected."*

But for its central section [Turin among the outlaws, Mim, the land of Dor-Cuarthol, the death of Beleg, and Turin's life in Nargothrond] the Narn is at its least finished, *"and in places diminishes to outlines of possible turns in the story."*

This is a very simplified summary however, even with respect to the _Unfinished Tales_ version (the later version for the book _The Children of Hurin_ has more to say about the construction of that version).



Gloranthan said:


> (. . .) I am glad he did it. I certainly prefer that outcome to sifting through piles of notes myself and trying to haggle a narrative out of it (as often is the case reading _The History of Middle-earth_).



I enjoy that haggle, but the reading of the constructed _Children of Hurin_ is indeed a different experience, and well worth it. I had to have the signed version, although no one was selling that
for five dollars. Or five anything!

By the way, *thanks* for helping me find my driver's license (missing for about three weeks). I wanted to check something about the Narn from Hammond and Scull's Companion, and found that I'd used my license as a bookmark -- I had a vague memory that I'd done that, in some book, but wasn't really sure!

🐾


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