The Hall of Fire

Opinion noted. Please feel free to skip any and all posts you see with my name on it. I won't take offense.

Saying that "it appears that the roles of female characters are systematically reduced" (which you write at least twice in the book) is not the same thing as saying that "a significant number of editorial choices together have the effect of reducing the role of women in the book"...

And does this fact have any bearing on your claim that "it appears that the roles of female characters are systematically reduced"? (Which was the point of "soli" citing it in the first place, not whether we should be glad of it or not.) And if not, why not? Does this not in fact...

I understand that that is your opinion. You have made it abundantly clear. This in neither a helpful nor a fair comment, Doug. I was not simply reiterating my opinion: I was explaining why I have that opinion, and further why I am not the only one to hold it. I didn't address the nature of the edit...

I did not intend to imply a deliberate pattern. I'm afraid then that your choice of words was very ill considered, because I maintain that your wording strongly implies that. However, I do maintain that some of the edits that I point to do not fit in the pattern of a systematic reduction of the rol...

Calacirya is the form that appears most frequently in The Lord of the Rings (three times, twice in Galadriel's Lament and once in the index). It seems plain to me that Christopher was simply bringing the form of this name into line with that of LotR, as he did with many other names.

Put another way: If, Doug, you had written, "it appears that the roles of minor characters are systematically reduced", I would have nothing to critique, and in fact would readily accept that as quite likely, because I think all can agree it would at least arguably have been a reasonable t...

I use the term "misogyny" here only as a shorthand for "deliberately reducing the role of female characters" (which to be sure seems equivalent to a charge of misogyny to me) -- which is what I had written before this and which, I note, you did not and have not yet denied chargin...

It wasn't meant to be "snarky", it was meant to a) be funny, and b) make a serious point, which is: if Christopher Tolkien really were given to deliberately reducing the roles of female characters, just because they are female (as Doug seems really to believe), then why would he stop with ...

Unintentionally snarky "humor" removed by author.

One doesn't have to be a statistician to appreciate that a methodology that selects and presents only evidence that supports a case, and ignores evidence that doesn't support it, is bad methodology, as it can only lead to one (invalid) "conclusion". You know that better than most, I expect...

You are entitled to form your own opinions, "vison", but your are not entitled to form your own facts. I nowhere accused Doug of malice, only (in short) of sloppy scholarship. (Only if I thought he was being knowingly and deliberately sloppy could I accuse him of malice, and I don't think ...

The topic of Míriel also brings up what I expect will remain my most vehement criticism of your work, Doug: namely, your unsupported and scurrilous implication (and only just barely that, as opposed to an explicit charge) that in his editorial changes Christopher deliberately set about to "redu...

That last post was by me (Carl, "Aelfwine"), if there was any doubt. (Didn't realize until after I posted that I wasn't logged in!)

You are certainly in a better position than most to judge these things, having had more of an opportunity than most to study Tolkien's manuscripts. True, but I don't think it takes much imagination to see that this is the case even just from the published works; indeed, even just from knowledge of ...

I wish he had preserved more of a sense of the book being a compendium of different sources. I presume that you feel doing so would have made The Silmarillion in some way a better book than it is. Perhaps you feel that it would have better reflected Tolkien's intentions. If so, I disagree. If by &q...

As for Tolkien's stated intentions: you, Doug, seem to treat them as far more absolute and determinative than warranted. I can point to several cases in the late linguistic papers alone where he wrote "final decision" against some point of grammar, only to have then almost immediately comp...

Exactly so, "Húrin". Most everyone, I'm sure, like myself and you, simply presumed The Silmarillion to be part of Bilbo's "Translations from the Elvish". Doug, yes, of course, I'm aware of Christopher's expressed regrets in this case. But I think he is being too hard on himself. ...

including some reference to this work being part of Bilbo's "Translations from the Elvish" would have been helpful. Sorry, but I have to ask: "helpful" how exactly? I read The Silmarillion about a year after it was published, and long before any part of HoMe was published; but I...

Mr. Salo's book appears to be a very scholarly work. He notes the sources for his findings and provides explanations for his methods. The fundamental problem with Salo's book is that he does not in fact "note the sources for his findings", because far too often there is no source other th...