A good idea to copy the posts across. We should probably also delete them from the
Gondolin thread so as not to confuse matters.
Back to
Rog, I would be personally inclined to agree with CT's assessment on the name. Nobody was so in tune with his fathers work - while his father was alive and actively working on it - as CT, and if we are to view his opinion as holding little authority, then surely our's must hold even less. In fact, we have one recorded instance of JRRT
actually deferring to CT over a name - i.e. "Gamgee" (which CT wanted kept) vs. "Goodchild" (which JRRT wanted to change it to) - see
Letters.
Apologies in advance if this next bit has been discussed in detail elsewhere, but it does form my own argument in favour of replacing the name, so here we go...
Now, it seems plain that the old element "Rog" actually was the same "rog" that eventually transformed into the second part of "Balrog". The original etymology of "Balrog" was quite different, but "rog" appears to have remained the same as the languages developed - the entry for "Rog" in the LT II list of names gives a Q(u)enya equivalent "
arauka", which is obviously the same word.
In the transformed "Balrog" etymology, "
Rauko" (Sindarin "
Raug", "
Rog") is "Demon" (published Silmarillion Appendix), whereas the "Bal" element (originally "anguish") has come to be derived from "
Val-/Bal-": "power" (ditto). "Raug" is in fact given as a variant of "Rog" in LT II, strengthening the evidential position, and providing 3 points on which one can form an argument that
they are the same word (rog/raug/arauka|rauko), and that
the meaning of this word has changed since LT was written. To form an argument for the retention of "Rog", where the then-current linguistic element has been totally superseded seems to me to be similar (in scope, if not in actual detail) to arguing for the retention of the original story of the construction of the Lamps.
Our choices are:
- Accept an Eldarin lord who's name means "Demon".
- Argue that "Rog" is actually Quenya in form, and have a single Eldarin lord with a Quenya-formed name where the rest are Sindarin in form.
- Drop the whole "Rog" element from the Tale.
- Change the name.
Now, leaving aside the question of whether or not one objects to the "sound" of the name "Rog", of these, (1) is totally absurd, and (2) smacks of being a cop-out. (3) would be a pity, and would be also a clear case of what CT himself has condemned in his own Silmarillion editorial work - being "too ready to deal with 'difficulties' by eliminating them." (HoME X, "
Valaquenta".)
That leaves us with (4), which unfortunately there are very valid arguments against, not least that it's another case of something CT condemns in his own work - overstepping the bounds of the editorial role.
But need it be?
We have a translation of "Rog" in the old GL, as "doughty, strong", so is the substition of it with
another name that means the same thing, but is linguistically viable really such a crime?