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Originally Posted by skip spence
(...) This latter more favourable conception of Thingol must have been preferred by Tolkien, but many of the stories concerning him were never rewritten, and still features a rather pathetic Elf-lord. Thingol must therefore have been a big problem for CT when compiling the unified Silmarillion.
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The constructed Silmarillion in this case is basically taken from the versions of the late 1930s mixed with points from the
Grey Annals. In the early 1950s the
Grey Annals provide two compressed versions of the meeting between Beren and Thingol. Tolkien also began a long prose version of the tale, but (alas) the story goes no further than the betrayal by Dairon to Thingol of Beren's presence in Doriath. In the Annals anyway, it is noted:
A) None save Finrod (still named Inglor here) took counsel with Thingol in the matter of the coming of Men and their dealings with the Noldor. This displeased Thingol.
B)
Thingol was also troubled with dreams concerning the coming of Men, before even the first tidings of them were heard, arguably setting up his reaction to one of them entering Doriath and desiring his very daughter!
C) Elwe proclaimed that into Doriath therefore, no Man should come, commanding that Men should take no lands but in Hithlum and Dorthonion.
D) At the request of Finrod, Elwe yet granted land in Brethil to Haleth's people.
In the
Grey Annals Elwe is still (as in QS) wroth at discovering the news about Beren. Beren had broken his command and also had intentions with his own daughter (as we know). Beren shows him the Ring of Finrod, but Thingol speaks in anger still. Beren, stung by this scorn, swears that no power shall keep him from his love.
This, and I think understandably (however noble a cause from Beren's perspective), makes Thingol all the more angry, and:
'But, as Doom would, a thought came into his heart, and he answered in mockery' -- and thus his response to Beren and the Quest of the Silmaril.
With respect to
The Ruin of Doriath, Christopher Tolkien notes:
'How he (JRRT) would have treated Thingol's behaviour towards the Dwarves is impossible to say'. adding that the conduct of Tinwelint was wholly at variance with the later conception of the King. Though CJRT does note a later text (
Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn in Unfinished Tales) wherein it is said that Celeborn, in his view of the destruction of Doriath, ignored Morgoth's part in it 'and Thingol's own faults'.
Thingol later softens toward Beren (again, as we know), and of course ultimately Greycloak set young Túrin on his knee, a sign that he was to be fostered (and those that saw this marveled):
'... and in all your life you shall be held as my son, Man though you be.'