[Formendacil]

Unfortunately, I've been stingy with my reputation, so I can't thank Aiwendil privately for what I'm about to publicly say: Thanks for the overview of the textual history. I quite agree with him that, more than in any other chapter, this one really invites a look at the draft versions.

In fact, because this chapter has the most "creative editing" going on, I quite deliberately waited until Aiwendil had posted, because I knew that anything I said was going to be coloured by the textual puzzle. I'm inclined to think that this chapter, more than any other, allows us to look at the editors. Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay deserve quite a lot of credit for being able to keep their "gap filling" inventions "invisible," so to speak. If there had never been an HoME, I rather doubt that anyone would have been able to pinpoint "Of the Ruin of Doriath" as the chapter they had the most creative (rather than recreative) work to do.

Even so, however, I find that I don't really know what to say about this chapter, because my own knowledge of its canonicity (to use that seductive and dangerous word) always makes me... tongue-tied, or something. It's kind of funny, because like the editors who put the published chapter together, I *know* what has to happen:

Húrin has to bring Thingol the Nauglamír (so that...)
Thingol must have the Dwarves set it (so that...)
The Dwarves have an altercation and Thingol is killed (giving us the Elf/Dwarf bad blood we see in ages thereafter)

Meanwhile, we also need:

Melian to abandon Doriath for grief at Thingol (so that the Girdle is lifted)
Dior to take the throne (and thus assuming Beren and Lúthien make a last appearance to recover the necklace)
The Fëanorians to be restirred to their oath (so that...)
Doriath falls, Dior is killed, and Elwing with the Nauglamír ends up in the Havens at Sirion (therefore setting us up for the Tale of Eärendil.

And, for what it's worth, "Of the Ruin of Doriath" does all this--and doesn't feel out of place next to the other chapters.

Yet it could have gone other ways. To use but a simple point, Mablung (in the published text) dies in this chapter, but in the note in HoME XI The War of the Jewels, relating to Dírhavel's original composition of the Narn i Chîn Húrin, says that Dírhavel was able to get part of Túrin's story from Mablung, who was Elwing's guardian in escaping Doriath. In this version of the story, Mablung died in the Fëanorian assault on the Havens--very similar to his death in the published Silm, but slightly different.

I'm afraid I'm not really going anywhere with all this...