[Galin]

Originally Posted by cellurdur

We have the words from JRR Tolkien himself. Christopher Tolkien has sole authority when it comes to not only publishing, but editing the story. We see excess this authority in the case of Sador. Tolkien planned to change him into one of the Pukel men, but in the Children of Hurin he remains a lame man.

You are talking about the constructed works here, not merely posthumously published statements as written by JRRT himself. And in any case no where does Christopher Tolkien state which version of Sador is 'canon' for instance.

If he thought that the notes on the artwork were a noteworthy contradiction then he could have made a comment about it. He did not. In other cases he does.

Well CJRT didn't publish the quote in question. He gave that authority to Hammond and Scull, and we as readers can see or interpret contradiction even if no one mentions something -- noting that I already mentioned the way Hammond and Scull presented the 'Elendil' variations, for example.

Brevity does give an indication to the amount of time and thought he put into the work. A brief note written about a piece of artwork is far more likely to be less precise than an essay.

Not necessarily. Think long about something, write with brevity and to the point. And you keep saying 'brief note' despite that we haven't yet seen all the commentary.

That's still not the same as Christopher publishing them himself is it? The comments on the artwork are definitely of interest, but they need validation from Christopher Tolkien or at least a comment for me to hold them with equal standing to TCOH for instance.

As I said, CJRT did publish part of one of these in UT -- you actually quoted a part of the 'artwork descriptions' without realizing it.

But no they do not 'need validation' from CJRT to hold equal standing with the rest of the same commentary from the creator of Middle-earth. And The Children of Hurin is arguably 'not canon' as it is clearly the work of Christopher Tolkien not JRRT.

Where does CJRT claim The Children of Hurin is canon?

Is everything in Vinyar Tengwar or Parma Eldalamberon 'lesser' material somehow, if CJRT merely gave certain texts to the Linguistic Team to publish and comment on?

This is where you are arguing semantics. Whether you call it a note or an essay it is quite a long and detailed account about measurements.

Yes that was where I pointed out that you characterized one text as a 'brief note' versus an 'entire essay' -- when Christopher Tolkien characterized your 'entire essay' as a note rather.

Semantics indeed

Well this is where we will disagree. I still have not seen you address these issues concerning the notes on the artwork.

Well let's see if I have spoken to certain issues or not, as...

If Aragorn at 6'6 is much shorter than the average Numenoreans of old then how tall were the Numenoreans of old? In every text no matter how late, the decline in stature is noted.

... the artwok quote says 7 feet and so on, as I quoted. What issue needs addressing there? I don't quibble with what this text says about the Numenoreans of old in general.

Nor have you answered that if the minimum height was 6'6 for the Eldar then what would the average height be?

That's because there is no average height noted in the text under consideration, and I interpret that quote as it stands. That said, my interpretation yet allows for not every Elf being exactly 6 foot 6, as I already described above.

Mentioned it briefly, but Tolkien was well aware of the English kings. It was not unusual for one of the Plantagenet descendants to be nearly a foot taller than the average man and virtually a foot taller than the average peasant. Charlemagne himself was a giant at close to 6'3. Edward I and II were both described as the tallest and strongest men in the real (considering their great height this was probably not just flattery). Elendil is simply a reflection of this.

Elendil might have been a reflection of this. Then again Tolkien might have said, but wait, that makes Thingol even taller? Maybe I need to rethink things a bit.