[Aiwendil]

Ok, but before your suggestion Findegil, we transformed the mechanical monsters into animal ones. If he had previously used type 2 for normal dragons, why can't that stay.

Our previous choice (to transform all mechanical dragons into animal dragons) was based on the idea that we must eliminate all the mechanical dragons. Types 1, 2, and 3 were changed indiscriminately into animals. But if we decide (as we now have) that mechanical dragons are okay, then we have no justification for eliminating type 2 (by replacing them with type 4). Such a change seems quite arbitrary.

There is also, as Findegil points out, the textual problem. Embarking on a program of editing the references to dragons so that each one is clearly a type 1, type 3, or type 4 can only damage the text. Bear in mind that in the original text these distinctions are not always clear and are certainly not identified explicitly.

Findegil's recent proposal is a solution to this; when we examine the text with the idea that type 4 dragons are present, we find that many references to the mechanical ones could be taken as references to animals. I definitely think this is the best way to go, since it involves minimal editing as well as avoiding the arbitrary change of type 2 to type 4. The one deficiency seems to be that the presence of animal dragons is not suggested strongly enough from the outset. At worst, that may have to be remedied by inserting one reference to them early on.

Maedhros wrote:

The transformation of type 2 to animal dragons was an idea that came from jallanite, and that we all had agreed, you included Findegil.

The idea as it came from jallanite was rather different, though. There it was assumed that all the mechanical dragons would become animal ones. Jallanite's suggestion was a proposed way to make the change with minimal textual emendation.

Findegil wrote:

What ever we do in the end, the dragons in the sack of Gondoiln are a clear case for a paragraph in the appendix.

Undoubtedly. The Fall of Gondolin section of the appendix will most likely prove quite lengthy.