[Findegil]

Thank you, Aiwendil, for this very through analyses and eloquent arguments for the structure of your draft, with which I mostly can agree.
Just to explain a bit how I arrived at the choice of basis text, which made up for many of the differences: In part one I took up the portion of text that we had worked on in the Ainulindalë thread and farther edited it. In the second part I made a similar research like Aiwendil to find out which text should have priority. My conclusion was that AAm and LQ were more or less contemporary. In such a case I assumed that a fuller text (and I considered LQ to be the fuller text) could be used instead of a probably slightly younger (AAm). I did not at that time observe the structural changes. Once the choice of the basis text was done and given my very well observed tendency to include as much details as possible the draft as presented was the logical consequence.

However that might have been, back to the actual business. As said above I can agree to many of your arguments but not to all. And the most important point are the additions from
Myths Transformed II
I don’t think that the full content of the texts should be or can be rejected based on the fact that we have decided to reject the round earth cosmology. Let’s take an example from this actual chapter: We use part of the LT text even so many elements of the story were clearly at variance to what we considered ‘true’, like Laurelin sprouting first, or the story of the planting of the trees, ... now why is that possible? Because we consider that only that parts of the text, that were directly gainsaid by sources of higher priority must be skipped or such parts as are clearly depend on such gainsaid elements. This freedom is given under our rule 3).
Now to MT, here are no contradictions with texts of higher priority. The reason why we do not use this text entirely is a decision following rule 2.b): a change proposed by JRR Tolkien but inadequately documented so that it is deemed unworkable by us. But this decision was up to this point only taken for the round earth cosmology. (And that question might have been the trigger for rule 2.b).)
Your argument as I have understood is, that the changes introduce with MT are only needed to make the round earth cosmology work for the story. And I agree that these changes are needed for the round earth cosmology. But that the round earth cosmology does depend on these changes does not make the change depending on the round earth cosmology. So we have a high priority text not contradicted by a first priority text (LotR, Hobbit, RGEO, AdvTomB) but in an essential feature discarded by us due to the upheaval it would introduce in the project. Does that disqualify all the other features of the text?
I don’t think so. At least we never handle other texts in a similar way.

Now some comments on the single points Aiwendil raised:

BoT-17: When I wrote my comments to the changes introduced it was years after compilation of the text. So I didn’t check if this was really new in MT. I fully agree that AAm §21 is similar enough. But if MT is seen as a valid text, than it has higher priority and would be preferable over AAm for such an addition. (If AAm is the basis text the addition is of course obsolete.)


[b[]The First War and Spring of Arda[/b]

I agreed to your statement about the first part.

BoT-20: This was moved because the description of Melkor in MT does not fit to this. So I thought that at his first coming to Arda he was the bright and shiny guy he wished to be, but when he entered again, now to fight for his rule of the kingdom of Arda he appeared in that dark and frightening shape.

I agree that we have some redundancy here and should amend that. But if the pure §21 of AAm is sufficient I doubt. But that can be checked later.

BoT-22 might have been an artefact of my editing. I agree that it does not make much sense as it stands now. Probably I put it in to distinguish between the two passages, or both were added at different times, but I don’t really know.

BoT-23 & BoT-24: If MT is a valid source than it might have to rule here, meaning that we should use this passage to describe the outcome of the war from MT II, outline:

At length discovering Melkor and where he dwells they seek to drive him out again, but Utumno proves too strong.

and this from MT VI:

Later, he[Melkor] must not be able to be controlled or 'chained' by all the Valar combined. Note that in the early age of Arda he was alone able to drive the Valar out of Middle-earth into retreat.

Which means that we might use the passage from LQ rather than AAm.

BoT-25 & BoT-26: I wanted the footnote and for that matter took the passage of BoT-25. But Aiwendil is right that the information of the footnote might be placed better at later point and probably in the text itself.


Building of Valinor

I agree to take rather the passages from AAm then what I proposed in VT-LQ-01.

Also you are right that §13 of LQ can be removed. So we might add the ‘fair things’ from LQ into the LT material.

If we use Silindrin and Kulullin here, we have to discuss. But it is linked with later times when the Light of the Trees is collected and used, so I postpone my remarks a bit.


LT Description of Valars’ Dwellings
The question is which text we split in order to include these descriptions. With your placement you had to split the LT material to small section that you could fit into the AAm passage. I took in the descriptions in here, where the story the mansion are build, as it was in LT in order to hold the text of LT more together. But in the end this did not work as well as thought, because I had to skip great part of the LT passage that I include completely leading to nearly the same sectioning of the text as your editing. So yes as I already said I can agree to follow in this part the structure of AAm and with that to insert the description of the mansions of the Valar and their houses in Valimar later.


Building of Valimar
I agree to your proposal here. Since we do not specify any house in Valimar here we can still include the descriptions given in LT later together with that of the mansions of the Valar.

Analysing AAm more carefully I see that the movement of the statement about Valinor becoming more beautiful than Mibble-earth in the spring of Arda was a mistake. From AAm it is clear that this was the case even before the Trees were in being, which I thought (wrongly) was reason for this.


Growth of the Trees
Agreed.


Names of the Trees
I agree to your proposal for a better editing

About Silpion or Telperion as name given by Lóriën: I do not see any good reason to change this Silpion was still as valid in LQ. Even so Telperion was a more usual name, why should that change the fact that Lóriën invented the name Silpion? Would we create a new factum by changing this? I think we should avoid that.


Waxing and Waning of the Trees

The redundancy we should eliminate. I observed as well that Yavanna is speaking in a phase were Laurelin waned, but since it could have been half a day later I did not see a problem with this. I at least would like to keep the direct speech of Yavanna in that passage.


Gathering of the Lights

This is a problematic part and it has influences on earlier and later parts as well (gathering of the Lights of the Lamps in Valinor and Ungoliant draining the stores of light).
One detail that we have to discuss is the use of Silindrin and Kulullin. In LT these are the reservoirs (to use neutral word) for storing the light of the Lamps that the Valar collect at this stage in the story and then they are later used to store the light of Trees. If we use them there we will have to deal with them later in the chapter The Darkening of Valinor. There Ungoliant has to empty them to generate the need of Yavanna for the light of the Silmarils. On the other hand the Valar did need some reservoir for the light of the Lamps.
One way to deal with this could be to hold the lights fully separated. That means Silindrin and Kulullin are used only for the Light or the Lamps. The Light of the Lamps is in all later stories collected to Valinor but not used in the creation of the Trees. If we remove the element from LT that the light from Kulullin and Silindrin were used in creating (that we removed both) and refreshing of the Trees out of our story line, we could (implicit) say that the light of the Lamps was not suitable for watering the Trees or for the rekindling of the Trees after Ungoliants attack. (This could be exemplified by the spilling out of light from Silindrins and Kulullin with no avail that Vána and Lóriën did in LT. But this addition might be a bit ‘risky’.) In that way Kulullin and Silindirn could stay intact as they do in LT but still Yavanna could utter the demand for the Silmarils.
I think that such a separating of the Lights is already hinted at when we come to the creation of the Sun. The juice of the last Fruit of Laurelin is in LT not collected in Kulullin but in a newly build reservoir: Tanyasalpë.
Thus the vats of Varda for the watering of the Trees and the nourishment of the distant parts of Valinor would be needed and can be the only reservoir drained by Ungoliant. Since only in them was collected the of the Trees.

It is mentioned in MT if the “Primeval Light” was used in the creation of the Trees. Note 19 to text II reads:

In other scribbled notes (written at the same time as text II and constituting a part of that manuscript) my father wrote that Varda gave the holy light received in gift from Ilúvatar (see p. 380) not only to the Sun and to the Two Trees but also to 'the significant Star'. The meaning of this is nowhere explained. Beside it he wrote Signifer, and many experimental Elvish names, as Taengyl, Tengyl, Tannacolli or Tankol, Tainacolli; also a verbal root tana 'show, indicate'; tanna 'sign'; and kola 'borne, worn, especially a vestment or cloak', with the note 'Sindikoll-o is masculinized'.

If our farther discussions lead to the rejection of all MT material than this is not an issue, but if not then is the justification to include it in the creation of the Trees and we have to discuss how to do it.


Reckoning of Time

The issue, as Aiwendil called it, is not restricted to a secondary priority source like Shibboleth and at least not directly connected to the revised cosmology. From LotR, Appendix D:

It seems clear that the Eldar in Middle-earth, who had, as Samwise remarked, more time at their disposal, reckoned in long periods, and the Quenya word yén, often translated 'year' (1, 491), really means 144 of our years.

So this can not be dealt with under rule 2b as a proposed change that we cannot adopt. However nice an explanation we could create in the background to keep the 9.58 Y.S. = 1 V.Y., in the foreground we would create a contradiction with a full ‘canonical’ text. I think in this situation ‘ambiguity’ should be our best friend. We should simply avoid any statement about the relation between Y.S. and V.Y. and as far as possible not give any dates in V.Y..


Joy in Valinor and Twilight in Middle-earth

The AAm passage about Valinor being more beautiful I already agreed to move back to its original place. The MT passage (if we decide to use any MT material) is near enough to what Ainulindalë §31 does tell, so that we might combine the two. Especially the first parts of both seem to very close. In both it is made clear that at first the Valar did go to Middle-earth more often, but then stayed more and more in Valinor and left Middle-earth to Melkor.

I agree to put the statement about Angband here.

I also agree to put the descriptions of the dwellings of the Valar here, in cooperating them into the short passage from AAm. And the placing back of the communication of Iluvatar about the gift of Men to the end of the Ainulindalë we already agreed up on.


The most important point to be solved is the issue with the MT material. As I see now it will influence many more parts than I thought. As an example the Dome of Varda is also a part that we did not consider so far. The more I read in that source, the more I agree to jallanite’s position that it is possible to create a round earth version (though I have ever been leaning to his side). Nonetheless as said before such a fundamental decision can not be revised at this stage of the project. So I stay to the flat earth version we try to create. But as argued above that does not render all elements of MT useless.

Respectfully
Findegil

P.S.: Long post will bear long posts.