A Question of Loyalty

[JeffF.]

I don't know why there is still a question of their origin. The books are canon ahd the Silmarillion plainly states that Morgoth used Avari, not as one of many theories but clearly. Tolkien's notes published in the HoME series are just story notes, interesting and revealing but NOT canon. Story notes change constantly and until integrated into a finished story and published are merely evolutions of the story line.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by JeffF.

I don't know why there is still a question of their origin. The books are canon ahd the Silmarillion plainly states that Morgoth used Avari, not as one of many theories but clearly. Tolkien's notes published in the HoME series are just story notes, interesting and revealing but NOT canon. Story notes change constantly and until integrated into a finished story and published are merely evolutions of the story line.

To be fair, the idea of Orcs coming from captured Quendi is presented as the best guess of the 'wise of Eressëa', but that doesn't mean they were necessarily correct. That does seem the most likely scenario to me, though.

[Mnemosyne]

Originally Posted by JeffF.

I don't know why there is still a question of their origin. The books are canon ahd the Silmarillion plainly states that Morgoth used Avari, not as one of many theories but clearly. Tolkien's notes published in the HoME series are just story notes, interesting and revealing but NOT canon. Story notes change constantly and until integrated into a finished story and published are merely evolutions of the story line.

The Silmarillion is not canon under this definition, because it was made of notes integrated into a finished story by Christopher Tolkien. Some of the HoME notes are more valid than others because of when they were written, it's true, but which ones became the posthumous publication were not determined by Tolkien himself. Tolkien continually changed his mind on everything until publication set it in stone, and that never happened in the Silmarillion until after his demise.

[JeffF.]

I submit that the Silmarillion IS canon, Christopher is JRRT's heir as far as the story of Middle Earth goes, one might s well say that the story of the Jewels in the Silmarillion is untrue or decide that the Men came first. I would think the Wise of Eressea would know far more about the origin of orc than any of us, they will have seen them and fought them.

I think all five books, The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and the trilogy of the LotR must be considered canon together and only when one contradicts the other can there be much debate. There are probably segments of Unifinished Tales which can also be regarded as canon if they are not contradicted by the main books e.g. the Description of Numenor should be canon whereas the chapter on Galadriel and Celeborn might not be since it contradicts itself on minor points of their story (e.g. the name of the ruler of Lorien was Amdir or Magalad and the Elves of Greenwood were either Silvanized in speech or the Sindar lords Sindarized the Elven culture they ruled over).

[Inziladun]

Canon has been a fairly frequent subject of debate here in the past.

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Canon has been a fairly frequent subject of debate here in the past.

Or, of course The Thread

[Formendacil]

Inziladun and Eönwë are being most unsporting, linking to all those old threads, but... that's what all of the other oldies were thinking about when you, JeffF. said:

Originally Posted by JeffF.

The books are canon ahd the Silmarillion plainly states that Morgoth used Avari, not as one of many theories but clearly. Tolkien's notes published in the HoME series are just story notes, interesting and revealing but NOT canon.

--so, really, it's only fair that they warned you...

However, although we've been over this battlefield many times before, it's getting to be a few years, and not only are their new members hereabouts, but we've had The History of the Hobbit come out, which I am inclined to think should be a major factor for davem to consider regarding his shameful position that The Hobbit isn't canon (though I think he's still welcome to exclude it, myself, if he really does limit the canon to The Lord of the Rings, the second edition, exactly as it was last published in Tolkien's lifetime--though that is not, I submit, a canon any of us really want to consider).

In any case, it's quite the claim around here to assert that ANYTHING is canon in Middle-earth. We've probably got people that will say The Lord of the Rings itself isn't canon, but The Book of Lost Tales is--though I grant I can't actually think of anyone who'd take that position.

The difficulty with The Silmarillion, as already noted, is that it was most definitely not a complete text that Tolkien left behind. The last complete version was the Quenta Noldorinwa, which was finished circa 1930--before The Hobbit, before Númenor, and before half of the present Silm was even considered. Most of the published Silmarillion is directly based on the Quenta Silmarillion of the late 1930s, and the early 1950s revisions that Tolkien added... but not quite. For the final chapters (Nauglamír and Eärendil), Christopher Tolkien was working off thirty years' worth of inconsistent, rare notes and outlines, and he was tweaking stories by adding later (1960s) names, as well as the late version of the tale of Eöl and Aredhel, while ignoring all other sorts of late work, like the Round Earth cosmology and the idea that Celeborn was Telerin of Valinor--mostly because these were too inconsistent both with the rest of the Silmarillion corpus and the LotR, but also because he had to make editorial calls.

Personally, I think Christopher Tolkien gave us the best Silmarillion possible, and better than we deserved or could have expected, but. But. But does that make it canon? That is the question this forum has tangled over (and if we get this thread going right, can make it tango over again), and is still not adequately answered. At this point, without checking my past statements for consistency--which brings up a whole question of interior canon issues I'll leave for the snarky commentators to pick up on--I am of the opinion that The Silmarllion--by which I mean the 1977 published worked edited by Christopher Tolkien with the help of Guy Kay--is NOT a canonical work. It is, in my opinion, a redaction or synthesis of canonical works and is, as such, canonical but not canon--a fine and feathery philosophical distinction that will no doubt get me roasted. I'm also medieval enough to suggest tiers of canon: Published works (LotR, The Hobbit, Tom Bombadil), post-LotR posthumous works (Unfinished Tales, most of the Silm, "The Wanderings of Húrin--and, actually, CoH), and pre-LotR posthumous works (Book of Lost Tales, the Ambarkanta), but that's just me.

And... I think I've made enough contentious statements to get the huorns to be a bit less treeish.

[Hakon]

Let us start the canon debate. I am in for one that I can participate in.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Inziladun and Eönwë are being most unsporting, linking to all those old threads, but... that's what all of the other oldies were thinking about when you, JeffF. said:

I had no intention of being 'unsporting'. I was simply trying to discreetly indicate that canonicity was really not the purpose of this thread, and point JeffF in the right direction for more information on the topic.