"Concerning... 'The Hoard'" revealed

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Yes, I think that is correct on all fronts. Certainly I have run into some JRRT notes written out of his head, which differ wildly from everything else he wrote on the same topic!

CT was indeed aware of the "round-world" conversion which his father had conceived, but it was for him dispositive (and I think rightly) that none of it had attained narrative form. He regarded his role as editing (or "selecting and arranging") what his father had actually written, not what he may have intended to write but never got around to.

That of course left the fall of Doriath in an anomalous place, since the most recent account of it was wholly inconsistent with later material and something had to be done. I don't think that the solution CT and Guy Kay came up with was a bad one at all- although evidently CT felt guilty about it.