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#1 | ||||
Haunting Spirit
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: The Halls of Mandos
Posts: 86
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Now, I'll try and break this sentence into clauses: 1. "From Mablung he learned much" - Okay, so Dirhavel talked to Mablung. Nothing helpful here. 2. "by fortune also he found a man named Andvír" - Dirhavel found a man named Andvír. Now we're getting somewhere. 3. "he was very old" - He (Andvír) was very old when Dirhavel spoke to him. 4. "but was the son of that Andróg who was in the outlaw-band of Túrin" - Andvír was the son of the same Andróg who was in Túrin's band. 5. "and alone survived the battle on the summit of Amon Rűdh." - Someone survived the battle at Amon Rudh. Now, let me make my point. In clause 2, Andvír was introduced. Then he is described in both clauses 3 and 4. My point is this; if he is being described in one clause, and then again in the next, is it so much of a stretch to assume the next clause describes him as well? I know that Tolkien's comma makes things messy when the sentence is all together, but you have to remember that Professor Tolkien did not follow what are now the standard rules for punctuation. When you forget the punctuation, and simply break the sentence down into it's logical progression of thought, it becomes much easier to see that the sentence is more likely referring to Andvír. Last edited by Aran e-Godhellim; 03-10-2009 at 06:22 PM. Reason: grammar |
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#2 | ||||||||
Late Istar
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,224
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Let me come back to the three questions I posed.
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I still think, however, that the absence of any reference to Andvir in the Narn texts suggests the Androg-interpretation. This is particularly true if A&D A precedes the relevant portion of the Narn. For if he had just invented Andvir and intended for him to be a member of Turin's band, why then introduce Androg but not Andvir in the Narn? And if he had already rejected this version of the transmission of the legend, why introduce Androg at all? Quote:
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Though I still think the question of the relative dating is a very difficult one that may not in the end be answerable, the more I think about it the more likely it seems to me that A&D A was written after the middle portions of the Narn. When Tolkien says in A&D that Andvir 'was the son of that Andróg who was in the outlaw-band of Túrin' it sounds rather more to me like he is referring to a character named Androg who already exists than like he is inventing a new character. One thing that gives me pause, however, is that it would be a little surprising for Tolkien to so casually contradict the story of Mim's curse and Androg's death, which he had so carefully developed, without projecting some alternative. In this connection, I find Findegil's proposal very interesting: Quote:
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I do have one small doubt about this reading, though. To go back once more to the infamous sentence in A&D: Quote:
Now I'll try to enumerate our possible courses of action: 1. Leave the 'Narn' and the statement in A&D unaltered. 2. Remove the reference to Androg's survival from A&D but keep Andvir and leave the Narn unaltered. 3. Remove the sentence from A&D completely. 4. Alter the Narn so that Androg does not die after the battle. 5. Alter the Narn so that Andvir is a member of the band and he survives the battle. I have left out solutions that involve leaving Androg's survival or Andvir's presence in the band ambiguous, as I think we all agree those are not practical. If we accept Findegil's most recent interpretation, then option 1 is the best. Findegil proposes option 2 to be safe. I would note, however, that if A&D post-dates the Narn, we can only justify this if we decide the reference to Androg's survival is an unworkable projected change. Option 3 is the most conservative choice and it sounds to me (though I'm not sure) as though Aran may favour this. Options 4 and 5 can only be considered if we accept that A&D post-dates the Narn. Option 4 requires further that we interpret A&D as asserting that Androg does not die after the battle; it could be accomplished along the lines of Findegil's earlier proposal, by moving the healing by Beleg to after the battle. Conversely, option 5 can only be justified if we interpret A&D as asserting that Andvir, also a member of Turin's band, survives the battle. As usual, I come to no particular conclusions. I do think, however, that in view of the doubt surrounding the relative dating of the texts, options 4 and 5 are probably too risky. Last edited by Aiwendil; 03-10-2009 at 11:56 PM. |
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#3 |
King's Writer
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 1,721
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A good enumeratuion, Aiwendil.
I agree that 4 and 5 are too risky. For option 3 I see no real reason why we have to remove Andvír. Since our rules say we need a reason to reject something, I don't thing that is a good possiblity. I see your doubts about option 2. When text A postdates the middle of the Narn, which is likely, then we can only change the sentence if it is a an workable palned change of the naritive. And if we think it is a change that is not absoultly necessary it would be a stylistic change, that is not wanted. Thus I think we are left with option 1. Respectfully Findegil |
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#4 | |||
Late Istar
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,224
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So I think I am for either option 1 or 2, with the above concern being issue that the decision is depends upon. I suppose option 2 may in fact be the way to go if we consider that the risk of including an invalid/contradictory statement outweighs the risk of excluding valid one. |
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#5 |
Haunting Spirit
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: The Halls of Mandos
Posts: 86
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I favor option 2 more. The reason is that I inherently dislike any non-Tolkien writing being added at all, except where absolutely necessary. Since Tolkien wrote nothing of Andróg's survival anywhere else, that means we would have to add in our own version of events extrapolated from a mere scrap. From my (admittedly strict) opinion, that makes the story of Andróg's survival an unworkable (for us) planned change, even if it was a change Tolkien seriously considered later.
Option 1 would be acceptable to me, but it is rather ambiguous and leaves room for confusion. Of course, one ancient scholar's interpretation of an event could differ from another scholars; the difference between"Andróg survived" and "Andróg died shortly thereafter" could well be compared to the difference between a scholar who notes "the enemy had 900 men" and the scholar who says that "the enemy had 1000 soldiers." |
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#6 | |
King's Writer
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 1,721
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Aiwendil worte:
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It is as well possible that the fact that Andróg did life long enough to free Beleg (which is from the point of the storyteller the reason for his short survival) had some important impact on the father eloborated story of the tradition of the tale that Tolkien had in mind but never write down. Since that sound very theroetical I will examplify that last point: Since we have only Beleg and Túrin as long time suviver of the battle and we learn that neither Túrin nor Gwindor revaled much about the time at Amon Rudh, we need someone to who knows details of the fighting to get the story we have. Beleg is the most probable source. To whom did he speak after the battle? We know for sure that he spoke with Gwindor, but he is dead and of tradition as we learn. Now would the son of his rescuer not be a potential communication partner for Beleg? We could either think that Andvír and probably other members of the greater army of Dor-Cúrathol came to Amon Rudh after all signals stop from there or probably Beleg, knowing were Andvír was, and that being in the right direction could have visitied him, to give meassage of the vailant death of his father. Thinking farther in that direction, Andvír must for that storyline not even be a member of Dor-Cúrathols forces at all. He could have lifed in Brethil at that time since Beleg passed that country by when he hunted for the Orcs, and Andvír could have been visitied by his father at some point when Dor-Cúrathol prospered. I still hesitate between option 1 and 2. But the more I think about it the more option 1 gets the upper hand. I have more then once said that our project must not solve all questions for the reader. If the text does hold a confusing sentence, why not? As long as there are possible conclusions and as long as we did not creat that confusion by our editing, let it stand. Respectfully Findegil |
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#7 | ||
Late Istar
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,224
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It sounds like we are close to an agreement; at least the three of us agree it must be option 1 or 2.
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I also find the possibility of Beleg communicating with Andvir plausible but not entirely convincing - largely because it seems to me that Beleg would have set out after Turin as quickly as possible and would not have made any other stops. Of course, one could imagine that he happened by chance to meet Andvir on the way. But I keep coming back to the simple fact that it seems everyone who reads the passage in A&D initially and unhesitatingly interprets it to mean that Androg lived for a significant time after the battle. If this is so, does that not suggest that the wording of the passage favors that interpretation? And if that is so, does it not seem likely that this was the meaning Tolkien intended when he wrote it? I was browsing through some old discussions earlier (since it's been such a long time since I was heavily involved in the project) and I happened upon a quote from Jallanite connected with the discussion of our principles that has perhaps some relevance here. In talking about the cursory LQ2 revisions, Jallanite wrote: Quote:
Add to this the fact that if we delete the reference to Androg's survival, we have either deleted something contradictory (which would be good) or deleted something redundant (since it is told later that he lives past the fighting). I think, therefore, that I now lean toward agreeing with Aran that option 2 is the safest. |
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