Transmission theory - what if it's ALL true?

[Galin]

gandalf85 wrote: I haven't really thought through all the details, but I like this theory. I've always liked to believe everything Tolkien wrote could be considered "canon" and the inconsistencies are due to translating from different sources.

I think Tolkien certainly wanted a multi-perspective legendarium, but creating such a thing is an art in itself, and glomping everything together (admittedly an over simplified description here, for brevity) ignores this.


While I find this fun and interesting to think about as a what if, in the end I can't accept this view of the legendarium. For me it turns something I find important, and something I think Tolkien found important, into a haphazard, unconsidered heap of inconsistencies -- and possibly a mountainous heap when one really starts paying attention.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galin

I think Tolkien certainly wanted a multi-perspective legendarium, but creating such a thing is an art in itself, and glomping everything together (admittedly an over simplified description here, for brevity) ignores this.


While I find this fun and interesting to think about as a what if, in the end I can't accept this view of the legendarium. For me it turns something I find important, and something I think Tolkien found important, into a haphazard, unconsidered heap of inconsistencies -- and possibly a mountainous heap when one really starts paying attention.

This is certainly a valid point, and to address my own idea critically, the Legendarium of the Book of Lost Tales changed repeatedly during the writing of it. So to adopt this approach in practice, you'd first need to conjure up a consistent 'canonical' BoLT - which Tolkien never wrote.

But... I still think that treating all Tolkien's writings as authentic ancient texts opens up a wealth of possibilities. To return to Beren, this setup gives us three wildly differing accounts of his romance with Luthien - the version told on Eressea, the poem held by Elrond, and the Numenorean account of the Quenta. Christopher Tolkien has done an admirable job of showing how and why the story developed between them - but as fans, I think there's immense potential in asking why, in-universe, the story was changed in these ways.

Is the Eressean version an aberration, heavily bowlderised for the children at the Cottage of Lost Play - one in which the tricky subject of elf-mortal relationships is sidestepped? Or did Elrond and Elros conspire to create a fictional, mortal Beren, to give themselves a link to the First House of Men? Have the Eresseans obliterated any mention of werewolves - or have the Numenoreans injected Sauron into a tale that he had no part in, to justify their wars against him? Or are these differences not deliberate, but a failure in transmission, with the stories actually being different reconstructions from the rumours out of Doriath and Ossiriand? (And that, in turn, would tell us about the mindsets of the people doing the reconstructing...)

Don't get me wrong - I will always stand by the 'canonical' Legendarium as the best, and if theorising about anything in it, 9 times out of 10 I'll be talking purely about that. But sometimes it can be fun to look at things from a different angle - the very multi-perspective legendarium you describe.

hS

[shadowfax]

Some interesting points and conjectures.

The making of a flat earth into a round earth would not have been possible without much deformation of the earth's crust. That would leave far more scars than just a couple of mid-ocean ridges. It would have seriously distorted geography and destroyed many things both man-made and natural. If you peel an orange and then try to spread the peel flat on a surface you cause the peel to tear, but you also rely on the peel's natural flexibility in adapting to the new shape. Without that flexibility and ability to stretch or compress, the tears would have to spread fractally over the entire surface. Making a round earth flat is the reverse of that and similarly requires both tearing and stretching and compression. Maybe the crust of the earth has that flexibility (or would briefly have been given it by Manwe), but suppose the foundation of your house suddently grows or shrinks by some millimetres, what then of the rest of the house? It will probably lose some stability. The closer you get to the polar regions, the greater the deformation. If you get a chain of buildings collapsing across the world, that would surely leave some memory in history or archaeology.

Furthermore, a flat earth opens many physical problems, such as how that can be reconciled with our understanding of gravity.

I thus propose that that never happened. Maybe the Earth was always round but people didn't realize it. What maybe did happen was that Arda was previously on the earth's surface and was removed to some other location. This would have required other lands or seas to have been created to fill its place. Maybe there was once more land in what is now the Atlantic?

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by shadowfax

Furthermore, a flat earth opens many physical problems, such as how that can be reconciled with our understanding of gravity.

I don't see that in itself as a barrier. Our understanding of physics is based ultimately on our observations and extrapolations from therein. What we have never encountered is (obviously) not reflected in our models of the universe. Doesn't mean it can't happen, or doesn't exist. Our model of reality is only true until we encounter something in reality to contradict it; the lack of the encounter does not yet prove the infallibility of the model.

Originally Posted by shadowfax

The making of a flat earth into a round earth would not have been possible without much deformation of the earth's crust. That would leave far more scars than just a couple of mid-ocean ridges. It would have seriously distorted geography and destroyed many things both man-made and natural. If you peel an orange and then try to spread the peel flat on a surface you cause the peel to tear, but you also rely on the peel's natural flexibility in adapting to the new shape. Without that flexibility and ability to stretch or compress, the tears would have to spread fractally over the entire surface. Making a round earth flat is the reverse of that and similarly requires both tearing and stretching and compression. Maybe the crust of the earth has that flexibility (or would briefly have been given it by Manwe), but suppose the foundation of your house suddently grows or shrinks by some millimetres, what then of the rest of the house? It will probably lose some stability. The closer you get to the polar regions, the greater the deformation. If you get a chain of buildings collapsing across the world, that would surely leave some memory in history or archaeology.

Hmm. Is there any mention of catastrophe anywhere else in ME except for Numenor itself when the Straight Road was closed?

Originally Posted by shadowfax

I thus propose that that never happened. Maybe the Earth was always round but people didn't realize it. What maybe did happen was that Arda was previously on the earth's surface and was removed to some other location. This would have required other lands or seas to have been created to fill its place. Maybe there was once more land in what is now the Atlantic?

Interesting idea. What if it's the other way around - Valinor was removed from the round planet and ME remained?

If I may be forgiven for ignoring physics for the benefit of fantasy fiction, what if neither place was removed in the physical sense but was instead removed to a parallel existence, in a "Mists of Avalon" or Doctor Who type of way? Two worlds, physically superimposed but existing in different planes of reality.

[shadowfax]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I don't see that in itself as a barrier. Our understanding of physics is based ultimately on our observations and extrapolations from therein. What we have never encountered is (obviously) not reflected in our models of the universe. Doesn't mean it can't happen, or doesn't exist. Our model of reality is only true until we encounter something in reality to contradict it; the lack of the encounter does not yet prove the infallibility of the model.

Granted.

I think that the changing of a flat earth to a round earth would not have been possible without some change in the laws of physics. So anything that happened before that change need not be explainable with our present understanding.

This raises the interesting perspective of what it is like to live in a place where the laws of physics suddenly change.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Interesting idea. What if it's the other way around - Valinor was removed from the round planet and ME remained?

Sorry, that is what I meant. My fingers were faster than my brain.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

If I may be forgiven for ignoring physics for the benefit of fantasy fiction, what if neither place was removed in the physical sense but was instead removed to a parallel existence, in a "Mists of Avalon" or Doctor Who type of way? Two worlds, physically superimposed but existing in different planes of reality.

I guess that this is more or less what Tolkien had in mind (even if maybe he wouldn't have seen it that way). The question though is, what precisely does it mean when two worlds exist in parallel and there are some sort of portals between them. Is this parallellism physical or is it metaphorical?

Some scientists believe there may be wormholes in space-time meaning you can somehow get from one place to another through such a wormhole.

Some scientists believe that the laws of physics and mathematics were created, or came into existence, at the Big Bang. There may thus be other universes, created in their own big bangs, where totally different laws apply.

Now just imagine if there was a wormhole from our universe into some other such universe. If you went through such a wormhole you would transition to some other set of laws. In reality that would probably be the end of you as the atoms and molecules that hold you together in this universe might well do something totally different in that other universe (or the concept of atoms might not even exist). But suppose somehow that didn't happen ....

[Mithadan]

It is likely that a universe where Planck's Constant is slightly different would be very... uncomfortable for those traversing your hypothetical wormhole.

As an aside, an old friend of mine is firmly convinced that all of the changes mentioned in Morgoth's Ring were, in fact, what Tolkien intended. In other words, Ea was always round, Orcs were not corrupted Elves, etc. If asked, he would expound upon how the mythologies would have been revised to accommodate these changes.

I do not recall how my friend came down on the "transmission" methodology that Tolkien would ultimately have settled upon. In my view, Tolkien himself never decided. If you look, one can find hints that JRRT had never even completely rejected the Aelfwine/Pengoloth idea

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

As an aside, an old friend of mine is firmly convinced that all of the changes mentioned in Morgoth's Ring were, in fact, what Tolkien intended. In other words, Ea was always round, Orcs were not corrupted Elves, etc.

I can't say "all" the changes -- or rather, I won't necessarily say all the changes, given the complexity of the matter -- but concerning these ideas, I agree.

Or one could argue, for instance, that Tolkien's world was both once flat, and always round, depending upon a given tradition.

If asked, he would expound upon how the mythologies would have been revised to accommodate these changes.

If asked, I would rather blather about how certain notions were to be saved -- by altering the transmission theory and making the Legendarium a multi-perspective collection.

I do not recall how my friend came down on the "transmission" methodology that Tolkien would ultimately have settled upon. In my view, Tolkien himself never decided. If you look, one can find hints that JRRT had never even completely rejected the Aelfwine/Pengoloth idea

As far as I recall (at the moment [!]), Elfwine "sailed" after the later 1950's phase, to be, in my opinion, slowly replaced by the Bilbo/Numenorean tradition.


Ramble Alert


In 1962 a Numenor element is ultimately published in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil: "...No. 14 also depends on the lore of Rivendell, Elvish and Númenorean, concerning the heroic days at the end of the First Age; it seems to contain echoes of the Númenorean tale of Túrin and Mim the Dwarf."

And in The Lord of the Rings (revised edition in the 1960s), Bilbo becomes part of the transmission of texts dealing with the Elder Days -- not only through Tolkien's newly added "Note On The Shire Records", but also in a new statement found in Appendix A, The Return of the King.

Also, here's an interesting revision I think: Quenta Silmarillion (the LQ2 text): "Of their lives was made the Lay of Leithian, Release from Bondage, which is the longest save one of the songs of [the Noldor>] Númenor concerning the world of old;..."

Another late note: in note 17 to The Shibboleth of Feanor (written in 1968 or later) it is stated that the Silmarillion is not an Eldarin title or work, but a compilation, probably made in Númenor: "... which includes (in prose) the four great tales or lays of the heroes of the Atani, of which "The Children of Hurin' was probably composed already in Beleriand in the First Age..." and concludes (concerning the compiled Silmarillion, and the four great tales in prose, and seemingly the account of Feanor and his making of the Silmarils). "All however are "Mannish works."

Tolkien's parenthetical note above "in prose" is interesting here with respect to The Lay of the Children of Húrin, as Dírhaval wrote in verse and his work was said to be rendered into prose -- by Elfwine according to the "older" transmission idea -- but a prose version is now possibly made by an unknown Númenórean.

1968 Published in Vinyar Tengwar 48, we find the Synopsis of Pengoloð's Eldarinwe Leperi are Notessi: "The following account is an abbreviation of a curious document, preserved in the archives of Gondor by strange chance (or by many such chances) from the Elder Days, but in a copy apparently made in Númenor not long before its downfall: probably by or at the orders of Elendil himself, when selecting such records as he could hope to store for the journey to Middle-earth. This one no doubt owed its selection and its copying, first to Elendil's own love of the Eldarin tongues and of the works of the loremasters who wrote about their history; but also to the unusual contents of this disquisition in Quenya: Eldarinwe Leperi are Notessi: The Elvish Fingers and Numerals. It is attributed, by the copyist, to Pengoloð (or Quendingoldo) of Gondolin, and he describes the Elvish play-names of the fingers as used by and taught to children."

Pengoloð lives on, Bilbo is a new Elfwine "Elf-friend" (among others).

1971: "This general idea lies behind the events of The Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion, but it is not put forward as geologically or astronomically "true"; except that some special catastrophe is supposed to lie behind the legends and marked the first stage in the succession of Men to dominion of the world. But the legends are mainly of "Mannish" origin blended with those of the Sindar (Gray-elves) and others who had never left Middle-earth." JRRT, Letter 325

Possibly as late as 1972 Last Writings Note 17: "Here he wrote that the idea [the idea being that Elvish reincarnation might be achieved by rebirth as a child] "... must be abandoned, or at least noted as a false notion, e.g. probably of Mannish origin, since nearly all the matter of The Silmarillion is contained in myths and legends that have passed through Men's hands and minds, and are (in many points) plainly influenced by contact and confusion with the myths, theories, and legends of Men."

So why go there in the 1960s? My answer goes back to a statement from Christopher Tolkien made in Myths Transformed, but just briefly here, I would say that going there saves parts of the older mythology for Quenta Silmarillion, again QS itself existing within a diverse Legendarium.


Total speculation: I'm not sure an Elvish, or purely Elvish Quenta Silmarillion existed. No doubt there were purely Elvish materials in Rivendell, and many songs and stories by the fire and in its gardens and so on. . . and living Elves too of course! And we can see one of Bilbo's works in Errantry/The Song of Earendil -- which differs from a translation of course . . . but in theory, Bilbo could also be responsible for translating "The Awakening of the Quendi" for an Elvish example, even if it's an Elvish fairy tale mixed with counting lore -- something I think Bilbo might like to tackle and make available in the Common Speech.

Seems a Bilbo-ish choice to me, anyway