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HeWhoArisesinMight
Rivendell
Jun 16 2014, 12:04am
Post #1 of 10
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Could the Ælfwine conceit have worked?
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We all know that Tolkien changed the structure of the time-travel idea of Ælfwine returning to Tol Eressea to write the Silmarillion to Bilbo writing down those tales. But I enjoyed the Ælfwine/Eriol story in the Book of Lost Tales and wonder how it could have worked. Obviously, it was difficult, otherwise Tolkien would not have abandoned it. And time-travel stories have so many problems that using it would have been problematic.
Nevertheless, could such an idea work? Would it have been cool for Ælfwine to be part of the cannon? Or would it have taken away from the legendarium. If there was Ælfwine then maybe there is no Bilbo.
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Cillendor
Lorien
Jun 16 2014, 3:09am
Post #2 of 10
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he were a modern-day person who traveled to Tol Eressëa and brought back a copy of the Red Book that Sam brought with him millennia before. That actually could be a pretty cool angle. Tolkien could even be a direct descendant of Ælfwine, explaining how he came across the manuscripts.
As for time travel, though, I'm totally against it. It is an interesting concept in fiction if used properly and consistently, but it doesn't fit with the "vibe" of Middle-earth.
If Tolkien did continue working with Ælfwine, though, I think it'd be awesome to have received his accounts of interacting with the Elves from the Histories. I doubt even Tolkien could've envisioned what Elrond and Galadriel and the rest were doing for thousands of years in peace, but it'd still be an interesting look into their lives from a point in time where they aren't at war or under any threat.
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DaughterofLaketown
Gondor
Jun 16 2014, 4:56am
Post #3 of 10
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This I think goes along with The Lost Road
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One of my favorite stories. The story was originally set in the present day of his time.
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Elthir
Grey Havens
Jun 16 2014, 11:48am
Post #4 of 10
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As for time travel, though, I'm totally against it. It is an interesting concept in fiction if used properly and consistently, but it doesn't fit with the "vibe" of Middle-earth.
Maybe you are aware of this but [and if you are, for the thread in any case] the time travel aspect of The Lost Road/Notion Club Papers was really 'travel' through genetic memory, into the past.
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Elthir
Grey Havens
Jun 16 2014, 12:13pm
Post #5 of 10
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I think the conceit could have worked, but the problem in my opinion was that in the Elfwine scenario the transmission was too direct and too Elvish, as Elfwine himself learns the myths and tales from Eressean Elves, and then faithfully renders these tales into Old English.
Thus the source is basically Elvish, and very Western Elvish too, with not enough room for confused Mannish ideas to be woven in, or concepts or tales hailing from the Elves of Middle-earth as well.
And an older Tolkien desired that The Silmarillion be largely Mannish to explain stuff like the origin of the Sun and Moon, or why some thought the World was once flat. The Western Elves should know better that the Sun wasn't really a product of the Trees, for example, and so would not tell this version of the tale directly to Elfwine, who then sets it down in English.
I believe the new tales of Myths Transformed were abandoned, but not the idea that created them: the Silmarillion must become a largely Mannish affair [there are plenty of late statements from Tolkien regarding this], so the Numenorean/Mannish/Bilbo transmission was ultimately the transmission, and Elfwine fell away...
... wholly fell away? He seems to, but some have argued that he could still be the link in how the tales get to the modern reader, especially if he provides the link after Bilbo has already done his work.
That said, there is no real indication in Appendix F On Translation [no indication that I'm aware of], that the translator is working with Old English at any point, which I would think would be notable if so, especially since the translator has decided to use Old English to translate the language of the Rohirrim [who did not speak Old English of course].
So if it could have worked, I think Appendix F might have needed some measure of revision.
Then again there are other possible scenarios that might be 'better' than Elfwine, in any case, or if not better, could have at least explained the translation conceit more fully. Or Elfwine could have been employed partially, with only certain documents or tales hailing from Elfwine's translations -- while others were not.
(This post was edited by Elthir on Jun 16 2014, 12:21pm)
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squire
Half-elven
Jun 16 2014, 2:58pm
Post #6 of 10
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The stories were the thing, not the framework
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Tolkien wanted both, of course. But the framework (who wrote the stories, how did they survive to our modern era, etc.) is where a 'fake-mythology' always falls apart, so it's almost inevitable that as the stories got more and more detailed and more and more extensive (including LotR and the Hobbit and Numenor by the late 1940s), he found himself trapped with thousands of pages of good to great fictional stories and no way to present them as 'real' without emphasizing their 'fakeness'. I believe that's why he couldn't publish the Silmarillion in his own lifetime (age and weariness had a lot to do with it also), and that's why his son could - but only by abandoning the framework entirely, something JRRT could never have done. Christopher redeemed his heresy (!) afterwards by giving us History of Middle-earth so we could then have this conversation!
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd & 4th TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion and NOW the 1st BotR Discussion too! and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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DaughterofLaketown
Gondor
Jun 16 2014, 7:56pm
Post #7 of 10
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I think it could have been one of his best books.
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Elthir
Grey Havens
Jun 16 2014, 9:19pm
Post #8 of 10
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Are you responding to something in my post -- written by me -- or to the part I quoted?
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HeWhoArisesinMight
Rivendell
Jun 17 2014, 2:16am
Post #10 of 10
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I do think that the concept could have worked, although it might have changed everything about Middle Earth. In the Silmarillion, it is written that all the seas were bent and that the straight word to Tol Eressea could only be found by the Eldar. But, some lucky sailor could happen upon it. This would have been an awesome link to our "real" world and Tolkien's mythology. However, the "real" world would have to remain in the early to late Medeival period and could not reach the Enlightment and modernity. Obviously, the tales of the Valar and Noldor would be ridiculous to modern humans, but maybe not so much to those in the Middle Ages.
The only way the legendarium could be carried into modernity is if the mythology was a metaphor for nature. Then we could say the old stories were true, but represented our pre-scientific understandings of the world.
There is another post in this forum that asks what if Valinor existed today. I remember as a kid imagining I could find a door like in Chronicles of Narnia and walk into Middle Earth and see it for myself. Elfwine/Eriol was the closest I ever got to that and the story has always stayed with me even if it is not part of the cannon.
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