Round world version of The Silmarillion

[Noddy]

In the published version of J.R.R. Tolkien's Silmarillion, the sun and moon don't exist until they're born from the fruit of the Two Trees of Valinor, by which time Arda has already been existence a considerable while, and the world starts off as flat, changing to a globed planet after the fall of Numenor. This is what most Tolkien/LotR fans are familiar with.

What the majority of people probably don't know is that, towards the end of his life, Tolkien was working on ideas for the book which were quite different from what was eventually published posthumously. The book Morgoth's Ring (One of the History of Middle-Earth series) contains an essay by Tolkien entitled "Myths Transformed." Here he largely does away with the notions of Arda ever being flat and the sun and moon coming from the Trees; instead the world is round from its very beginning, and the sun already exists when it is made. But Melkor attacks the sun, thereby "polluting" it and/or shutting out its light. Some of the sun's untainted light is then contained within the seeds of the Two Trees, which return to it with the Trees' deaths.

Personally, I think it's a shame this was never properly published, as it sounds very interesting, and it's intriguing to know that Tolkien was attempting to reconcile his mythical prehistory with real world prehistory to some degree. What are other people's opinions on the matter?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Personally, I think it's a shame this was never properly published, as it sounds very interesting, and it's intriguing to know that Tolkien was attempting to reconcile his mythical prehistory with real world prehistory to some degree. What are other people's opinions on the matter?

Honestly? I prefer "the world made round."

Partly, it's because I understand on an intuitive level how that works, and partly it's because I have a "grand unified theory" of sorts in my mind of a mythical prehistory that goes from Tolkien to Moorcock's Elric to Howard's Conan (in that order) that depends on the world being made round.

I personally find it easier to accept that the world was flat and was then made round and was then placed in the universe we know today (which is how I see it happening) than to accept that Arda was always round and existed within the universe.

And someday I may explain what I think Narnia is.

That's all from a practical standpoint. From a thematic standpoint, a round Arda makes no sense at all because it blunts the catastrophes of the First and Second Ages. The fate of creation and its nature gets replaced with really big battles. Sunken lands replace actual parts of the world gone. A round Arda makes the events less epochal in a way.

Not all of Tolkien's later thoughts were good thoughts. I've read his aborted rewrite of The Hobbit in the style of The Lord of the Rings, and he sapped it of all of its charm. An always round Arda is a far-reaching change that, in my opinion, never would have worked.

 

[Hound of UIster]

In the published version of J.R.R. Tolkien's Silmarillion, the sun and moon don't exist until they're born from the fruit of the Two Trees of Valinor, by which time Arda has already been existence a considerable while, and the world starts off as flat, changing to a globed planet after the fall of Numenor. This is what most Tolkien/LotR fans are familiar with.

What the majority of people probably don't know is that, towards the end of his life, Tolkien was working on ideas for the book which were quite different from what was eventually published posthumously. The book Morgoth's Ring (One of the History of Middle-Earth series) contains an essay by Tolkien entitled "Myths Transformed." Here he largely does away with the notions of Arda ever being flat and the sun and moon coming from the Trees; instead the world is round from its very beginning, and the sun already exists when it is made. But Melkor attacks the sun, thereby "polluting" it and/or shutting out its light. Some of the sun's untainted light is then contained within the seeds of the Two Trees, which return to it with the Trees' deaths.

If I recall correctly much of the larger essay was to resolve his ME with current day astronomy and knowledge of the universe. For example I believe he lays out that the stars are also suns possibly with other events happening. I think much of the material in MR was him trying to resolve his creation with both Christianity and natural science to the extent that he understood it. Which is why he went through all those contortions trying to explain whether the orcs had free will or not.

 

[Noddy]

Personally, I think it's a shame this was never properly published, as it sounds very interesting, and it's intriguing to know that Tolkien was attempting to reconcile his mythical prehistory with real world prehistory to some degree. What are other people's opinions on the matter?

Honestly? I prefer "the world made round."

Partly, it's because I understand on an intuitive level how that works, and partly it's because I have a "grand unified theory" of sorts in my mind of a mythical prehistory that goes from Tolkien to Moorcock's Elric to Howard's Conan (in that order) that depends on the world being made round.

I personally find it easier to accept that the world was flat and was then made round and was then placed in the universe we know today (which is how I see it happening) than to accept that Arda was always round and existed within the universe.

And someday I may explain what I think Narnia is.

That's all from a practical standpoint. From a thematic standpoint, a round Arda makes no sense at all because it blunts the catastrophes of the First and Second Ages. The fate of creation and its nature gets replaced with really big battles. Sunken lands replace actual parts of the world gone. A round Arda makes the events less epochal in a way.

Not all of Tolkien's later thoughts were good thoughts. I've read his aborted rewrite of The Hobbit in the style of The Lord of the Rings, and he sapped it of all of its charm. An always round Arda is a far-reaching change that, in my opinion, never would have worked.

Tolkien, Elric and Conan all sharing the same continuity? Hmm, interesting idea. Of course, the very distant prehistory of the Conan mythos is much more in line with modern era scientific thought, with the world never having literally changed its shape and with a lifespan going back millions of years, including dinosaurs, et al, which is not supported at all by Tolkien's mythology as it was published.

I don't really feel that Arda always having been round causes the end of the First Age to lose any dramatic impact. It was still cataclysmic, and the world was permanently changed - Numenor was completely destroyed, and Aman was forever cut off from the rest of the world (whether it literally was physically removed from Arda, or merely had barriers put up around it, making it both inaccessible and invisible, is unimportant, IMO).

 

[Noddy]

This is only vaguely related to the above discussion, but something else of interest I read in "Myths Transformed": In exploring the origins of Orcs, Tolkien at one point theorizes that they may have been created by Morgoth from humans. This is interesting, because in all versions of the mythology I'm aware of, Orcs already existed in great numbers a long while before the appearance in the sky of the sun, and the published Silmarillion states that this first dawn marked the awakening of Men in the distant east. But if this new origin story for the Orcs is carried forward, then humans (or, at the very least, creatures closely resembling humans) must have already existed by the time the Elves awoke!! But then how can the Elves be called the Firstborn of Eru?

 

[Alidar Jarok]

While I know he had lots of different versions of the origins of Orcs, wasn't the version in the Silmarillion that they were created from Elves?

 

[Noddy]

While I know he had lots of different versions of the origins of Orcs, wasn't the version in the Silmarillion that they were created from Elves?

Yes, that was the origin of the Orcs....according to the version of The Silmarillion published posthumously by his son. Had Tolkien lived a little longer, he may well have chosen something quite different to what he actually got.

One question: If, for the moment, we suppose that the universal history and cosmology given by Tolkien in Myths Transformed is the "true" one, then what is the "starlight" given to Frodo by Galadriel if not literal light from a literal star? Also, why are the Elves called the Firstborn if humans were already around when they first awoke (They would have to have been, if Orcs were descended from them)?

 

[Hound of UIster]

^He clearly hadn't resolved the chronology issues regarding the orcs if they were men. Again it was never something done in the service of chronology, but something to resolve the meaningful theological questions in his work. Imo the idea of orcs being men is something that he probably eventually would have arrived at inevitably.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Also, why are the Elves called the Firstborn if humans were already around when they first awoke (They would have to have been, if Orcs were descended from them)?

Is the version of humans predating Elves and Orcs descending from Elves included together or are they separate?

 

[JarodRussell]

Oh man, why didn't they just drop a line of God folding the flat world to a ball into the Bible?

 

[Noddy]

Is the version of humans predating Elves and Orcs descending from Elves included together or are they separate?

His theories about Orcs being created from humans are found in his Myths Transformed essay, which can be read in the book Morgoth's Ring. He explores a number of ideas there, as The Silmarillion had not been finalized when he wrote it.

 

[Noddy]

^He clearly hadn't resolved the chronology issues regarding the orcs if they were men. Again it was never something done in the service of chronology, but something to resolve the meaningful theological questions in his work. Imo the idea of orcs being men is something that he probably eventually would have arrived at inevitably.

Probably, but as has been pointed out, such an idea would mean that humans did not come into being with the first dawn, as Orcs were around long before then, and therefor men had to have been as well.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Is the version of humans predating Elves and Orcs descending from Elves included together or are they separate?

His theories about Orcs being created from humans are found in his Myths Transformed essay, which can be read in the book Morgoth's Ring. He explores a number of ideas there, as The Silmarillion had not been finalized when he wrote it.

OK, I get that. I guess my confusion is where you're getting the idea of Humans predating Elves from.

 

[Noddy]

Any idea how the Lamps of the Valar would fit in this new scheme? Would Tolkien have kept them, or would he have discarded them in favor of the sun existing much earlier?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

If I were tasked to reconcile the narratives in The Silmarillion with those in The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, then my approach would likely be as follows.

First of all, I consider The Lord of the Rings to be the primary literary work. Tolkien's notes that comprised the The Silmarillion together with all his other notes pertaining to Middle-earth constitute background.

Therefore, I'd deem the narratives in The Silmarillion to be myths, primarily (though not necessarily exclusively) in the body of Elvish myth as recounted by Elves at the end of the Third Age. That would make The Silmarillion a story within the story, if you will.

That would dispense with any implication about what was factual, in terms of what actually transpired during the Creation and the First Age. It would also eliminate the problem of the existence of inconsistencies and so allow multiple versions of the Creation story to exist in different mythologies, without anyone (among the characters we know, the Istari excepted) being able to know definitely which one, if any, was perfectly true.

Tolkien's task at creating Middle-earth was complete when The Return of the King was published. By that I mean, he had conceived of it vividly enough, so that no further major work on his part was necessary in order to give its conception greater value. At least, that's my view.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Tolkien's task at creating Middle-earth was complete when The Return of the King was published.

Not really. You seem to mistakenly believe that LOTR and the Hobbit was the meat and potatoes and the bulk of his work on ME. With Tolkien the reverse was probably true, the material in the Silmarillion and the HoME was the primary material of interest and was what he devoted much of his spare time to. Trying to write them off as myths within the narrative and lesser in a degree to the Hobbit/LOTR does a great disservice to Tolkien and what he was trying to do imo.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Tolkien's task at creating Middle-earth was complete when The Return of the King was published.

Not really. You seem to mistakenly believe that LOTR and the Hobbit was the meat and potatoes and the bulk of his work on ME. With Tolkien the reverse was probably true, the material in the Silmarillion and the HoME was the primary material of interest and was what he devoted much of his spare time to. Trying to write them off as myths within the narrative and lesser in a degree to the Hobbit/LOTR does a great disservice to Tolkien and what he was trying to do imo.

You took my quote out of context by eliminating the sentence that followed, and you're mistaken that I'm unaware of what Tolkien's interest was.

Tolkien's task at creating Middle-earth was complete when The Return of the King was published. By that I mean, he had conceived of it vividly enough, so that no further major work on his part was necessary in order to give its conception greater value.

By greater value, I meant to me as a reader. You seem to think that I don't place great value on what he'd accomplished in The Lord of the Rings. Actually, I intended what I said as a compliment. I don't consider any part of the published trilogy a "write-off".

If J.R.R. Tolkien had actually finished and published his own final version of The Silmarillion, I might have a different view, but I think it's pretty obvious that world-building is an unfinished business when taken to the nth degree.

 

[Noddy]

I think a lot of the difficulty arises from the fact Tolkien clearly stated that Middle-Earth at the time of LotR was fully intended to be our Earth some six thousand years ago. But how could it be if, several thousand years before that, Earth was a flat disc and the sun, moon and stars all revolved around it? The two scenarios simply don't go together. Other stuff, such as Robert E. Howard's Conan, worked better in this regard, in that while they postulated a mythical prehistoric era for Earth, they didn't mess around with what the general structure of Earth and the universe is known to be.

 

[Hound of UIster]

It goes in hand with much of his post-LOTR work which really is either resolving or delving into the minutia of his creation and very much connected with him trying to publish a definite version of the Silmarillion.

 

[Noddy]

Something else of interest: Had Tolkien published his revised mythology, would he have discarded the whole notion of Valarian Years? The original reason he invented them was because, in the earlier phases of the mythology, the sun and moon did not exist, and so the Valar required a different system of measuring time. But if the sun existed from Arda's earliest days, wouldn't the Valar have measured time in much the same way we do?