A Poll to Humor Your Statistically Inclined Hostess ...

[dawn_felagund]

I am working on a post for The Heretic Loremaster and am really curious about how people see the attack on Sirion and its aftermath as it relates to Maedhros and Maglor, and Elrond and Elros. I would appreciate the input of anyone who wishes to take the following poll

Comments

[telperion1]

Hi Dawn,

Just wanted to be clear: by "not canonical" I mean that canon never explicitly stated that was so; not that I think it's inconsistent with canon or "AU" or anything. And by "not sure" I meant that I'd have to look it up to be certain.

I don't know how other people took "not canonical," but I thought I'd clarify in case it was helpful.

[dawn_felagund]

Thanks, Marta. I appreciate the clarification; your ideas are what I had in mind as well. Defining canon is so complicated, which is part of the reason that I wanted each respondent to bring his or her own definition to the questions.

[rhapsody11]

Fun questions, especially two had me going like, wait a minute, what am I clicking here :) It might be fanon, where is Tinni's site!

[dawn_felagund]

And, in truth, I'm really only interested in one of the set of replies! The others are used either as comparisons or so that my purposes aren't immediately clear (thus, biasing responses). Mwhaha! ;)

[rhapsody11]

Hehehe :) It made me think how much fanfic I read over the years and how much that influenced in what I consider canonical and what not. Besides the fact that the professor gave the character Maedhros and Maglor quite some thought and attributed first ideas to another, so that gave me pause as well. I can't wait to see what goes up at your blog about this!

[dawn_felagund]

It made me think how much fanfic I read over the years and how much that influenced in what I consider canonical and what not.

I know! I'm as influenced by fanon as anyone else, despite my frequent railing about it. ;) Like my comment to blslarner way down the bottom of this post, when she brought up the waterfall story, my first thought: "Dude! Totally canon! It's in the HoMe!"

...

A half-hour later, having searched the HoMe on "waterfall" and "water" (do you know how many times the &*%$ word "water" is in the HoMe??), I couldn't find it. Doing a Google search finally led me to an essay with a reference ... to Tolkien's letters.

If I didn't have a stack of ebooks, an Internet connection, and a half-hour that I should have been spending on schoolwork, then I would have sworn it was canon. Why? Because it's in so many fanfics, of course! ;)

[heartofoshun]

The stories are different in different canon. I don't have the patience to look it all up and give the cites for them here (it is the middle of the night right now). When I write it I am going to pick and chose the ones I like.

[dawn_felagund]

No worries ... I didn't want anyone to look anything up. (Which I probably should have clarified ...) The canon on this issue depends on whether you use the Silm or the HoMe, so there really are no "correct" answers to most of them. I was just curious where everyone's opinions on this fell. :)

[lindahoyland]

I don't know the Simarillion very well ,only having read it once,but I voted how I feel without looking up details.

[dawn_felagund]

That's great! Thank you! :) I really didn't want to make this into a research project for anyone but rather get people's opinions on how they tend to view the canon, independent of pulling out quotes as proof.

[lindahoyland]

Can I just ask you a question? Raksha and I wrote a short story about Manwe and the other Valar working together to ensure Aragorn and Faramir had a perfect day out with Imrahil at Dol Amroth. Would that be Simarillion related enough for your site?

[dawn_felagund]

Yes, if it involves the Valar as major characters, then it is absolutely appropriate! :) It's really impossible to draw a tidy line between "Silmfic" and "LotRfic" because there's so much overlap: An entire book in the Silm is devoted to the events leading up to and included in LotR, after all. The advice I generally give people (because this is the #1 question I get asked about the SWG) is to consider that our audience is largely people who read primarily or entirely Silmfic, or people who come to SWG because they're in the mood for Silmfic and have trouble finding it amid the LotRfic on other archives. If you think there is enough Silmarillion in a story to interest these people, then it will likely fit. :)

If you're still not sure and you want me to take a look at it first, just let me know!

[oloriel]

Statically? ;)

In this particular case, I have taken "canonical" to mean "said in the published Silm": Normally I include the HoME to my definition of canon, but just now I am no longer certain what parts of the events at the havens are purely fanon-inspired and what are derived from the supplementary canon. I'd have to look it up, and... *coughs* right now I'm too lazy to do that. *gasp! shock!*

I have taken "non-canonical" to mean that, from what we see in Canon, it would feel OOC to me. I have taken "not sure" to mean that canon doesn't explicitly say so, but it might well be between the lines. A somewhat hazy differentiation, I admit, but it seemed to be what worked best; but I shall explain my answers anyway.

Well, not the answer to the first question, which is fairly straightforward, I think.

But two: I clicked "not sure" because... well. The Silm doesn't say anything of the sort, but I think it's implied in the fact that there is no special mention of resistance. If Maedhros - who is, despite everything, still the leader of

[dawn_felagund]

Thanks for finding the typo! I fixed it! That's what I get for typing in a hurry before heading off to do schoolwork. ;)

No worries about not looking things up ... I really didn't want people to feel they needed to do that. I should have clarified. (Maybe I'll add an ETA before broadcasting this to a wider audience.)

For most of the "questions," I don't even think that there is necessarily a correct answer, which is why I wanted to leave it up to each person to use his or her personal definition of canon in coming up with replies. You are right that the earliest versions of The Silmarillion had Maedhros as the rescuer of Elrond (Elros being added later), and JRRT stopped working on this part of the story shortly after switching Maedhros and Maglor's roles. I think that will influence everyone's personal canon differently; some won't think it matters, and others will take it into account, in terms of its use as a trajectory of Maedhros and Maglor's characterization, if nothing else.

Somewhere in the back of my head a voice keeps