r/TheSilmarillion

I will go as far as to say that whatever was published isn't canon.

I might be a lot more ignorant than i realise so enlighten me. But here i go-

Tolkien first hoped to publish the Silmarillion right after The Hobbit, but it was rejected. He then wrote LoTR and tried to publish the Silmarillion alongside it, and was rejected again. Through it all, he kept working on it in the background.

The published book was compiled from sixty years of scattered pages, notebooks, and shifting lore, woven into a single narrative. I think those fragments were closer to daydreams written down so he wouldn't forget them, and that he never settled the timeline, since the book was assembled from so many small stories.

There's also a lot more conflicting versions that Christopher had to go through and settle it for a sense of cohesion. The book The History Of Middle Earth has plots and stories that confilct with the Silmarillion.

60 years is a time too long for a consistent story. Heck, I cringe at what I wrote 6 months ago, then ofcourse, Tolkien wouldnt agree with his own work. Tolkien had a sense of what the world would look like, and he did want the Silmarillion published, but he never intended it to appear in this form: compiled by his son from decades of scattered drafts after his death.

Tbh, Cristopher did a good job in making it cohesive but we'll never know what J.R.R.Tolkien actually wanted the final draft to be.

Tolkien wrote that if Melkor truly repented he could have gained his powers back. What was going through his mind to take such drastic actions?

If they were, would they have learned their lesson or continue under oath?

Also, would they be informed of current goings on in Middle-earth?

Thought I had been thinking about.

Would he have grown it to some extent by the time of the forging of the Rings of Power in the middle of the Second Age (c. S.A. 1590)?

How long does it take for an Elf to reach that part of their life cycle where they can grow one?

(For the sake of this discussion I am going off the proposal that Círdan was born at sometime between YT. 1050-1105 in Cuiviénen).

Didn't Mahtan have a beard way back in Valinor at the time of the Trees? Though his family does seem to have an excess of testosterone to spare, given that his daughter's name partly meant 'large, strong man'... No idea if that would have actually sped up his beard growing ability though.

What if, after Finwe was slain and Morgoth escaped with the Silmarils, Feanor instead listened to the Valar and waited for their direction? How would the Valar have eventually dealt with Morgoth in Middle Earth after they rose the sun and moon? Would they have gone, in force, to Middle Earth sooner? Would less of Thingol’s people have been killed? Would they have defeated Morgoth before he had a chance to corrupt Men?

IYKYK