Hot take: Only the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings should be viewed as canonical Middle-Earth books

[Vael]

I've gotten into reading X-Men comics. And delving into the insanely long list of retcons and changes and the whole idea of "canon" is just becoming an outmoded concept for me.

I don't claim to be a Tolkien expert, but Rings of Power did get me into watching some lore videos, and one on the Blue Wizards pointed out Tolkien himself changed his opinion on both their names and their ... effectiveness, so even pointing to Tolkien himself for the "absolute canon" seems like a fool's errand.

 

[Mercurius]

I've gotten into reading X-Men comics. And delving into the insanely long list of retcons and changes and the whole idea of "canon" is just becoming an outmoded concept for me.

I don't claim to be a Tolkien expert, but Rings of Power did get me into watching some lore videos, and one on the Blue Wizards pointed out Tolkien himself changed his opinion on both their names and their ... effectiveness, so even pointing to Tolkien himself for the "absolute canon" seems like a fool's errand.

This is only a fool's errand if you buy the notion of "absolute canon." Again, it isn't a matter of canon, but Tolkien vs. non-Tolkien. There's still a meaningful distinction to be made between what was created by Tolkien, who knew his world in a way that no other could, and what was adapted/interpreted by later film-makers, be it Peter Jackson or Vance and McKay.

 

[Morrus]

I mean, what did Siegel & Shuster think of General Zod? Not canon. In fact, canonically Superman can not fly.

Creator’s canon is a personal preference, no more. These worlds outgrow their creators.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As for The Silmarillion, I'm reminded of that quote from Robert Frost or Mark Twain (can't remember who): "Poets don't finish poems, publishers do."

A related one, also good: "Creative works are never finished, just abandoned."

I'm pretty sure George Lucas has this as a tattoo somewhere on his body.

 

[Ryujin]

A related one, also good: "Creative works are never finished, just abandoned."

I'm pretty sure George Lucas has this as a tattoo somewhere on his body.

Three words; Han shot first.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The Silmarillion should count because JRR did submit it to be published, even though that did not happen until years later and with editing, and some additions, by his son. As for all the rest of the material, if JRR did not feel it good enough to submit for publishing, then it is definitely in a gray area and should not counted as canon.

 

[Hriston]

The Silmarillion is a work by Christopher Tolkien, based on his father's work and not actually J.R.R. Tolkien's work.

We know that, throughout his life, JRRT dramatically changed his mind about many elements of the setting -- the orcs, for one, were jerked back and forth creatively a bunch of times. We have no reason to believe that Christopher, four years after his father was dead and buried, was able to make the exact choices his father would have.

And Christopher himself didn't believe that they were 100% canonical: "Complete consistency (either within the compass of The Silmarillion itself or between The Silmarillion and other published writings of my father's) is not to be looked for, and could only be achieved, if at all, at heavy and needless cost." (Page 8 in the Silmarillion.)

This is even more true for the later posthumous works, which include elements that are almost certainly creative dead-ends, like characters that only appear in the History of Middle-earth books and nowhere else. That's a key part of the writing process: Figuring out what to keep and what to discard or at least put on the shelf until a use is found for it.

At best, Christopher was making editorial judgements on what to include and what to exclude and which varying take was the "real" one in all of the books published after his father's death.

It's comparable to "And Another Thing" being viewed as an official Hitchhikers book. Yes, the estate may say it is, but it's not the original's author's voice or intentions. It's a best guess by someone who wants to get it right, but cannot ever truly hope to do so.

I'm a big Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fan, but I would never confuse A Salmon of Doubt or the fragments in The Frood or the upcoming 42 as being a missing Hitchhikers book or even work that was truly destined to be one. (A Salmon of Doubt makes this point quite explicit, referencing Douglas Adams intending fragments for a Dirk Gently book, no, maybe for a new Hitchhikers book, no, maybe we'll do something else with that at some point.)

JRRT would likely be bemused by the Rings of Power, but he'd almost certainly view Unfinished Tales, The Silmarillion, The Fall of Gondolin and The Fall of Númenor with at least as much confusion and alarm. "Contradicting" those books is no more important than "contradicting" Brian Herbert's Dune books that he wrote after his father's death.

Your assertion that the writings published in The Silmarillion are not the work of JRR Tolkien shows a complete lack of familiarity with both his work and his biography.

Likewise, the premise that Christopher Tolkien was at all concerned with "which varying take was the 'real' one" in his presentation of the HoMe and other books is not supported by the material itself, the stated purpose of which was to lay out the textual evolution of his father's work in all its variable permutations, a purpose that I feel was accomplished admirably.

Maybe you should leave it to others more familiar with the actual texts to make pronouncements on which of JRR Tolkien's writings are "canonical", a word which I don't think you're using consistently. If you mean it in the sense of works genuinely written by JRR Tolkien, then the constituent texts from which The Silmarillion was constructed and which have individually been documented and made available in the HoMe must be recognized as part of JRR Tolkien's canon. If you mean it in the sense of a consistent fictional canon, then I would extend Christopher Tolkien's statement that "Complete consistency (... between The Silmarillion and other published writings of [his] father's) is not to be looked for," to the published writings themselves. Not even The Hobbit and the LotR achieve a thorough consistency when taken as a whole. Each work has an internal consistency, but although JRR Tolkien tried to bring The Hobbit into conformity with its sequel, the effort was ultimately futile. Such consistency can only be found in his works when regarded individually.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Let us both dismiss Christopher Tolkien for being wrong about what he, himself, said about the Slimarillion and appeal to his authority on it.

 

[Rabulias]

... the Slimarillion...

I have not read The Silmarillion, but I have seen it, and I would not describe it as slim. Is this an anti-Freudian slip?

 

[Mercurius]

JRRT would likely be bemused by the Rings of Power, but he'd almost certainly view Unfinished Tales, The Silmarillion, The Fall of Gondolin and The Fall of Númenor with at least as much confusion and alarm. "Contradicting" those books is no more important than "contradicting" Brian Herbert's Dune books that he wrote after his father's death.

Just a comment on this. First of all, I don't think JRRT would be as much "bemused" by Rings of Power, as aghast, and disavow the show thoroughly.

But more to my point, this notion that the books you mention would cause "at least as much confusion and alarm." Tolkien is dead and gone, but I think we can confidently say that this is just patently false - and enormously so. All of those works are actually his - they were just assembled and edited by his son, who was intimately familiar with his father's world. But unlike the Brian Herbert books, they were actually and mostly written by the originator. It is a false equivalency, that obfuscates the important differentiation of what is and is not Tolkien's actual work. Everything in the Silmarillion is JRR's. It was compiled by CT, but it is still his father's work.

More bemusing is the implied equivalency of Rings of Power and the Silmarillion et al, as far as "canonical" validity. There is no equivalency between the two. One is the actual work and stories of JRRT, and the other is a show that uses those stories as inspiration.

As far as this hullabaloo about what CT said about The Silmarillion, I don't think he was saying it isn't canonical. Again, the notion of a "Tolkien canon" is just misguided from the start. As I said before, a canon has some value to a shared universe so that authors can refer back to a body of knowledge and stories that is official, that they have to keep into account. But there is no Middle-earth canon. There's just Tolkien's Middle-earth, and different versions by film-makers and GMs, which are their own, but have no real relationship or connection to the original, except that they used it as source material.

All CT is doing is clarifying the nature of The Silmarillion: the myths and legends of Middle-earth, and as they might be remembered by people during the time of LotR, and thus "veiled" by large passages of time, as all myths and legends are. But they are still "true," even if there are inconsistencies, just as myths of Greek heroes and gods were "true" to ancient Greek culture.