Timeline/genealogies of the TFTE

[Arvegil145]

I was wondering, as I have before in previous threads, whether we should have:


1) an all-encompassing timeline (ala Tale of Years in LOTR) of all the legendarium.

Surely, we need some kind of 'Tale of Years' system to organize all this stuff into one consistent timeline?

In regards to the First Age I'll ask Huinesoron (who has done an incredible job of picking out Tolkien's latest writings to compose a speculative 'final' version of what Tolkien might've envisioned as the timeline of the First Age in his 'Round World' legendarium).

Of course, I'll ask him to keep it 'flat-world' friendly!

2) a family tree or set of family trees to encompass every character (connected of course by a familial line) in the legendarium - and as precise dates as possible to accompany them - so if anyone can be bothered: what characters that you know are definitely excluded from the project?

Regardless, I'll still continue working on both 1 and 2.

[Huinesoron]

Oh noooo, don't ask me. A consistent timeline is a very involved project - look how many revisions we've done to the "Final Timeline" already! And every step is a decision - which sources do you accept, and how should they link together?

Just one example: the "arising and fall of Men" (NoME VI.B) is said to take place 10 Valian Years (1440 sun-years) after the Finding of the Quendi, 90 VY after the Awakening of the Quendi, and after the Captivity of Melkor begins. But in later sources the Awakening and Finding of the Quendi are only 14 Valian Years apart. Should the "arising and fall" still be 10 VY later, or should it be scaled accordingly (to about 1.5 VY after the Finding)? And is the "arising and fall of Men" the same event as the "awakening of Men", or - as in the slightly earlier VI.A - does the Fall take place after Melkor is captured, and the Awakening of Men before?

For the Final Timeline, I've resolved that one to my own satisfaction; but that doesn't mean the Project would agree, and any change in one date can move any number of others around. Don't even get me started on how to handle birth-dates when the whole growth pattern of the Eldar has completely changed multiple times.

(I will say, though, that the Final Timeline - while listing "sun-years" to keep a continuous count - doesn't make any reference to the Sun and Moon, so is just as valid for a flat world as a round one.)

hS

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Oh noooo, don't ask me. A consistent timeline is a very involved project - look how many revisions we've done to the "Final Timeline" already! And every step is a decision - which sources do you accept, and how should they link together?

Just one example: the "arising and fall of Men" (NoME VI.B) is said to take place 10 Valian Years (1440 sun-years) after the Finding of the Quendi, 90 VY after the Awakening of the Quendi, and after the Captivity of Melkor begins. But in later sources the Awakening and Finding of the Quendi are only 14 Valian Years apart. Should the "arising and fall" still be 10 VY later, or should it be scaled accordingly (to about 1.5 VY after the Finding)? And is the "arising and fall of Men" the same event as the "awakening of Men", or - as in the slightly earlier VI.A - does the Fall take place after Melkor is captured, and the Awakening of Men before?

For the Final Timeline, I've resolved that one to my own satisfaction; but that doesn't mean the Project would agree, and any change in one date can move any number of others around. Don't even get me started on how to handle birth-dates when the whole growth pattern of the Eldar has completely changed multiple times.

(I will say, though, that the Final Timeline - while listing "sun-years" to keep a continuous count - doesn't make any reference to the Sun and Moon, so is just as valid for a flat world as a round one.)

hS

The pain only begins when you try to square the 'early legendarium' with the very round 'later legendarium'.

In actuality, the adjustment to the YS altogether only involves abandoning certain events. And the birth dates should be kept as they were in the AAm, at least in spacing.

[Findegil]

First of all, not be misunderstood: I am greatly interested in a time line and in the genealogies and will, if I can, contribute to the discussion of them! I as well think they can be great help for this project.

But (and that is a big BUT) I do not see how the result can be part of the final result of this project and I have greate doubts that under the strict rules this project has given itself, any meaning full version of either Time Line or Genalogie can be produced.

Form the start the project was one of editing text's not writing them. Our editorial additions were small and most often just single words of gramatical necessity. I can not imagin how that could be true of a Time Line that we could create. We don't have the necessary sources for that! And if we had the Tale of the Years of the first age completly, I doubt that an updated version would satisfy Arvegil145's wishes: There would be lots of dates we could not enter, so we would be decently sure of their placment, because we would not have an apropirate source text to work with. Look at the Tale of the Yeas of the second and third age as found in the Appendix of LotR. Are they what you would wish for? Probably not, but that is about what we could get under the rules of the project.

Time Lines and Genealogies do state very acurate facts. There is not much space for ambiguity in them. But facts are hard to come by in Middle-earth! The project could navigate around many hotly discussed issues only by leaving the decission to the reader. And I don't see how that could be done in Time Linies or Genealogies.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

The pain only begins when you try to square the 'early legendarium' with the very round 'later legendarium'.

In actuality, the adjustment to the YS altogether only involves abandoning certain events. And the birth dates should be kept as they were in the AAm, at least in spacing.

The "Final Timeline" is taken entirely from sources after the Annals of Aman, or the Annals themselves (other than Maitirussa); it's all post-LotR 'late legendarium'.

Abandoning certain events is probably the only way you could do it; for the pre-Beleriand era, I would recommend discarding everything which is sourced to the Annals. The Noldor can arrive in Beleriand, and then leave 2500 years later; what happens between is a mystery.

Originally Posted by Findegil

Form the start the project was one of editing text's not writing them. Our editorial additions were small and most often just single words of gramatical necessity. I can not imagin how that could be true of a Time Line that we could create. We don't have the necessary sources for that! And if we had the Tale of the Years of the first age completly, I doubt that an updated version would satisfy Arvegil145's wishes: There would be lots of dates we could not enter, so we would be decently sure of their placment, because we would not have an apropirate source text to work with. Look at the Tale of the Yeas of the second and third age as found in the Appendix of LotR. Are they what you would wish for? Probably not, but that is about what we could get under the rules of the project.

If you allow simple calculations, a mostly-complete timeline of the pre-Beleriand days can be gotten by combining NoME 1.XIII.1 (the latest "Key Dates" timeline, running down to the Great Debate) with NoME 1.VII (the latest timeline of the Great March); both are written on a 1 VY = 144 sun-years timescale, and both are in something close to the "Tale of Years style", or somewhere between that and the Annals. But as you say, the further you get into relative dating, the less it becomes just editing what Tolkien wrote.

hS

[Huinesoron]

Looking through the sources, and ignoring the question of dates for a bit, the full "Tale of Years" would consist of:

- Annals of Aman (years before the Trees)
- Annals of Aman (Years of the Trees, through to Awakening of the Quendi)
- NoME 1.XIII.1 (Awakening to Debate)
- A little from Annals of Aman and NoME 1.XIII.3 (fall of Angband and Utumno)
- NoME 1.VII (the Great March)
- Annals of Aman (end of the March to creation of the Sun and Moon)
- Grey Annals (full text)
- First Age Tale of Years (the fragments in WotJ, to fill out the end of the First Age)
- Tale of Years (LotR version, or from PoME if it is more complete)

There will be minor absences, but by stealing sentences from random texts you can fill them in with genuine Tolkien words.

But it still won't be what I think Findegil is saying, which is a Tolkien work. The Annals are not a Tale of Years - they go into way too much detail, often becoming the primary source for a story. The 20 years of Turin's shenanigans occupy 20 pages - the entry for FA 499 alone runs to 6 pages. You would need to pick out a sentence or two from each to capture the key events of the year, which is a very heavy editorial hand.

hS