Template talk:Tolkien's legendarium
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Unfinished?
[edit]The more that is added to this diagram, the more I feel it lacks Unfinished Tales. Perhaps on the top right, next to The Silmarillion, which it is closest to in origin? -- Verbarson talkedits 17:06, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
- Thing is, the rest of the S. texts are all cited, and all of them represent specific stories that Tolkien wanted to tell. The Unfinished Tales are just that, bits and bobs of tales: a curious volume and not one that Tolkien ever imagined would be published, let alone relatively early in the scheme of things. In short, it's an anomaly in a whole lot of ways: it isn't part of any scholarly analysis to speak of, unlike THoTH or THoME; it's not a novel, finished or not; nor even a collection of short stories. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:25, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
- WP is not just an academic catalogue, it is an encyclopaedia. I think that readers would expect to see a volume of Tolkien's writings that includes First, Second and Third Age writings to be represented in this context.
- All worthy thoughts, but off-topic here. The diagram is not "academic", but it depicts the internal structure of the Legendarium, per its title, organised by the chronology of writing during Tolkien's life; it is not a map of Christopher Tolkien's 12-volume The History of Middle-earth, which of course would just be the same list of 12 volumes listed in the Middle-earth template. Unfinished Tales doesn't have a structure, and doesn't fit into the structure illustrated, for the reason you give, namely that it contains bits and bobs scattered all over the legendarium, however it is defined. It could fit into any number of other maps, but it really doesn't fit into this one, as you'll see if you take another look and reflect on where it might belong. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:41, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- I've thought of a resolution: an unfinished box for the Unfinished Tales, i.e. they're not a solid brown finished novel. Other solutions are imaginable – some sort of white border to indicate C. Tolkien's editing – but as it's all in one volume there isn't a lot of space to fit that in. The result may satisfy nobody, much as C.T. suspected might be the case with his work; but there it is, something needed to be done in the illusory direction of 'completeness'. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:20, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- That's fine by me.
- Examining the result, I noticed that the '8' in the date appeared out of line. Comparison with the '8' in the box for 'Lays of Beleriand' makes me think that boxes III (Lays) and IV (Sketch) use a different font to all the others. It can't be a problem if I haven't noticed it till now, but I thought you would want to know. -- Verbarson talkedits 17:04, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- The Wiki-browser is SO non-WYSIWYG, yeah, WikiWYG, that it's a miracle it works at all. The WikiWYG display is so far from how other browsers handle .SVG files that the only option is to edit, upload, and survey the damage. Since life is too short to stuff mushrooms, I'll leave it at that. One day, no doubt, the WMF will actually spend some of people's donations on doing something useful like fixing its browser, but that will be sometime after the sky has fallen in and global warming has drowned the world's cities under many metres of salt water, so it's time to get on with something more productive. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:42, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
- I've thought of a resolution: an unfinished box for the Unfinished Tales, i.e. they're not a solid brown finished novel. Other solutions are imaginable – some sort of white border to indicate C. Tolkien's editing – but as it's all in one volume there isn't a lot of space to fit that in. The result may satisfy nobody, much as C.T. suspected might be the case with his work; but there it is, something needed to be done in the illusory direction of 'completeness'. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:20, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- All worthy thoughts, but off-topic here. The diagram is not "academic", but it depicts the internal structure of the Legendarium, per its title, organised by the chronology of writing during Tolkien's life; it is not a map of Christopher Tolkien's 12-volume The History of Middle-earth, which of course would just be the same list of 12 volumes listed in the Middle-earth template. Unfinished Tales doesn't have a structure, and doesn't fit into the structure illustrated, for the reason you give, namely that it contains bits and bobs scattered all over the legendarium, however it is defined. It could fit into any number of other maps, but it really doesn't fit into this one, as you'll see if you take another look and reflect on where it might belong. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:41, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- WP is not just an academic catalogue, it is an encyclopaedia. I think that readers would expect to see a volume of Tolkien's writings that includes First, Second and Third Age writings to be represented in this context.
- (Also, I am going to put a query on the helpdesk about the failure to update the image specifically at upright=1.7) -- Verbarson talkedits 12:33, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- It'll surely sort itself out soon. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:41, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- It just has. I cleared my cached images and the new version has loaded. -- Verbarson talkedits 12:48, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- Ah the joys of server lag! Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:03, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- It just has. I cleared my cached images and the new version has loaded. -- Verbarson talkedits 12:48, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- It'll surely sort itself out soon. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:41, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- (Also, I am going to put a query on the helpdesk about the failure to update the image specifically at upright=1.7) -- Verbarson talkedits 12:33, 15 October 2023 (UTC)