Forums:"Planification" of the BoLT

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On user LorenzoCB's behest, I give here my proposal for the organization of the categories dealing with the early legendarium:

• In regards to the general idea of BoLT (Book of Lost Tales) categories, I propose that we change the overarching category into something like: Category:Characters in the early legendarium, Category:Locations in the early legendarium, etc., so that it also includes other early texts, like The Lay of Leithian or the Sketch of the Mythology, etc.

• In regards to geography:
  • Category:Great Lands, since the term Middle-earth didn't exist yet in the BoLT, and the fact that there is a lot of places in The Book of Lost Tales and associated writings which fit this category

• In regards to races/ethnicity:
  • Category:Teleri (early legendarium), for what would become the Vanyar in the later legendarium
  • Category:Solosimpi, for what would become the Teleri in the later legendarium
  • Category:Fays, for the numerous fays in the BoLT

• In regards to titles/positions:
  • Category:Rulers in Tol Eressëa, for characters like Meril-i-Turinqi, Ingil, and the later invaders such as Heorrenda
  • Category:Rulers in Valinor?
  • Category:Rulers in Luthany?
  • Category:Rulers in the Great Lands, for many characters

• In regards to languages:
  • Category:Solosimpilin nouns or Category:Early Telerin nouns

All of which brings me to a more important point, which is: what counts as the "early legendarium" vs. "later legendarium"? Where does one begin and the other end?

Personally, I would say that we should split it thus:

• Early legendarium
  • The Book of Lost Tales, and associated texts such as the Qenya Lexicon, the Gnomish Lexicon, Prose Fragments Following the Lost Tales, etc.
  • quickly abandoned lays, like The Lay of the Fall of Gondolin
  • The Lay of the Children of Húrin
  • The Lay of Leithian
  • Sketch of the Mythology
  • etc.

• "Middle" legendarium, which, if I had to split the legendarium in two (early and later), would lean more toward
  • Quenta Noldorinwa (early)
  • Ambarkanta (early)
  • Lhammas (early)
  • etc.

• • The Lost Road (later)
  • 1937 Quenta (later)
  • The Notion Club Papers (later)
  • etc.

• Later legendarium
  • The Lay of Leithian Recommenced
  • The Hobbit (2nd and 3d editions)
  • The Lord of the Rings
  • all the other texts following the LoTR

P.S. I'd like to also propose a Category:English that would include the Category:Anglo-Saxons and Category:Angles, as well as most of the characters in The Notion Club Papers and The Lost Road.

P.P.S. This is just a preliminary idea, I'm just waiting for feedback. - IvarTheBoneless 23:18, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Aiya! First of all, I thank you for the work you are making with TBOLT matter. It is very well done and I'd give you a medal if we had something of that kind.

My first impressions: I disagree with the idea of using "early/middle/later legendarium" as proper categories. I've always used "early/later" as a mere indicative of what became before or later. Deciding which belongs to a specific period is impossible. For example, I feel that the first Lays already conform a very different phase in the legendarium. However, I'm open to expanding the matter of TBOLT as it has been done so far, creating new cats like "C:Languages in TBOLT" or "C:Locations in TBOLT" (this later would be useful for places only appearing there). What can we do with legendarium after TBOLT? Idk, I feel that there is not so much material as in TBOLT for each work to have its own sub-wiki via categorization.

In general, I agree with the specific categories you propose above; if things are classified in their own terms, it's great. However, I feel that we first need better articles on the main topics, specially languages and races. In some cases we could have separated articles instead of redirects to later versions, as we already do with Gnomish/Gnomes. I don't see the need for "Category:Rulers in Valinor", specially with the early legendarium; what's your idea with it? Avoiding "C:Rulers in Aman" for early legendarium? "C:Rulers in Tol Eressëa should be enough. Also, maybe "C:Rulers in Luthany" and "C:Rulers in the Great Lands" could be merged together?

Better "Category:English (people(s?))" ("Englishes"?), to avoid confusion with the language. Are Anglo-Saxons actually "English"? Isn't that term modern? --LorenzoCB 20:53, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

I like where you're going with this - periodizing the Legendarium would be a valuable enterprise. Maybe naming segments after years or significant works would be better than "Early" "Middle" etc. --Mord 15:14, 13 May 2022 (UTC)