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#he befriends dwarves living in the blue mountains who wish people to remember the glory of tumunzahar and gabilgathol
thevalleyisjolly · 1 year
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As an archivist, thinking about the right to be forgotten in a specifically archival context, and the idea that not everyone wants their stories or their records to be made available to anyone/for everyone; that often, what a community judges to be the best preservation for their own histories and culture is not what is beneficial to outsiders, especially outside academics.
More specifically, thinking about this in the context of Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit/The Silmarillion/other Legendarium books as “historical” texts.  Thinking about maybe the “authors” not writing everything down because they understand the power of stories and how the telling of a thing grants a certain power over it, over how it is known and spread, and positions the teller as a figure of authority over what (and who) is depicted.
We already know that Bilbo is an unreliable narrator, that he changes things and leaves things out.  There were a few posts and fics years ago, when the Hobbit movies came out, about Bilbo befriending a young Estel in Rivendell and deliberately leaving that out of his stories at Gandalf/Elrond’s request.  What other things might he have left out, perhaps, out of respect for his friends in the Company and their desire to keep their culture and language private and closed? 
Pengolodh compiling the Annals of Beleriand from which came the greater part of The Silmarillion - but he was in Gondolin for much of the First Age, and would have had to rely on other sources to give an account of the rest of Beleriand.  Who did he talk to?  What might they have said and not said, and what might they have requested he include or keep out? 
Anyways, the Legendarium as an archive, something actively created and shaped by the different people in and around it, who both added things and left things out unintentionally or by design or on request. 
#lotr#silmarillion#ironically this would make the archivists of middle-earth more respectful and conscious of this than many irl archivists#i jest; there are many excellent archivists who are putting the time and the effort in to do the work right and to spearhead change#not that there aren't still a great many traditionally trained archivists who are being absurdly obstinate about this#but there is progress; however slow; being made in the archival field about recognizing people's rights to their own records#writing this instead of my personal archives paper asdfghjkl;#this isn't the main point of this post but i also like to headcanon post war of wrath burgeoning loremaster elrond#travelling around and meeting different communities and hearing their stories#and sometimes they ask him to share those stories with others and many other times they ask him not to spread them#he meets a kindi tribe in the east who have no desire to be involved in any of the bullshit happening over in the west#they are fine with him as a friend but explicitly ask that he not let anyone else know about their existence#he befriends dwarves living in the blue mountains who wish people to remember the glory of tumunzahar and gabilgathol#but who don't want their culture and language widely spread for outsiders to know#he reestablishes contact with the silvan elves in the greenwood who are eager to hear news of their long sundered kin#and request that he bring news of them to the survivors of ossiriand
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