Talk:Círdan

Frosty, I think we are beginning to see some consensus here, and we should either take user:Eggishorn up on his surgery offer, or you should take a stab at this. I think as a template we should look at the Galadriel page. She is a character of similar importance and age. Her biography section is 1200 words, which ought to be ample for Cirdan. So a intro paragraph or two describing who he is at a high level (you have this pretty well).
Then a Biography which would have the following content:
- He was one of the first elves who awakened at Cuiviénen.
- He was originally called Nowe
- He travelled with the main group of Elves when the chiefs promoted a move to Valinor
- He arrived at the shore 3 years after the Noldor and Vanyar and built ships
- After a message from the Valar in a dream he decided not to go.
- Took the name Cirdan as lord of the Falathrim
- Fought at Dagor Bragollach
- The Havens are destoyed by Morgoth
- retreat to Balar, but eventually returned to the Mouths of Sirion
- Feanor's sons and the 3rd Kinslaying
- Sundering of Beleriand, new Havens on Middle Earth
- Friendship with Numenor
- Against his counsel the rings are forged
- Battles with Sauron
- Part of the last alliance when the one ring was captured
- His forces helped defeat Angmar
- Gives the ring to Gandalf - sensing that he is the wisest of the Istari
- Entrusted with the palantir
- Was part of the White Council who's advise led to Sauron being chased back to Mordor
- Built the ships that took the last ring-bearers to Valinor.

I think this would still be a "too long" bio. After this bio, give a mention to his appearance in the movie. Everything else is superfluous I would say.
Does that sound ok? I can help you draft a revised version if you like. We definitely need to make the style more encyclopedic too.

--Smcgrother 18:04, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok fine, i'll make changes but i need your help to pick out parts that we can cut. If you notice theres only one speculative idea in all of these works and there could have been like 20 more. For instance, the siege of Barad Eithel that could have been fateful to Fingon(if i believe correct) but was diverted by the sailors of falas. And Fingon(supposedly again) was one of the people in beren's group, who attempted to aid him in gaining the simarils. But of course you know they were captured and if the group was shorter one person, Beren would have never survived by the time Luthien and Huan came. She would have found him dead etc. and she would have mourned. The silmarils would have never been taken and more even if they did get the simarils without Cirdans guidance on building hte Vingilot they could have never passed the great ocean. That is some speculative stuff that i can't put in there, but mention is made to the Lay of Lethian for the fact that Beren and the Vingilot are made mention of next. Anyways..... Sorry about that splurge, im a cirdan nut can't you tell? You know what, i'm not too concerned with what course of action is taken to this article, all i really want is for people to understand 1)who this person is 2) understand that Cirdan is an incredibly important background character and that he is of an important lineage 3)gives an accurate portrayal of his life, he is several thousand years old after all. Etc... SmcGrother i'll msg you with dates. -Frosty King April 8th 8:37 pm

Umm you know, you didn't specify an email so i'll post my findings here at the bottom of this page.

Frosty, thanks so much for attending to my concerns. I really appreciate it. I think the question of his age is very interesting and perhaps deserves to be expanded upon in the article. If you could cite some references for the estimate of 15000 (the examples that the people showed you) that would help readers. I think you should also include a link to Timeline of Arda and mention that your estimate contradicts that timeline....such contradictions are to be expected in a complex legendarium like this.
I certainly do not dispute that you should write a "timeline based history" I agree that you should do precisely that and that his story should be given against a backdrop of the prevailing world - but I and Adanadhel independently conclude that there is too much supporting world history for the amount of Cirdan information. Your argument that "you will not find most of this directly in the books" is noted, but the mere fact that this information exists and is not in the books does not (imho) mean that it should be included in Cirdan's story. It SHOULD all be in Wikipedia, but in more appropriate pages.
I think that whether he visits the blessed realm (before the 4th age) is the kind of hard data that should be in the article.
I am almost certain that the error is in the Palantir article not the current one. So don't worry too much about that one.
So again I want to stress, everything in this article is valid, interesting and appropriate for Wikipedia; but not all of it belongs under Cirdan. Under Cirdan should be what he did, where and when he did it and what were the prevailing conditions that led him to act that way.
Thanks again and best regards--Smcgrother 17:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Length, tone, and style

This is much, much too long, and includes things that are undoubtedly unimportant. Yes, I know that Tolkeenologists love minutiae, but, for instance, the White Council neither included nor nor influenced, nor was influenced by Cirdan. Furthermore, the whole article is written with a too-concious attempt to mimic Tolkien's style, and it is not encyclopedic in tone. It doesn not seem to follow the style guide's recommendations about fictional works

An example from the text: "The Lay of Leithian, the tale of Beren and Lúthien, is a well known one and shall not be recalled here in whole, for it is of great length and much of it is of little consequence."

This is an in-universe perspective, first of all. Secondly, the whole tale is of limited, if any, significance at all to a description of Cirdan's character history. Remember, this is not written for Tolkien fans, but for people that have a wide variety of reasons for wanting to know who Cirdan is. All this user needs to know is Cirdan joined the war against Morgoth. Thirdly, the tale is only "well-lknown" to a section of fandom. A person who saw the Peter Jackson movies and is wondering who that guy at the end was doesn't know Beren and Luthien from Adam and Eve, nor do they need to.

Frankly, I think this article needs radical surgery to be brought up to snuff. Before I start such surgery, however, I wanted to seek some consensus. Eggishorn 19:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

This is the information from Tuckborough: Date of Birth: Unknown; possibly between 1050 and 1105 of the Years of the Trees

By the end of the Third Age, Cirdan may have been over 10,000 years old and was perhaps the oldest Elf remaining in Middle-earth.

This is another interesting site that talks about one of Cirdan’s special attributes that is hardly mentioned but this site gives great insight on Cirdan being more than just another elf. An exerpt is below. http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/papers/Cirdan.htm In The Lord of the Rings we read that Círdan gave Narya, the ruby Ring of Fire, to Gandalf, because Círdan “saw further and deeper than any other in Middle Earth ”. It was Círdan – not Elrond or Galadriel – who gave his ring to Gandalf, and indeed he chose to give that crucial item to Gandalf, not to Saruman who was considered by all to be the head of the order of Istari. History proved that Círdan saw far and deep indeed. What if Círdan would have kept Narya hidden or – worse – would have passed the Ring of Fire to Saruman? The Silmarillion is even more specific about the eminent wisdom of Círdan: “ ..there appeared in the west of Middle Earth the Istari, whom Men called the wizards. None knew hence they were, save Círdan of the Havens, and only to Elrond and Galadriel did he reveal that they came over the sea”.\

The encyclopedia of Arda agrees with my figure of 15,000 Long before the Elves awoke, Yavanna created the Two Trees of Valinor to give light to realm of the Valar. So began a reign of peace in Valinor, but Middle-earth was lit by starlight alone, and Melkor worked in the depths of Utumno in the north of the World. We are not told how long this time lasted, just that 'the ages drew on'; this period would have lasted roughly 10,500 years. It was during this period that Aulë made the Dwarves, and set them to sleep until the coming of the Elves. Sources say he was born about 1100 in the year of the trees 9400 years Age of trees +583 years first age +3441 years second age +3021 years third age +120? Years fourth age. So if I calculated correctly somewhere like 16,565? I’m probably off somewhere though. And I would have directly quoted from the people I was talking with but they were on the LOTR MMORPG beta game and the game producers wiped and redid the forums like 2 weeks ago….. so I don’t have anything except this to work off of.