Talk:Ages of Middle-earth

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Perhaps we should put all Age information on this page? There isn't an excessive amount of information anyway, and that'll decrease namespace pollution. --Uri

Hi! I'm planning to expand the other articles to have rather long lists of events. We only have dates for events in the last four ages, so I feel they need separate pages. I will also expand this page with more info on the earlier pages. -- GayCom

Yes, but I feel that at least some information would be redundant. I mean, e.g. looking at the Silmarillion and its parts (e.g. Quenta Silmarillion, Valaquenta etc. - me being the author of most), I now feel sorry that it's divided among several pages. --Uri

I generally agree with you, which is why Saruman, Morgoth, Rohan etc. are turning out to be rather long, with history and politics internal. But it's not redundancy I'm afraid of - that doesn't hurt (and is to a degree encouraged in wikipedia articles - rather than excessive linking). I've prepared a very long article on the Elves offline, which will certainly contain a lot of information also contained elsewhere. But it's from the viewpoint of the Elves, so in a sense it's also unique. Hm, this monologue isn't really going anywhere. :) Is it okay with you if I continue with separate Age pages for a while, then if it turns out to be a bad idea, I'll personally fix it and all links. -- GayCom

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Why don't we simply merge this article with Timeline of Arda? Ausir 16:49, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, it seems that there's a lot of to be said about the ages, and the Timeline of Arda is a bit long at the moment (the "Sixth and Seventh Ages", for instance, should probably be moved somewhere else). This could be worth a try, though. If it turns out particularly nasty, we'll simply revert to a pervious edit and have you burned alive. :) (No, not really. I only burn relatives. I agree that a description of each age in the timeline would seem in order, but that would make it so much harder for someone who simply wants a summary of the various ages, a concept that is of great importance to Tolkien's fiction.) -- Itai 11:25, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

For that reason (quick oversight of ages) I oppose it. Individual Age pages should perhaps be placed in here though (thus instead of Third Age we'd have Ages of Middle-earth#Third Age. A comment on the article name: Years of the Trees is meaningless for Middle-earth, so should this not be at Ages of Arda? — Jor (Talk) 11:29, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I forget offhand how to propose a merge nor do I feel like being put on the defensive for doing such, but what are the thoughts on merging the Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar article into this one? It appears to contain much of the same information, though I do like the format there a bit better than here (I think it's the handy infobox). --Thisisbossi 05:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we ought to merge the two articles, but think we should discuss what name they will go under. In my estimation Tolkien used 'Ages of the Children of Iluvatar' (starting with the Awakening at Cuivienen) most frequently with 'Ages of the World' (starting with the creation of Arda) and 'Ages of Middle-earth' (starting with creation of the continent) a distant second and third. However, in the published text of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit there are half a dozen uses of 'Ages of the World' and no examples of the other forms. Thus, I'd say that we should explain all the variants (as the Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar article does currently), but pick one to be the 'default'. The problem I see with 'Ages of the World' as a Wikipedia page title is that it doesn't indicate which world and may eventually conflict with various other 'age of the world' nomenclatures. Thus, I went with the 'Children of Iluvatar' version when I created that page. If people think using the form published during JRRT's life outweighs its generic nature then we could merge both into Ages of the World and worry about disambiguation if/when it becomes an issue. --CBD 12:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)