Talk:Valian Years

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[edit] Clarified relationship between Valian and other years

I think I've clarified the relationship between Valian and other years, but I'm still not sure whether the Years of the Lamps and the Years of the Trees are the same length as a Valian Year. I seem to remember something about the Years of the Trees being shorter than the Years of the Lamps, but I may be misremembering. Was the definition of a Valian Year changed to fit that of the Years of the Lamps, and then to fit that of the Years of the Trees, or was a Valian Year always different from these other two? If the former, then "Years of the Lamps" and "Years of the Trees" would be types of Valian Years, in a way that "Years of the Sun" have never been. If the latter, then Valian Years are just a different way to define a year, as I've said. But further clarification and references would be good. Carcharoth 09:59, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Duration of a Valian Year

I think that the article is wrong when stating that there were "approximately 9.58 solar years in each Valian year". There are several indicators for this:

According to the Annlas of Arda (which is linked in the Extenal links section of the article) 9.58 solar years was the duration of a Year of the Trees.

Earlier versions of this article (until 6 March 2006) say that a Valian year was 1.4 years (I think "years" refers to solar years).

The Article Timeline of Arda, which gives dates in Valian Years, says that the Crossing of Helcaraxë took three years (4997-5000). According to the current version of this article this would be 29 Years of the Sun. I think this is far too long.--Galadh 19:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It does seem paradoxical, even moreso when you consider that Tolkien's later conception was that a Valian year was equivalent to 144 solar years, but he provided an explanation for this. Specifically, time itself passed differently in Aman and before the rise of the Sun to the point that while a Valian year might be 9.58 (or 144) times as long as a Solar year in absolute terms the two seemed about the same length in perception. Think of the description of Lothlorien in The Lord of the Rings. It seemed to the Fellowship as if they spent only a few days there, but in actuality a month had passed. Likewise for the timeless quality mentioned at Rivendell. This was what the Three Rings were created for... an attempt to re-create the seeming timelessness / changelessness of Aman within Middle-earth itself. --CBD 21:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)