Talk:Círdan

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OMG someone changed the years of Cirdans age to 36,000! we really need to reach a consensus on the age of Cirdan. For now i've reverted this change. But we need several people working on this to reach a conclusion. -Frosty_King April 15th 2007

Ok, you have to give me some time, i'm rather swamped with work, school, and other projects. I'll begin by redoing sections at a time. If you want to make changes thats fine, its best to get a hold of me by emailing me btw. frosty.king@gmail.com .

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)

[edit] 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)

I began work on making the tone somewhat more encyclopedic on the First Age section. I'll leave the experts to nitpick and continue, and if my revisions were really horrible, there are always reversions. If there are no objections (if there are, say so), I will continue tomorrow. --queso man 01:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I say it has too much slang, doesn't really sound encyclopedic...thedrtaylor 04:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sailing off with Sam?

The Wikipedia entry says that in the FA, Sam and Cirdan sailed off, and there is a {{fact}} tag on it. The inline comments ask if Cirdan really did sail off with Sam?

The canonical books do not say this. Appendix A.I.iii says some say he dwells there still. Appendix B, SR year 1482, says that Sam passed over, last of the Ringbearers. I don't have access to the HoME, etc, volumes to compare.

But this also begs another question. Was Cirdan ever really considered a ringbearer, even tho he kept charge of one of the Three? From memory (albeit poor ATM), the title ringbearer was only used for those who held the One Ring. Yngvarr (c) 18:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think Círdan must be considered as a ring-bearer. (Mapar007 15:18, 5 June 2008 (UTC)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mapar007 (talk • contribs)