Was Tolkien's idea of Andreth killing Ancalagon set aside?

[Turin_Turambar]

Is the andreth woman prophecy by turin killing the ancalagon an abandoned article? Did Tolkien give up on this prophecy?

 

[Alcuin]

Abandoned by whom? I can’t have been abandoned by Tolkien because he died not long after he wrote it in “The Problem of Ros”. Is it spurious – that is, did Tolkien in the last months of his life begin to confuse or conflate ideas he’d held clearly before, just as CJRT notes that ideas his father wrote near the end of his life contradicted things he had already published? I think that’s what this mention of Túrin’s killing Ancalagon is: an aberration toward the end of JRRT’s life.

But that’s just my opinion, and as an opinion it carries no greater weight than anyone else’s.

I will add this, however:

Tolkien’s opinions changed over the years. The names and natures of characters, how they acted, their motivations, the outcomes of those actions. Some people argue that what should be accepted is determined by what Tolkien wrote last. Some of us, I among them, argue for what fits best in the legendarium as a whole. Most everyone agrees that “canon” is what Tolkien himself published during his lifetime; but even then, there are differences based upon what was published (e.g., changes in Bilbo’s interactions with Gollum concerning the Ring in The Hobbit). There are a number of well-known problems: the genealogy of Gil-galad, the backstory of Galadriel, and the origins of Celeborn are good examples.

The “Second Prophecy of Mandos” that concerns the fate of Túrin and Melkor is one of the non-canonical issues (i.e., not published by Tolkien during his lifetime). Whether or not to include and use it depends upon how you want to frame the legendarium. Accepting it on face value is not a cut-and-dried point.

To which Elthir replied:

It's clear that Christopher Tolkien noted that the Second Prophecy had "definitively disappeared" -- which is in accord with JRRT's description regarding the Valaquenta -- which Christopher Tolkien used for the end of the constructed Silmarillion instead of the Second Prophecy.

And it's also clear enough to me that Tolkien re-characterized the End of Days scenario at the end of QS as a mannish myth, and, that in the last incarnation of a prophecy regarding Turin, Turin slays Ancalagon at the War of Wrath.

It's not clear to me what Tolkien himself would have ultimately published here.

That’s from the thread “Turin turambar vs fingolfin”, four months ago. And by the way, Ecthelion, I believe you began that thread. We’re rehashing material here.

 

[Elthir]

Well, that (my statement there at the end) is a statement about publication, though.

Who can know that for certain, or read JRRT's mind?

Anyway, I'm not aware of any "textual reason" to suggest Tolkien abandoned the idea in note 17, to put it another way -- again, unless there's something new in GNOME that I haven't read yet, like a later return to Earendil slaying Ancalagon, for instance.