The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Silmarillion#Quenta Silmarillion. As pointed in the discussion, a redirect is reasonable while a separate article with only plot summary is a no-go. Tone 19:33, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Fingolfin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Non-notable Tolkien character. Gets some hits on Google scholar, but none of them seem to be more than passing references or name drops. He seems to get the most mentions in a Google scholar hit titled "Nightfall in Middle-Earth", which (of all things) turns out to be about a Middle-earth inspired album by a German power metal band ("Nightfall in Middle-Earth" also cites Wikipedia). We've got some brief mentions of Fingolfin in reliable, secondary sources, but nothing we can base an entire article off of. Mentioned at Noldor#High Kings of the Noldor if we really want to make a redirect. Hog Farm (talk) 01:14, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Hog Farm (talk) 01:14, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. Hog Farm (talk) 01:14, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Hog Farm (talk) 01:14, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Fingolfin is only notable from an in-universe perspective. ―Susmuffin ^Talk 05:12, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete When our best secondary source is partially sourced to Wikipedia and is about a band not the fictional background of the name we are so far from notability it is scary. I would discourage leaving a redirect because those really only serve to hide how many links in other articles go nowhere. It is amazing how many links we now have going to the middle earth geography section, even when that says nothing about the extremely minor place being named.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:37, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to The Silmarillion, in which he has a reasonably significant role: lopping off Morgoth's toe has to count for something. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:46, 6 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete: a minor character in a minor work.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. There are definitely scholarly sources analysing Fingolfin's character and role in Tolkien's work and theology, see for example [1] (focusing on Fëanor's character arc, which inevitably involves Fingolfin: the article specifically calls out his oath to Fëanor as part of its broader discussion of oaths in Tolkien's Silmarillion) and [2] (using Fingolfin's charge on Morgoth as an example to illustrate the discussion of his views of inner lights of forms in his mythology). The second point is further expounded on by this paper, which in the context of discussing the role of the Holy Spirit in Tolkien's mythology (not forgetting that he was a Roman Catholic) analyses Fingolfin as "a martyr type, like Stephen, whose face shines with the fullness of the Holy Spirit just before he is stoned to death by the enemies of Christianity". Double sharp (talk) 06:57, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect - Current article is lacking in coverage. I can't seem to access any of the above, but even AGF that it's all significant and relevant, remove all the pointless plot info in the article and I'm sure all of that would easily fit on the character list. TTN (talk) 15:21, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment If we're going to redirect somewhere, we should probably redirect to the plot summary of the applicable book. See Talk:List of Middle-earth characters#Inclusion criteria. While there's no wide consensus there, the current prevailing discussion is that some standard of notability needs to be set and it's not clear where to set it below GNG. Hog Farm (talk) 15:53, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment The thing is, you can't exactly explain all of this analysis without saying something about the plot, at which point you kind of need an article. To explain the above points made by those analyses, you need a plot summary to explain what this oath from Fingolfin to Fëanor is, why it happened, and how he fulfilled it; and the lead-up to his challenge of Morgoth. In that case you need a plot summary, and combined with the analysis you already have something too long for a list that works better as an article. Of course, I'm sure most Silmarillion characters do not reach that level of notability, but there are a few which I think do: Finwë, Fëanor, Fingolfin, Finrod Felagund, Beren and Lúthien, Túrin Turambar... And the difficulty is that you may have to mention a non-notable character in the terse plot summary of each of those notable ones (e.g. Saeros for Túrin, Maglor for Elrond). So I think that you could easily end up having to let a lot of the non-notable ones on the list, but it should be OK if you kept it to very terse one-liners instead of long paragraphs, like "Maglor: second son of Fëanor, minstrel of the Noldor, fosterer of Elrond and Elros". Double sharp (talk) 05:44, 11 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm open to expanding those lists beyond GNG if we can determine a set standard for inclusion. Because not everyone's definition of a useful list entry is the same. We wouldn't have Bilbo Baggins if his dad Bungo Baggins never existed in-universe. I personally think that Fingolfin should be briefly described somewhere, and that place redirected to. But if we start adding people straight to the list again, then the precedent becomes that the list is a repository and we get Bungo and Durin IV and every elf ever referenced in LOTR on the list because "they're important in-universe" (yes, this has been a serious issues with Wikipedia's Tolkien coverage). Do you have any ideas on what this standard could be? Hog Farm (talk) 05:56, 11 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Hog Farm: I would just suggest that a character can be added to the list if s/he absolutely needs to be mentioned to make the plot summary for some actually notable character make sense. The reasoning is that if they have to be mentioned, there ought to be somewhere on Wikipedia where you can get a brief note of who they are. So Saeros (for example) would make the cut, just about all the Elven descendants of Finwë probably make the cut, but obviously characters who never appear as anything other than a family tree entry (e.g. Bungo Baggins) do not need an actual mention. (Matter of fact, I'm not even sure he needs a mention in Bilbo's article like he currently has, but I guess it is irresistible for people to name-drop his parents' names since Tolkien wrote them in on the family tree: we should probably curb that tendency. More relevantly for Fingolfin's article, the same applies for Anairë.) A good guideline might be "if s/he doesn't appear in multiple parts of the plot in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, don't bother", which ought to get rid of most of the one-scene-wonders like Amlach son of Imlach and Galdor of the Havens, with an exception that proves the rule (Andreth). Double sharp (talk) 14:30, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to The Silmarillion § Quenta Silmarillion. Though I appreciate Double sharp's argument to expand List of Middle-earth characters, I don't think this is the venue to discuss overhauling that list (but let's discuss it further on the talk page!). Of all the presently appropriate places to discuss Fingolfin and his deeds, I think this plot summary is the best. BenKuykendall (talk) 03:26, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to List of Middle-earth characters#F. Goustien (talk) 04:27, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• @Goustien: I don't know if you read Hog Farm's or my comments above, but at present, that list only includes notable ME characters, i.e. those with their own articles. If we get rid of the article of Fingolfin, it would be inappropriate to list him on List of Middle-earth characters, at least according to the current inclusion criteria for the list. BenKuykendall (talk) 05:18, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• @BenKuykendall: Thanks, I just read Talk:List of Middle-earth characters#Inclusion criteria. Goustien (talk) 05:55, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to Silmarillion#Quenta Silmarillion. I think we are getting very close to an AfD too far here. We certainly ought to have a place somewhere on Wikipedia that describes Fingolfin, even if briefly; a landing-site that catches the search, which is not improbable. The article received 28,189 pageviews in the past 365 days: we should not be creating 28,000 disappointments per year with one foolish action at AfD. That means that "Fingolfin" is at least a major redirect: and of course it must redirect somewhere sensible, which, I repeat, means at least a crisp account (the same can be said of many other Middle-earthers). I think the deletion of many of the Lists of Middle-earth folk somewhat hasty, and we might wish to partially revert some of those by creating brief lists of the most important of the characters to provide landing-sites where nowhere else is as convenient. I think we all agree that listing milli-elves, micro-dwarves and nano-folk (not to mention pico-hobbits) is a waste of time, but chaps like Fingolfin are rather more significant "in-universe" and he is already covered in the summary of the Silmarillion (which could be extended: in the book, he appears in 5 tales, actually). Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:34, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.