Talk:Mental illness in Middle-earth/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 09:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Eewilson (talk · contribs) 03:08, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks! Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:16, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Later today (Sunday), I'll get into the details of Criteria 2, 3, and 4. If I request something that conflicts with the Middle-earth Project standards, please let me know. Thanks. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 06:47, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap The weekend and this week IRL have been busier than I expected. Just letting you know that my lack of input this week is temporary. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 13:24, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

The review has passed! Congratulations. Thank you for your work. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 09:21, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Criterion 1a

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Reword this blurb, make concise: Tolkien fans have discussed what kind of mental illness Gollum might have Edited. Looks good. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) Might be a better word than "stated" here: A supervised study by medical students stated that Gollum met many "decided", perhaps. "stated" is a usual form on Wikipedia for "X <produced the written text to the effect that> Y"; "wrote" is also commonly used, but producing a diagnosis isn't really just writing any old thing. Maybe "concluded"? – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) Done. But we're well down among the weeds here. I hear you, and honestly, "concluded" was the word I was trying to think of yesterday that wouldn't come out. Better now. Thanks. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) Remove leading "The": The scholar of English Steve Walker This is standard British English usage; all Middle-earth articles use this language. Hmm. Is it required for British English? When I read it, I immediately think it's unnecessary. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) This is the diction used in this and all other Middle-earth articles. It is standard in BE; it may be that some BE speakers use variant dictions, in which case all that needs to be said is that this is the chosen Middle-earth article diction. I found it in the Middle-earth Project standards -> Usage and spelling: "Articles should use British syntax, such as the definite article in phrases like "The critic Jack Smith..."." My bad for not checking there. Request withdrawn (as well as all others that apply). – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) Sentence fragment: Other Tolkien scholars and psychiatrists have broadly agreed, suggesting in addition Gollum's schizoid personality disorder and the resemblance of Frodo's increasingly disturbed mental state to post-traumatic stress disorder. We have "Walker states xyz. Other Tolkien scholars etc have broadly agreed [with Walker], ..." which is not wrong, but let's spell it out for ease of reading. That's better, but I also think moving "in addition" to immediately after the first comma would keep the reader [me] from glaring at it multiple times to try to understand the meaning. Thus: "Other Tolkien scholars and psychiatrists have broadly agreed with Walker, in addition suggesting Gollum's schizoid personality disorder and the resemblance of Frodo's increasingly disturbed mental state to post-traumatic stress disorder." I would probably put a comma after the moved "in addition", but your call. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) Moved, but we are in danger of altering the diction here, and the comma certainly would do that. We're also perilously close to an edit-loop. Oh, I'm not sure it would be perilous. A fire or earthquake is perilous. An edit-loop would be annoying. Looks good now, though, and I think it is more clear. We do like our commas in American English. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) Remove leading "The": The medievalist Alke Haarsma-Wisselink As above. Remove leading "The": The Tolkien scholar James T. Williamson As above. Remove leading "The": The psychiatrists Landon van Dell... As above. Remove leading "The": The Tolkien scholar Karyn Milos As above. Remove leading "The": The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung As above. "Probably"? Did this come from the source?: and probably shared these ideas with Tolkien Yes, article says "it was likely he...". Okay. You don't need the comma before "and probably" since there is no repeat of the subject noun. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) Edited; just removing the comma doesn't work at all in BE if the other comma is present. Of course. And thanks. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) Remove leading "The": The scholar Verlyn Flieger As above. Remove leading "The": The clinical psychologist Nancy Bunting As above. I think "in her words" should be surrounded by commas: such as in a letter to Christopher Tolkien which in her words Done. Good. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) Remove leading "The": The Tolkien scholar Michael Drout As above. Remove leading "The"; "film scholar" instead of "scholar of film": The scholar of film Kristin Thompson As above. Is "as if" the doubting language? Maybe make this more clear: He writes that Tolkien's doubting language, "as if", and the amnesia both suggest Edited. Good. Let's say "and Frodo's amnesia" instead of "and the amnesia". I think the redundancy would be a positive for clarity. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) No, Frodo is the subject of the paragraph, and he is named both in the previous sentence and a few words later. Okay. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) Or "not wishing to remember it": and then forgot it, did not wish to remember it. Done. Good. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) Maybe say Denethor is the Steward of Gondor when he is first mentioned? "Denethor, the Steward of Gondor," Added. Good. Then in the Paranoia section, you may not need it again, but you can leave it if you think it's better that way. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) Removed the second gloss. Good. First round. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:31, 13 July 2024 (UTC) Second round. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 19:47, 13 July 2024 (UTC) Criterion 1a met. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 05:31, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Criterion 1b

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There is nothing in the Lead that touches on Tolkien's interest in the subject of mental illness. As it is a topic of a section of the article, it is important that it be covered in the Lead. Other than that, the Lead looks good. Added. That works. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) First round – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 05:59, 14 July 2024 (UTC) Criterion 1b met – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 06:23, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Criterion 2

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Most of these citations need page numbers to point to the exact reference/source of the information that supports the content being cited. A general range that covers the full article, chapter, etc., is not sufficient. Some will have different pages numbers for each citation, perhaps requiring shortened footnotes or inline page numbers using the rp template. Please change. This request could be answered in different ways. The first way would be to say simply that journal articles are conventionally cited as single entities on Wikipedia, unless they are "lengthy", which I'd take to mean "over 40 or 50 pages", and when a paper is 100 pages long, I do in fact cite it like a book; but that there are no such "lengthy" sources in this article. A second way would be to check all the sources for length and how they've been treated, and to add ranges for the longest ones. Let's see. I'll use "L" for "relatively long paper", "P" for "exact pages given", and "S" for "short page range". "X" means "excluded, ultimate source named alongside modern source". "L>P" means "Long, P now given". $: "exact quotation given, unable to read full source". 1P 2S 3P 4S 5S 6S 7S>P 8S 9S 10$ 11S 12P 13P 14X 15S 16P 17S 18L>P 19S 20L>P 21P 22L>P 23S 24L>P 25P. Out of 25 sources checked, I have found the need to give exact page ranges to 5, of which one got the sfn treatment. The rest are fine as they are. Thanks. I'll take a look. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 18:39, 13 September 2024 (UTC) Citation 23 (Manuel, Marisa L. (2022) "Fantastically Real"): Questions on the citation for this sentence: "Tolkien fans have extensively discussed what mental illness this might represent." Does this source say that Tolkien fans have extensively (or similar) discussed this? Or is this one or several examples of the discussions? It does. "Eons of Tolkien fans have attempted to answer these questions. They've applied science to Tolkien's trilogy, conducting studies to determine whether Gollum had a mental illness and how Frodo could have survived his cave troll attack. This fascination and research is unsurprising,...". The paper is correct, by the way; fans have obsessively examined the question. The very next sentence gives the enormous number of fan websites where those discussions have been held; I've repeated the ref for clarity. Great. Thanks. Looks good. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 18:39, 13 September 2024 (UTC) Not citation related, but maybe the final sentence in the "Scholarly and psychiatric insights" section would be better as the first (leading) sentence in the first paragraph of that section. We could, but that would place 'lessons for mental health' as the main point of the section, and would imply that scholarly and psychiatric discussion had been centred on this point, when in fact it hasn't. Instead, discussion has mainly been about possible diagnoses, to the point of obsession, as I mentioned above. Ah, yes, what you say makes sense. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 18:39, 13 September 2024 (UTC) – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 21:58, 9 September 2024 (UTC) Criterion 2 met. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 13:26, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Criterion 3

Possible issues found upon further review:

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I think the use of the Gollum/Sméagol photo from the movie as well as the supporting caption and text are probably relevant to the article, but why? It is well- and better-covered in the Gollum article. Because this section does not, nor should it, go into the depth of the Gollum article nor the article Peter Jackson's interpretation of The Lord of the Rings, the reader has to form his own conclusion of why the scene is included here. See what you can do about that, perhaps using something from one of those two articles in the summary, or else, sadly, remove it. Well I wrote most of the Gollum article, and its focus is entirely different: on the character, not the illness. It would certainly be very odd here in this mental illness article not to cover the most celebrated and widely-debated illness of them all, and the most celebrated visual interpretation of it, too; and the details given here are not duplicated in the character article. The G/S photo isn't in the other article either. Much the same for the PJ interpretation article, except that I wrote all of it; once again, its focus is entirely different, and it says hardly anything about Gollum. As for your suggestion that the reader is forced to think of a reason for including PJ here, surely the quotation in the first sentence, repeated in the image caption, does the work for the reader here: the (double) image is conspicuously notable, and indeed forms the visual counterpart of Tolkien's text, and we have the film scholar Kristin Thompson's word for it. It's hard to see how we could do better. We could note that the PJ version is also about Middle-earth, just as much as the Tolkien version: Tolkien wanted to create a mythology for England, and with PJ and fans all writing their own versions of the myths, he can be seen to have succeeded... I've added a gloss that it's part of a major Middle-earth film series, which should be sufficient. When discussing Gollum, intentionally or not, the article seems to conflate Middle-earth in Tolkien's novels with Middle-earth in Peter Jackson's movies – Gollum in the novels with Gollum in the movies. I don't think we can do that, as Jackson's Tolkien interpretation is just one and has been criticized by some. When the article discusses Jackson it does so quite explicitly, there is no conflation. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 19:55, 13 September 2024 (UTC) Criterion 3a is that the article covers "the main aspects"; 3b that it "stays focused". I'm confident the article does both these things. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:07, 14 September 2024 (UTC) We are discussing this under criterion 3 because that's where it has come up for me, and because breaking up what I'm describing into various other criteria would require us to then reopen those criteria and for me to scatter this aspect of the review into those various sections, and I don't think that would be helpful. So instead of getting into that, let's go on into trying to take a look at what really is going on here under the psychiatric conditions section of the article and how we can make it better. Hm, I see. Chiswick Chap (talk) 01:51, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

More comments

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I believe that you have looked at the final two paragraphs of the source and concluded that the authors' diagnosis of SzPD in the final paragraph is an extension of the discussion of MPD in the previous paragraph. However, that is not what the authors have done. Noted. You've made clear that the authors are not the 30 medical students. The 30 medical students were simply asked for a diagnosis as a part of the study by the authors of the paper. ("We asked 30 randomly selected medical students if they thought Gollum had a mental illness. Schizophrenia was the most common diagnosis (25 students), followed by multiple personality disorder (three).") Three of the 30 medical students suggested a diagnosis of MPD. In that paragraph, the authors have said that Gollum does not fill the MPD requirement of not being aware of each personality. It seems that is important enough that they chose to exclude MPD as an accurate diagnosis. Noted. In the final paragraph, the authors then suggest an alternative diagnosis which is schizoid personality disorder. That is not explicitly stated in the Wikipedia article. And for illustrative purposes, here are those two final paragraphs from the source. Noted. "The presence of two personalities, Gollum and Sméagol, raises the possibility of multiple personality disorder. In this diagnosis one personality is suppressed by the other and the two personalities are always unaware of each other's existence.3 In this case, Gollum and Sméagol occur together, have conversations simultaneously, and are aware of each other's existence. Noted. "Gollum displays pervasive maladaptive behaviour that has been present since childhood with a persistent disease course. His odd interests and spiteful behaviour have led to difficulty in forming friendships and have caused distress to others. He fulfils seven of the nine criteria for schizoid personality disorder (ICD F60.1), and, if we must label Gollum's problems, we believe that this is the most likely diagnosis." Noted. Again, I suggest, perhaps in a different way, that discussions of multiple personality disorder/dissociative identity, disorder, schizophrenia (also in the paper), and schizoid personality disorder be separated into three subsections under psychiatric conditions. Even though they all talk about Gollum, the focus here is on the psychiatric conditions, and I think it's important to separate them out, otherwise the whole thing is just confusing and makes the focus Gollum. OK, let's try that. The diagnoses however do all apply to Gollum, so the "case" background is essential, and all of them make use of it, so the sharing cannot be avoided. Accordingly I've grouped the three diagnoses under a new heading, "Gollum's case" to make this clear. I've added brief descriptions of symptoms in each case, to reinforce the emphasis on the disorders. This then makes me question the purpose of, or at least the placement of, the table. The table combines the two primary diagnoses given by the survey of 30 students for that paper. The authors, after reviewing what the students said, concluded that neither one of those diagnoses fits, and G/S should be given the diagnosis of SzPD because he meets 7/9 of the criteria. It might be that the table gives undue weight to that paper. Well, it was one way of approaching the multiple possible diagnoses in Gollum's case. As above, let's try without it; I don't at all agree about undue weight, as Gollum's case is extremely prominent in documented discussions. Further, if the movie treats Gollum as having MPD, then it should be under the subsection for that condition. However, are there any sources at all that you have, or have referenced in the article, that say that this Gollum/Sméagol scene is meant to represent MPD? Or is that a conclusion that we are drawing in our Wikipedia article on the subject? If we have sources for this, then we need to make sure that they are there (perhaps they are), and I would say something needs to be referenced in the prose from a source that says this (I will read it again after the change you made a few days ago). If we do not have something from a reliable source or sources that says that this scene is intended to represent MPD/DID in Gollum, then I think we need to say so or say something that is acceptable per Wikipedia standards. Obviously, the most radical decision would be to remove that entire part about the movie, but before doing that, we need to review what's already there. I have to go run an errand, and then after I come back, I'll take a look at this more. Firstly, it is not a requirement that either Tolkien's text or Jackson's film "meant" or intended to represent MPD or any other specific condition. They described something, or to put it another way, their textual or audiovisual accounts stand in for the "reality" (Gollum's case) that the psychiatrists and others are attempting to diagnose. Wikipedia is not drawing any conclusions of its own here, nor is any source required for what is not being stated or implied in any way (nor even thought of, actually!). To be clear: both Tolkien's and Jackson's accounts provide the base material, the inputs, for the diagnoses: Jackson paints a picture of Middle-earth, mental illnesses and all. Removing it would simply be a gross mistake, based on what philosophers call a "category error". But I've removed all mention of diagnosis from the image caption: all we know is that Gollum/Sméagol talks to himself, the two names describing different personalities. Further, I've grouped Tolkien's and Jackson's depictions, to make it clear these are basically equal inputs for any diagnosis. Secondly, once again, as above, I've separated out these headings. Thanks for your continued work and your never ending commitment to Tolkien articles. Back soon. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 20:01, 15 September 2024 (UTC) Looking really good! From article: Nomenclature has varied over the years, and fans have applied labels more or less loosely; a common description is dissociative identity disorder, also known as "multiple personality disorder". I think italics are better here since there are quite a few uses of the quotations marks for actual quotations, and itals are preferred in the MOS. I changed it. Noted; not sure that the italics are needed, actually. I was originally thinking the same thing. Since we both agree, I took the liberty of removing the italics as well. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) From article: Further, Gollum had displayed several symptoms of the disorder: "pervasive maladaptive behaviour" since childhood "with a persistent disease course"; he had "odd interests", and indulged in "spiteful behaviour" which made friendships difficult, and caused "distress to others". You put this in the MPD section when it should be in the SzPD section. I moved it. Also changed it to present tense per proper treatment of fictional universes. Noted. I don't see that "aware of each other" needs to be treated as a quotation. There are other ways to say it, but it's not significant enough to worry that using this would qualify as plagiarism. I removed the quotation marks from around it. Noted; I really don't want to go anywhere near that dreadful boundary. Moving the long quote from Tolkien of G/S and the image from the movie into a table causes very squished formatting of the columns in mobile view and the mobile app. I do see the value – one column for Tolkien and one for Jackson – but we may need a different way. One option would be to return to the previous (standard) formatting of the long quote/poem and the image separately and include the Tolkien/Jackson headers differently. (I'd have to personally just play around with it to see what would be best, but you can do that. Look at the section in the mobile app to see what I mean.) Not going back there now, as the advantage of the side-by-side format is so great. It works fine on my (very modest) mobile, specially if I rotate it to landscape format. Okay. Might be worth looking into later on if you wanted to do FAC with this one. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) I think it's better now that the previously existing table has been removed and with information distributed into subsections. Noted. This is good. After you make additional changes based on what I wrote above, I'll give it a good full read again. I think we're nearing the finish. All done. I'm glad I was able to clarify my concerns and that we have gotten this far. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 12:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC) Criterion 3 met. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 13:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Criterion 4

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Here, we will discuss anything regarding a possible lack of a neutral point of view (after I catch up on some sleep). – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 13:46, 16 September 2024 (UTC) Review focusing primarily on criterion 4 (WP:NPOV). WP:NPOV is a non-negotiable Wikipedia policy regardless of the class rating of the article. Meeting this standard is Criterion 4. Please do not shout in boldface (or block capitals). I know this is in the source, but consider changing the sentence in the lead His friend C. S. Lewis was interested in Jungian psychology and the collective unconscious and probably shared these ideas with Tolkien; Tolkien used the concepts in several places. to His friend C. S. Lewis was interested in Jungian psychology and the collective unconscious; Tolkien used these concepts in several places. No, this is reliably sourced. Then clarify in the prose (the citation is not enough) that the source is drawing that conclusion. See WP:WIKIVOICE in WP:NPOV – bullet point "Avoid stating opinions as facts." One or the other of these things must be done. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:54, 18 September 2024 (UTC) Attributed in the text. in order to avoid phrasing that appears as though we are drawing that conclusion. I don't think that it would change the meaning. Same thing within the body: Tolkien and his friend C. S. Lewis were members of The Inklings literary club. Lewis was interested in Jungian psychology and "enchanted" by the idea of the collective unconscious; he probably shared these ideas with Tolkien. The scholar Verlyn Flieger states that Tolkien's incomplete novel The Lost Road was based on the collective unconscious. to Tolkien and his friend C. S. Lewis were members of The Inklings literary club. Lewis was interested in Jungian psychology and "enchanted" by the idea of the collective unconscious. The scholar Verlyn Flieger states that Tolkien's incomplete novel The Lost Road was based on the collective unconscious. No, as above. Then clarify in the prose (the citation is not enough) that the source is drawing that conclusion. See WP:WIKIVOICE in WP:NPOV. – bullet point "Avoid stating opinions as facts." One or the other of these things must be done. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:54, 18 September 2024 (UTC) I have attributed this in the text. In Frodo's case, PSTD section, or in the Paranoia section, perhaps repeat the following phrase as a sentence: "Frodo had to stay in cover on his quest to Mordor, constantly threatened by a watchful enemy he could not see." Source, Croft 2004. Repeating quotations within an article is deprecated by editors (and readers), if not also the MOS. I had put quotation marks around it, but it is not a quote. It is direct text from the article, not a quote from the source. Sorry for the confusion here. This still needs to be addressed. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:54, 18 September 2024 (UTC) Well, I had addressed it by saying that repeating it wouldn't be great, and that goes for any sort of material really. Since you insist, I've repeated it in "Paranoia" with the rubric "As already mentioned". The Psychiatric conditions section does not include some that are mentioned elsewhere in the article. For example, Bilbo's and Thorin's symptoms of psychosis in The Hobbit, Éowyn's madness and/or depression, and Théoden's possible bipolar depression. Is this intentional? If so, why? Per my reply just above here, we should not be repeating claims as such. You are effectively pushing the article progressively closer to a list, which is contrary to my intention and to the article's approach (not to mention GAN requirements). In addition, Walker is a scholar of English, not psychiatry, and he only mentions each individual mental illness briefly. That's splendid for context, not so good for analysis. See my reply at the bottom. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:54, 18 September 2024 (UTC) And mine. Walker has not provided any more detail than those one-word mentions; other scholars haven't even gone that far. That doesn't give us any sort of mandate for psychiatric analysis, unfortunately. We *could* just routinely list the conditions named, and add a standard definition of the symptoms, but we have no analysis of the characters' conditions to flesh out those subsections, so we'd just have a bald statement juxtaposed with a definition, which I'd really not be terribly happy with. There is no mention of how Peter Jackson chose to depict Denethor, which was different from Tolkien's Denethor and likely would imply conditions different from or in addition to what is in the article (which uses a 1978 source), nor of Denethor's suicide and his personality characteristics that may have led him to it. I haven't seen a scholarly analysis of that aspect. Reply below. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:54, 18 September 2024 (UTC) My reply too. I've examined the sources, and they do not name any specific psychiatric conditions for Denethor. Walker's list does, as the "insights" section says, name "paranoia", but he goes no further, so we don't have anything substantial to say about it. When determining a diagnosis of SzPD for Gollum/Sméagol, the UCL authors used the ICD-10, either the original or an early revision (they give 1992). Neither the later ICD-10 revisions, the ICD-11, the DSM-IV, nor the DSM-V state that the personalities cannot be aware of each other. Because I don't have access to a relevant early revision, or a copy of the original publication, of ICD-10, I can't confirm that they drew an accurate conclusion when they said that MPD can't apply because of this. The matter is reliably sourced; if the professional is wrong about their own profession's standards, that's not for mere editors to reason about. There does not appear to be any sort of rebuttal of that aspect of the paper by other psychiatrists in the literature. It was the reason behind the request that ICD-10 1992 be added to the body. It may have nothing to do with the standards. It's likely the ICD that was available to them at the time and since you are writing about mental illness and had presumably studied the source, I assumed you knew that. See the bottom for further reply. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:54, 18 September 2024 (UTC) I don't know what they did, but you appear to be correct, and I've done as you asked. I think it's important to add in the body that they used the ICD-10 1992 for the paper. Added. I think we should add sources in the discussion of Gollum's case. Is there more in Manuel 2022? Under MPD, Leonard could, and likely should, be added (Leonard p. 21, note 39: "Gollum also probably fits the criteria for PTSD. Based on the passage (LotR VI.8.714) he also may fit the diagnoses for Dissociative Identity Disorder (DSM 330), formerly termed Multiple Personality Disorder."). Manuel 2022: no, there isn't. Leonard: Added. Túrin Turambar is not discussed at all. He commits suicide and has an incestuous relationship with his sister. I would say that anything related to either of those two topics strongly warrants discussion in an article on Mental illness. Some sources include Coutras 2016, Moore 2021 (PDF), and Kane 2021. Regardless of whether Túrin is the focus or incest and suicide are the focus, I think we should consider including these topics. Both Túrin and Denethor commit suicide. Sources should be available for Denethor as well. Coutras is writing on theology, not medicine. We can't safely make the inference from incest or suicide to mental illness unless a reliable source makes that jump for us. Moore just vaguely touches on "social ramifications of discrimination beyond categories such as blindness, paraplegia, autism, or other physical and mental disabilities", nothing for us to bite on there. Kane is another fine literary scholar but doesn't discuss mental illness. A Scholar search on Túrin Turambar + mental illness does not find anything usable. For what it's worth, Tolkien was intending to create a myth in the tale of Túrin, assembling multiple mythical elements (Oedipus, Sigurd, Kullervo) to paint a picture of fated action. There is no indication he was trying to evoke psychiatry at the same time. See reply below. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:54, 18 September 2024 (UTC) Again, I've replied below. Basically, it wouldn't be safe to add anything about Túrin because none of the scholars go into anything like a psychiatric diagnosis, or even suggest there should be one, so we simply can't go there. Other notes: I think the sentence "The psychiatrists Landon van Dell and colleagues write that The Lord of the Rings offers useful and 'very tangible' lessons for mental health by helping readers to envisage and empathise with the situations of other people" would be good in the lead as well. Added, though I wonder if that's not undue weight on quite a minor aspect of the article; certainly a minority opinion in the sources I've seen. Do a final read-through to make sure all verbs (in-universe and out) are in proper tense. I still might be seeing a few that need to be corrected. I didn't make a list. Done. I have to quit for the night. I still might have more for C4, but I won't know until I can give it another read tomorrow. Feel free to comment/make changes. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 07:46, 17 September 2024 (UTC) I've had a pretty good rummage about in the literature (twice) and I'm getting the strong feeling that I've covered "the main points". That is a good and positive outcome of a verification check. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:31, 17 September 2024 (UTC) No, the article is not getting "pushed progressively closer to a list". Well, we can agree that it's not yet a list article. However you have implied that the Psychiatric conditions section should list all the conditions mentioned, which would be true in a list article and not in a text one. Re other conditions: If the Psychiatric conditions section is intended only for conditions that have been diagnosed or studied by a psychiatric/psychological professional, excluding other reliable sources, then that needs to be made clear, but it's also dangerous. I would like to know your reasoning behind that. If this is the case, the input of Milos, a Tolkien scholar, would not be relevant in this section. If that is not the case, then other conditions should be included with their sources. Not all of them have to have a separate section within that section. That's not really the situation. Walker indeed isn't a psychiatrist, but the issue is that he has done no more than tentatively name a list of conditions, almost as a throwaway remark, without any sort of supporting reasoning, or anything that even approaches a discussion of diagnoses. I quoted him at length in the "insights" section, where you can see that there's no actual analysis; without any further material, there isn't scope for further analysis of the individual conditions of the characters in the "Psychiatric conditions" section. Re Gollum's case: Because the UCL study was the only source used for the possible diagnoses of Gollum (until Leonard was added by my request), and because the paper itself states that a web search found over 1300 websites discussing Gollum's "mental illness" (in 2004), now, 20 years later, there could be other reliable information available. I am wondering why, if Gollum has been so important, this is the only thing you have found. Because the multitude of fan-sites aren't what Wikipedia considers reliable. (As for why psychiatrists haven't repeated or extended the UCL study, we can only guess that a) they didn't find anything more to say, and b) it's the sort of thing someone does just for fun, as it's literary not scientific research.) Re Túrin: Rejecting characters and mental illness in a Middle-earth Tolkien work for a reason you as an editor have concluded, because it wasn't Tolkien's purpose for writing the tale, is a red flag. Are you implying that the article is really Mental illness in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings? Please slow down here; as I had already told you, I have not found any scholarly articles that state that Túrin had a mental illness; if I had, I'd have used them in the article. Re incest/suicide: Regarding whether incest or suicide can imply mental illness is not a jump we have to make. There are psychiatric sources that can be found that make that jump for us, but finding them is only relevant if mental illness --> suicide; mental illness --> incest; or incest --> suicide connections occur in Tolkien works in Middle-earth and are discussed in reliable sources. There are reliable sources with theories behind the suicides of Túrin and Denethor. Even if they are theorized as circumstantial rather than based on mental illness (e.g., a death, a loss of the ring, a fall of a kingdom), they can be included. I already discussed Túrin and incest above. The "jump" is that you are putting together Túrin's incest/suicide with separate ideas (let's suppose they are reliable psychiatric sources) that say these things are mental illnesses, and WP:SYNTHesising that into "Túrin's mental illness". That is something we can't do. If we (correctly) don't do that, then we have no steer from the sources that we even have a mental illness there, and the material is off-topic. If you don't think they should go under Psychiatric conditions because they have not been diagnosed within the psychiatric/psychological profession, then that goes back to what I said above about other conditions. Here's a source on suicide in Tolkien: Lockerd, Martin (2023) "The Stolen Gift: Tolkien and the Problem of Suicide," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 41: No. 2, Article 6. Here is a discussion of why Denethor may have killed himself: Yates 2009 which is inspired by Shippey; with further discussion by Shippey: Shippey 2016. Unless someone discusses Túrin's suicide *as mental illness*, not requiring editorial synthesis, we can't include it here. Lockerd does not make that "jump", but treats suicide from a Christian not a psychiatric point of view as something that fails to affirm life. It is not safe to conclude anything about mental illness from that. Yates and Shippey indicate that in Tolkien's text, Denethor's mind has been affected by the power of the Palantir, magic not mental illness. Again, that is interesting but off-topic for this article. Yates also looks at Jackson's Denethor; her complete statement on the cause is "if the film-Denethor had no palantir... it further follows that his degeneration is due to his grief over Boromir, not corruption by Sauron as well." She does not say that grief is a mental illness; it may well be something quite normal. I don't see anything there that we can use in this article. She does use the throwaway line in her final sentence that Denethor "verges towards a stereotypical mad king instead of the subtler character that Tolkien drew", but the mad King Lear aspect is already well covered in the article. Please address these issues. Then I'll see where we are. Um, we need to collaborate on the goal here. I've replied carefully and in detail on the technical issues here. I've looked at the scholarly articles involved, and have not found materials that we can safely use in this article. We are obliged to avoid synthesis; since the Tolkien scholars have not connected Túrin in particular to mental illness, we aren't free to include him here. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:54, 18 September 2024 (UTC) Criterion 4 met. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 09:10, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Criteria 5 and 6

Extended content
Reviewed and no issues. Criteria 5 and 6 met – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 05:59, 14 July 2024 (UTC)