[Child of the 7th Age]

Helen,

Scratches head in puzzlement. I think you'd better help me out here. I don't understand how having the returning duo under assumed names affects the canonicity of the piece. Is it just that you don't want the neighbors knowing it is them?

Bilbo was always known for doing such strange things, e.g., suddenly disappearing in the middle of a party before everyone's eyes, that I doubt the hobbits would have been totally shocked to see him running around the Shire again. They thought of him as doing strange things and, if he did one more, that would just be in character.

More importantly, as readers, we know what it means that Bilbo and Frodo went West. We have a fairly good understanding of what that place is like and also why they went there. In other words, we understand all the background information. Would most hobbits in the Shire have understood all this? Absolutely not. Most hobbits didn't have even the vagust notion about who Eru was or even the Valar. Their minds were on things much closer to home.

Our own characters are the exceptions---the ones whom Tolkien describes in his Letters as being exceptionally gifted. The ones who were curious and understood things that others did not.

I'm also truly curious why you find these points especially disturbing. There are other things in the Star saga which also stand far beyond canon, if we want to interpret canon literally. For example, the presence of an Elf in the clear light of day within the Shire itself. Even more strange is the idea that stands at the crux of the story---the assumption that there were hobbits floating around in the First and Second Age. Another example, the idea of using a device to do Time Travel. In the Notion Club Papers Tolkien says that using a machine to do time travel is not possible, the people would be killed. He states that dream is the only appropriate vehicle.

What about the thing we're considering doing at the end of the story.....? You could well argue that it's way beyond Tolkien. But, as I've argued before, we could also say that keeping a couple madly in love apart is actually a more basic desecration of Tolkien. JRRT was willing
to move mountains, and break most of his rules, to allow lovers to remain together. Beren and Luthien are the most extreme example of this.

All those examples that I've cited stand far from Tolkien, if we want to interpret things in a literal sense. Do these things bother me? Not at all. I've always seen the Star and her mini-cousin in the Shire as being Tolkien in spirit but not in detail. Might it be fun to do an RPG someday which clings closer to Tolkien in its details. Perhaps, but this one isn't it.

What would bother me is this.......if someone took a character and had him/her do things that were totally out of keeping with that particular person. It doesn't bother me that Frodo's returned briefly from the West. It would bother me if he was to have a torrid love affair with another hobbit or Elf. (And I've certainly seen that done before!)

Perhaps, it would help if you'd explain why this particular scenario is really bothering you, while the other ones I cited above were less of a problem. I just don't get it. I'm having problems.

Your puzzled time traveller friend,

Cami Goodchild