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Originally Posted by obloquy
The statement wasn't written within the Legendarium. It was one of Tolkien's essays, written about Middle-earth from without.
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Then its opinion. We know how Tolkien altered his opinions on characters & events within the Legendarium, back & forth. If it was an essay by Tolkien commenting on the Legendarium its just his opinion
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He's qualified to judge objectively. They're his creations.
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This would only be true if he had never made any contradictory statements about the Legendarium. As he did so, it has questionable weight.
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It may be true that Feanor was a "greater" craftsman than Luthien, but that does not change that as individuals are estimated in greatness by their Creator, Luthien is greatest.
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At one point in an ever changing, ever evolving creation. If you compare what we know of both Luthien & Feanor, where's the evidence for Luthien's superiority? Are you just accepting that Luthien is 'greater' because in one essay Tolkien expressed his opinion that she was?
I accept that Tolkien is better qualified to judge than any of us, but he changed his opinion too much for his words to be taken as the final 'fact'.
The Translator Conceit is central to this discussion. Tolkien too is a 'Translator' after all. By placing himself in that role (as I've argued before) he becomes a character in his own creation. So effectively we have two Tolkien's - the primary world Oxford professor who invented the legends of Middle-earth, & the secondary world 'translator' of the Red Book. Which one wrote the essay?