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Originally Posted by obloquy
(I have not forgotten about Beorn, but he is somewhat anomalous, at least as mysterious as Tom Bombadil, if not more. Additionally, he comes from a time when Tolkien's concept of embodied spirits did not include a "clothed" provision, and were either discarnate or incarnate.)
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Now, not feeling up to scanning through HoM-e I'm going to be depending on you for the answer to this question, but what period are we talking about in terms of Tolkien's thoughts on the 'discarnate, "clothed", and incarnate' alternatives - were these thoughts in place during the writing of LotR? If we look at the Chronology of the HoM-e texts
here don't we see these ideas belonging to the post LotR period? And so, isn't Tolkien 'writing back' into LotR? I think its clear, for instance, that the ideas on mental communication as set out in Osanwe Kenta were not developed when Tolkien had Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel & Celeborn communicating telepathically in 'Homeward Bound'. Were Tolkien's ideas on the relationship of fea to hroa fully developed when he was writing LotR - & if not, can we apply them 'backwards' to events in LotR?
BTW, this is a genuine question, as I say, not having HoM-e immediately to hand...