Quote:
Originally Posted by Mnemosyne
So on the one hand we have Tolkien the Fairy-story-writer, who is content that things don't always make sense; and on the other hand we have Tolkien the Sub-creator, who needs things to make sense for the world he made to be viable.
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I wouldn't say there's a tension; rather, a juxtaposition without which the stories would be less interesting. The important thing is that
most of it has been carefully crafted to make good sense, whereas there's been a conscious decision to keep a few mysteries open to speculation.
So I reckon it's hard to choose one over the other because the effectiveness of the mysteries is achieved only though their placement in the detailed subcreation, which is in turn ... um,
embiggened by the ambiguities.