[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Mellon

Thanks for the welcome!

My point is this;
the key argument that those who DON'T believe that Arkenstone is a Silmaril seem to be making is that the text of the Hobbit says that it was cut by the dwarves which would not be possible were it in fact a Silmaril.

But in the same paragraph it is described as being without peer in all the world which would, I agree, be inconsistent with it being a Silmaril (since there are three of those) but would also contradict the idea of the Silmarils being the most amazing gems in existence (which is, I think we can agree, explicitly stated in the Silmarillion) as it would suggest that the Arkenstone was MORE RARE being as it were one of a kind.

The argument goes, at least as I understand it, that Tolkien was stating that the Arkenston had been cut, rather than that being Bilbo's opinion. In my view this is implausible as it would also impute that Tolkien intended to suggest that the Arkenstone was rarer than the Silmarils themselves!

Thanks for the clarification, Mellon.

My argument in my previous post was not meant to be taken seriously, of course– just to point out that an implausibility is better than an impossibility. The thing is, *both* problems only arise if you take the bit about the Arkenstone's uniqueness as being absolutely literal and authoritative (which is what your argument rests on, as I understand it).

Now, let's look at the context.

Originally Posted by The Hobbit

It was the Arkenstone, the Heart of the Mountain. So Bilbo guessed from Thorin's description: but indeed there could not be two such gems, even in such a hoard, even in all the world.

That's just showing Bilbo's reasoning process: "Oh right, this thing must be the Arkenstone! Can't be two of them!"

Then (in slight "flashback") we get a detailed description of him finding the jewel, and of the jewel itself:

Originally Posted by The Hobbit

The great jewel shone before his feet of its own inner light, and yet, cut and fashioned by the dwarves, who had dug it from the mountain long ago, it took all light that fell upon it and changed it into ten thousand sparks of radiance shot with glints of the rainbow.

At this point the narrative has shifted modes: we're being given that information directly, not as a "guess" or "thought" of Bilbo's. Otherwise it would probably go something like, "Bilbo guessed that it had been cut by the dwarves..."

In other words, one is subjective third-person, the other objective– and so there is actually no contradiction.

Originally Posted by Mellon

But perhaps I just really want them to be one and the same.....it makes the whole adventure more magical somehow!

Let me put it this way: the Arkenstone can be thought of as a Silmaril "by ancestry". We know Tolkien had The Silmarillion in mind when writing The Hobbit. (In fact, there is good evidence that he originally conceived it as taking place much earlier, and in Beleriand.) I don't know enough about this to say whether or not he ever intended to include an actual Silmaril in The Hobbit, but he must at any rate have based the Arkenstone's description on them.

EDIT: I know The Hobbit is presented as Bilbo's autobiography, ("There and Back Again"), but again I wouldn't take that too literally, since within the story, the omniscient narrator is certainly not Bilbo. (Not unless Bilbo is supposed to be suffering from Gollumesque level of insanity, anyway!)