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Originally Posted by Ivriniel
I see then, the major means for 'picking holes' would really required knowing what it was that Allen and Unwin originally 'saw' and 'picked holes in' and then also, what major artefacts of Lore (e.g. Dragons, Rings) would have narrative - thematic level only (i.e. not detailed, just the major themes of mythology) - consistency in FA materials.
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To the best of my knowledge, A & U didn't see anything of the First Age materials until
after The Hobbit had been published and become a success and the question of a sequel came up, and then rejected it as unsuitable for the audience of TH - which is a good thing, for we wouldn't have
The Lord of the Rings otherwise.
As for the state and themes of Tolkien's legendarium before and at the time of writing TH, the materials are all published and documented in the volumes of
The History of Middle-earth. There were dragons, mostly used as war machines by Morgoth, but there was also already Glaurung (originally called Glórund), devastating the kingdom of Nargothrond and the lives of the the Children of Húrin. There was a lieutenant of Morgoth (long named Thû, later renamed Sauron) who had a thing for vampires and werewplves, a proficient shape-changer and dread interrogator who won a famous song contest with Felagund, but had yet nothing to do with rings of any kind (Eregion and the Gwaith-i-Mirdain only came into the picture during the writing of LotR). The only ring of any notability was the Ring of Doom, the place outside Valmar where the Valar sat in a circle in council or judgment.
The view that Tolkien wrote
The Hobbit as a 'dumbed-down' version of his mythology to get it past a publisher doesn't hold in my opinion because the story wasn't originally devised for publication at all. He made it up as a bedtime story for his children, and elements of his mythology like dragons, dwarves, elves and goblins were used as narrative building bricks because they were lying around in his head anyway - readymades, if you like. But I don't think it was originally meant to be a canonic part of the legendarium any more than, say,
Mr Bliss or
Roverandom. It became so during the writing of its sequel, as more and more connections were drawn between the story of Mr Baggins, his heir and the Ring and the matter of the First and Second Ages. In the history of the legendarium at large,
The Hobbit is, I think, best described as a detour on which hitherto uncharted territory was discovered and some older elements were seen in a new light - the Dwarves, for example, were mostly presented as hostile, treacherous creatures in the earlier material, and a character like Gimli would have been unconceivable then).
And I must say I object to the term 'dumbing down' with respect to
The Hobbit. Sure, the mythological trappings are shoved far into the background, kinslaying and incest are completely absent, but we are recompensed for that with a detail and fullness of characterisation we don't find in the legends of the First Age. We get to know Bilbo Baggins better than we ever do Túrin or Beren or Fëanor, warts and wrinkles and all.
The Hobbit was a huge progress for Tolkien as a writer without which he could never have given us
The Lord of the Rings.
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Originally Posted by Morthoron
why would anyone need to assign outside sources to Bilbo's behavior in The Hobbit, or, at least, The Hobbit before it was revised?
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Mainly contrariness, like I said. My inner companion just handed me a prompt card, it reads *squints* "I may be wrong. Let's do it your way." But let's not be hasty and await
Ivriniel's longitudinal analysis first.