[Galin]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

To start off...I don't understand this drive to put The Lord of the Rings as the pinnacle of J.R.R. Tolkien's works; and an unchanging zealous commitment to it. Why not make a few (relatively) minor changes to the LOTR to conform with Tolkien's latest ideas - to put this frankly - ...you are basically starting to look like fundamental christians/muslims/etc.

Well, this seems a bit hyperbolic to me.

I think that this notion of The Lord of the Rings and to a lesser extent The Hobbit (and, of course, The Road Goes Ever On) as the "ultimate truth" which none should contest has many flaws - and an almost fanatical disregard for the revision of LOTR and The Hobbit (and RGEO).

Not sure I understand this last part: who is disregarding the revisions of these books (and RGEO was not revised by Tolkien that I'm aware of)? And what are the many flaws you refer to?

The published books (during Tolkien's lifetime) - The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Road Goes Ever On, etc. should NOT be set in stone. To finish my post, I think that Tolkien's LATEST ideas (contradictions aside) should have a higher priority to the published material.

In my opinion Tolkien himself did not think so, as evidenced by The Problem of ROS and the late Glorfindel texts (for examples). Moreover, in my opinion Tolkien illustrates that when he does make an error, or gives in to his own penchant for revision, he does not treat already published text like private written material.

Of course not! He rather tries to maintain the inner consistency of reality for the reader, part of the "spell", and to my mind an important part of crafting stories, as noted in On Fairy Stories, and in measure, in The Notion Club Papers as well. Gollum wasn't "really" ready to give his Ring to Bilbo, but yet the first edition merely reflects one, purposely not wholly accurate version of how Bilbo got the One. People accept this, and that's fine. Very inventive and sits well enough within the context of the new story.

But how often, and about what, is the author himself willing to do this sort of thing? In my opinion it's up to him, not us, in any case.


The adumbrated tale that I reject is no small detail of inconsistency, and to my mind by far outshines the inconsistency of ros being a Beorian word where it had been Sindarin in The Lord of the Rings -- how many readers would even have noticed that, but Tolkien still felt bound to reject his later idea.

The adumbrated text is also so unfinished that it needed to be paraphrased in Unfinished Tales, and I think notably, nowhere does Tolkien even mention the difficulty so obvious to Christopher Tolkien, that it contradicts a major, already published historical fact about a character that had become important to his father.

For all we know this text remained unfinished because Tolkien himself realized it wouldn't do. And we certainly cannot tell if he would have revised what he had set out in RGEO for "once and future readers", or if he had even realized the inconsistency at the time of writing it. If and when he published the revision however, then we could say otherwise.

I don't think this is a "fanatical" view at all but represents something rather basic about Secondary World-building and telling stories, even in consideration of an author sometimes forgetting what he had written.

If Tolkien forgets Feanor had seven sons and writes about five in the last year of his life, I'm perfectly happy to accept five. For all I know he didn't forget, for all I know he did... but if he had already published a reference to the seven sons of Feanor, and then he later publishes a new version with five, now the "man behind the curtain" might be revealed.

The reader will naturally go: hmmm. Error, or something else? As an author you don't want to break the spell unless you want to.

'These late writings are notable for the many wholly new elements that entered the 'legendarium'; and also for the number of departures from earlier work on the Matter of the Elder Days. It may be suggested that whereas my father set great store by consistency at all points with The Lord of the Rings and the Appendices, so little concerning the First Age had appeared in print that he was under far less constraint. I am inclined to think, however, that the primary explanation of these differences lies rather in his writing largely from memory. The histories of the First Age would always remain in a somewhat fluid state so long as they were not fixed in published work; and he certainly did not have all the relevant manuscripts clearly arranged and set out before him. But it remains in any case an open question, whether (to give a single example) in the essay Of Dwarves and Men he had definitely rejected the greatly elaborated account of the houses of the Edain that had entered the Quenta Silmarillion in about 1958, or whether it had passed from his mind.'

Christopher Tolkien, Foreword, The Peoples of Middle-Earth

And besides Galadriel marrying her first cousin acccording to the adumbrated tale, and her husband suddenly becoming a Telerin prince of Aman (contradicts RGEO and LOTR first edition), in my opinion she cannot simply be lifted from the Rebellion like this. Tolkien had not only gone into detail about her part in the Rebellion, but gave her a special ban because of it.

RGEO is text the author finished and knowingly published for his readers, taking into account certain statements from The Lord of the Rings. Does Tolkien's world contain inconsistencies within the author-published corpus? Yes. These even he cannot cast lightly aside however, and I think we can see this in his answer (The Letters of JRR Tolkien) about Asfaloth wearing bridle and bit, for example (concerning which he did revise, by publication, to help his case).

On the other hand, no one even knows whether or not Tolkien simply wrote the adumbrated tale "just to write it". I would accept that JRRT had now imagined an "unstained" Galadriel and perhaps wanted her to be more easily associated with the Virgin Mary, an idea arguably helped by a chat with Lord Halsbury...

... not that I think this is a better story, I don't, but Tolkien may have thought so at the time. He also may have thought, both before or after writing the tale, that his new idea could never be published in any case. Writers sometimes write just to see where it takes them on the day.

In any case the only reason we know about all this draft text is through Christopher Tolkien letting us in to view his father's private material, but I doubt he did so to undermine the inner consistency of reality of Tolkien's world, even if the Master sometimes did so himself...

... by publishing certain changes when Ace Books provided him with the chance, for example.