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Originally Posted by Huinesoron
So with that on my mind, this came across my Facebook just now:
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But it's not contradicted by anything, either. RotK has Sam being very shy about mentioning his possible wedding to Frodo The line "as I hadn't spoken, she couldn't say so" hints at the secrecy from the first draft, and the way Sam and Rosie arrange the marriage between themselves certainly implies there's no 'seek permission from her father' business going on, which matches the 'curious habit'.
So... in people's view of the "what actually happened" canon, is this what Hobbit weddings are like? And if not... why not?
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We would seem to have the same algorithm funneling content toward our Facebook feeds...
I'm personally inclined to drop the habit from my view of "what actually happened," and as far as that teases out a principle, it might be that anything edited OUT of a published text has less standing than anything that's actually in it: unlike some hastily penciled or forgotten notes on a crumpled napkin, there is plain evidence (albeit not fully determinative evidence) that Tolkien dropped the idea.
But I'll also readily admit that this is as much grounded in preference as in anything I can specifically cite as principle: it just doesn't
feel congruent to me with final draft hobbit culture. Tolkien's world feels
just so and this feels just a bit off to me--almost like a second version of the backwards birthday presents. And hobbit culture doesn't feel like it should just be "normal 19th century British things backwards."
It's a good test case, though--and you might have hit upon a good formula for posting threads post-RoP: just find outrageous things cut from the LotR drafts and post them here with "is this still workable?" headers.