[Boromir88]

And I thought people complained about the length of posts in Werewolf!

Saruman's retort to Gandalf immediately comes to mind here...

'Later! Yes, when you also have the Keys of Barad-dur itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards, and have purchased yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those that you wear now.'~The Voice of Saruman

In all seriousness though...

Originally Posted by monks

This is part of the problem. A general point. The fact that people once they accept that their *just might possibly* be some things hidden within Tolkien, then they say "well even if it is true, why should I care, why is it relevant to us?". They move the goal posts. The extremely obvious answer to that is that if Tolkien cared about it, then why the heck shouldn't we? And that's the line people take who don't respect the details and meaning of Tolkien's works- those people who make films and the like. And those same people who are not interested in the exposition, the analysis, will sit there and take umbrage that THEY the film makers etc don't care about Tolkien. Pot kettle black.

For example, most of Tolkien's hidden system is hidden in the etymologies of the words. That's how I arrived at my understanding of it over 15 years. If you don't care about the etymology of words, then you don't care about the same things as Tolkien. And then as critics (all very expert on here I see in their attacks on my posts) Tolkien straight away puts you in the Lit camp, the oak camp, yaknow..the camp with the trolls? Speaking of trolls. And from that point you expose yourself to being extremely wrong in your critique and getting hammered by people like me.

The main umbrage, at least the one I have, with your arguments is the various logical fallacies you seem to enjoy engaging in. For instance, in the quote above your argument that if Person A doesn't care about the same things Tolkien cared about then Person A doesn't care about Tolkien. Or your appeals to authority, like name dropping Clive Kilby. I have no doubt there are many subjects involving Tolkien that Kilby would understand better than me, but Person A "talking to Tolkien" and Person B "not having talked to Tolkien" doesn't necessarily mean Person A's argument is more valid than Person B's.

On topics such as these, I generally defer to what the author said his motivations were...

The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of the readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them.~Foreward to Lord of the Rings

If you think you've found hidden meaning and messages that relate to your own experiences. Fantastic. It doesn't make your arguments and predictions more or less valid than any other reader's.