Elven Characteristics

[Galin]

Originally Posted by cellurdur

Well he puts one version in the story and published it. That's good enough for me.

You can take the constructed versions as canon if you like. For me these versions are constructed for the 'reader experience' [different from a scholarly approach to an unfinished legendarium with different parts written at different times] not to define for the reader what Tolkien ultimately intended.

This just causes more problems. If we don't have the full commentary then we can not garner the context. For instance I remember a discussion about what was meant by Erendis' 'beauty seldom seen in Numenor.' One person argued it meant she was dark haired, but by looking at text elsewhere Christopher judged it to mean she was an incredibly beautiful woman much like Morwen.

Without context we have no indication of things he said prior. I really don't see how this can be viewed as a contradiction with such little evidence.

If there is more context about Eldarin height in these same papers, description that alters or helps with an interpretation of the text presented, I would expect it to be included as well. H&S are noted Tolkien scholars and you can find their thanks to Christopher Tolkien and other folk in the Preface to their Companion to The Lord of the Rings.


In any case, using what we have, I interpret things differently than you do.



The rest is just going in circles now.