Authorial Control and World Building

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

To contribute something more on-topic, Professor Tolkien's personal interpretation of the themes of his work is interesting when it appears that he to an extent sees ideas of humility and moral necessity in The Lord of the Rings not as themes in themselves but rather components of his ideas about Fall, Mortality and the Machine. This may be something not unusual with creative people, however; it is always possible that there are ideas or even stories which seem very clear to them but have not necessarily been conveyed on paper in a way which every reader will notice.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I think in the Letters, Tolkien was describing the underlying impulses that informed his story but where manifested imperfectly, or perhaps obscurely metaphorically, in the actual story itself.