***spoiler Warning***

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Kitanna

However, I feel giving away a little bit at the beginning of a chapter or in the chapter name (ex: The Breaking of the Fellowship) pushes me to read faster so I know how it happens.

You speak from my soul. This is exactly how I felt about Tolkien when I first read it, and I didn't even remember that, now you awoke the memory in me: yes, that's exactly how it was. It does not matter you know how it ends, you want to know how it happens - this is the point of epic, not a detective novel. This is, I think, something I actually lack at the other authors of today (*ahem* I originally wrote toDay...).

Originally Posted by Kitanna

I feel too many authors today are stuck on twists and turns to keep the relatively short attention span of the readers and they focus less on solid story telling. The "spoilers" that Tolkien puts in actually enhances the story to me.

As I said, I'd subscribe this one.

[Elmo]

I think it really comes down to if you think Tolkien has followed what Finrod said to Andreth

'As may a master in the telling of tales keep hidden the great-
est moment until it comes in due course. It may be guessed at
indeed, in some measure, by those of us who have listened with
full heart and mind; but so the teller would wish. In no wise is
the surprise and wonder of his art thus diminished, for thus we
share, as it were, in his authorship. But not so, if all were told us in a preface before we entered in!'

[Finduilas]

I will apoligize before hand, because I haven't read all the previous posts.

In movies, and a few times in books, even when I know what is going to happen I keep hoping, a futile hope to be sure, but hope none the less. In reading a book by Twain on Joan of Arc, you know from the beginning that she is going to die, but so many times you feel as if she could live. In movie's, forgive me for bringing up Star Wars, but in #3, you know what is going to happen, but I at least, would keep forgetting, and I kept hoping. For me personally, things like what Tolkien did don't bother me.

[The Sixth Wizard]

The titles sometimes enhance the surprises.

F.ex, the Breaking of the Fellowship, you know that the Fellowship is going to decide upon whether to go to Mordor or Gondor, or to split, from earlier discussion. So you think that they will decide, but you have no idea about the drama involving Boromir and Frodo. It has greater emotion because of it, I feel. And in the next chapter, The Departure of Boromir, because of the title you just think Boromir is going to go to Gondor, and of this in-bred feeling it comes as a greater shock.

[Thinlómien]

I like the name of the chapter The Departure of Boromir. While it certainly says Boromir will leave, it does not tell that he dies, although the name hints that way...

[Feanorsdoom]

Like Eomer said above, the tales of the First and Second Ages are mostly written as histories in the tradition of Old English, Old French, and Latin chronicles from Medieval Britain. It is, roughly, the equivalent of chapter headers like, "Sherman's March to the Sea" or "The Burning of Atlanta" in a modern Civil War text. A good illustration of this style might be The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer, which is divided into 'substories' a reader of the Silm might recognize.

Although Tolkien meant for the Silm to be published, he is said by CT to have meant it as a suppliment to the LotR (at least in its comprehensive version). When expanding the particular stories, he kept this historical view; never was it meant to be seen as a narrative in the style of a (modern) novel. Even LotR is a compromise between the two styles, because it began as a sequel to The Hobbit, yet ended up an epic every bit as full as the Narn.

[Lord Halsar]

Spoilers eh? Well I'd say the biggest spoiler in anything is the whole "Good triumphs, evil loses" thing. the entire concept is getting REALLY old.
I really wish that Tolkien had written alternate ending chapters where Sauron does get the Ring. That would be a much welcomed plot twist on my part.