The Building of Barad-dûr

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

What all this seems to boil down to is a question of canon.

LOTR is canon, therefore the ToY is canon.

To me, The Silmarillion is canon, because it is presented by Christopher Tolkien, who was in the best position to know his father's intentions concerning the subject matter, as a completed work.

For that reason, I'm not really concerned with the HOME drafts and ideas. They're interesting, but I readily discount them in favor of the canon.

To me, LotR is canon, but consistency was not and ought not to have been the highest priority in creating the tale. The story is the thing. The level of nitpicking and band aiding of flaws one sees among die hard fans seems misspent energy.

I can appreciate the effort Christopher Tolkien put into attempting consistency, but I consider Silmarillion something slightly less than canon with respect to LotR. Middle Earth is an extremely complex creation. Each piece was written for itself, taking depth from what came before, but not rigidly bound to be consistent with what came before. Attempts to pretend otherwise, or to reinterpret everything in vain search of conformity, would be misguided.