Where do elves get metal?

[Marwhini]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

I am aware that a talking purse is a folkloric motif Tolkien inserted to add whimsy (complete with a lowbrow accent) to a scene. I am also aware it played no part cosmologically, ontologically or allegorically to any larger, integrated system of science Tolkien was allegedly contemplating in an effort to make his story 'whole'.

I also know that the statement:

"If you have your own Foundational Postulates and Coherent Metaphysical and Theological Systems upon which Middle-earth operates, please feel free to elaborate."

is perhaps the single most pompously sententious sentence ever typed on any Middle-earth forum since the World Wide Web was first developed by descendants of Shelob and Bert the Troll's great-great-great grand nephew, Timmy.

This is the second time you've indicated that I "don't understand" the speculative palaver you're shoveling; on the contrary, I know conjecture when I see it, even when it is couched in rococo verbosity, and more so when these proclamations from the mount are offered in episodic sermons for we lesser mortals.

And I'll say it a third time:

If you don't understand the point of what I have been talking about, then I don't suspect you ever well.

Nor do I suspect that you will understand a great deal of what Tolkien was trying to do in his later works, either.

Because what I am doing is a continuation of what he was doing: Looking for a Coherent Foundation for his world.

Brushing it off a "Fiction" is more than a little missing the point. There is a Logical Consistency that Tolkien was trying to obtain that was more than just Logical Validity, but was Logically Sound as well, within Middle-earth.

And that might very well be a pompous statement I made.

But it is a direct paraphrase of a Quote of Tolkien's, as to what he was trying to achieve from the years following the Completion of The Lord of the Rings until his death.

Tolkien's world had rules. Like ours. And they are not arbitrary rules. They abide by Sciences just like our world does.

He said so. MANY, MANY TIMES.

And just like I do not need to be ON an Exoplanet to begin studying its composition:

http://seagerexoplanets.mit.edu/research.htm

I don't need to be IN Middle-earth to discover most of these rules (if not all of them).

Nor does anyone else.

But the fact that I seem to be the only person (here, at least, as I have worked with at least three other people who worked at the same thing) interested in exploring what they might be is more than a little surprising to me.

That people seem to think that the events in Middle-earth (even if fictional) are simply an arbitrary arrangement is puzzling.


MB