Gandalf's Staff - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Earendilyon · 10-15-2003, 10:37 AM

I don't see why a question like 'what if Gandalf not had fallen' be the essence of fiction. JRRT may have asked himself while writing 'what if x or y', but once he had written his story, it was a story, which couldn't be changed, not even by JRRT himself. The only thing he could do, was to make another version of it, but the original still would exist.
Why would we ask ourselves 'what if Gandald had fallen'? In the story as it is, he has. So, we can't change it. The only thinng we could ask ourselves, is: 'what would I have written, if I had written this story?'

10-15-2003, 10:37 AM	#16
Earendilyon Wight Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 166	I don't see why a question like 'what if Gandalf not had fallen' be the essence of fiction. JRRT may have asked himself while writing 'what if x or y', but once he had written his story, it was a story, which couldn't be changed, not even by JRRT himself. The only thing he could do, was to make another version of it, but the original still would exist. Why would we ask ourselves 'what if Gandald had fallen'? In the story as it is, he has. So, we can't change it. The only thinng we could ask ourselves, is: 'what would I have written, if I had written this story?' __________________ "For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me." Dominus Anulorum TolkienGateway - large Tolkien encyclopedia.