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I really don't think anyone is an "expert" at Tolkien, maybe not even Tolkien himself. No matter what you know there is always much more you can learn.
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I take it that you are talking about the interpretations, not the knowledge. One can know all the facts about Tolkien's life and Tolkien's books, and that would make that person a so called "expert", but about the meaning of the stories and characters there's a lot of speculation, and certain things are unknown, and will stay that way, just because Tolkien left them to our imagination.
But I think that you need some background information to be able to have a decent discussion about Tolkien's work.
About annoying experts, I haven't met any just yet. To tell you the truth, I've almost never met anyone who is even a bit into Tolkien... So tell me, is your environment crowded with Tolkien amateurs, experts and haters? Because, except for this forum, I never have the chance to talk about Tolkien in the first place. So I guess that when I would meet an annoying expert, I would kinda like it...
