[mark12_30]

davem, I disagree. The idea that Elrond is too high and lofty to sing Tra-La-La-Lally is like saying Fordim is too sophisticated to write satire. I just don't buy it.

Take any high-fallutin' professor and set him (or her) in circumstances that bring out their inner glee, and you get child-like behavior. What was it Sam said about Galadriel? High and far-off as a mountain, merry as any lass with daisies in her hair? If Elrond can't crack a joke or join in a drinking game, then he's as grumpy as the movies make him out to be. I don't buy it. Six thousand years old, and he's forgotten how to laugh and sing simple songs?

There's also (Tra-La-La-Lally) the fact that The Valley Song is obviously made up on the fly. For fun. Because there are dwarves to tease. I can imagine more than one elf groaning, "Egads, he wrote it down!"

On trolls: If Sam's accent can differ from Pippin's, then one neighborhood of trolls can be more cockney than another. And one race of trolls can talk while the others are mute. (I'm not convinced that Mordor-trolls aren't chatty anyway-- I think that's a PJ-ism.)

What else? Some of the early wyrms (in the Sil) had no wings. Smaug has wings. Egads, a contradiction! No. Two different kinds of dragons. Just like there were different kinds of orcs; different kinds of hobbits; different kinds of men.

THe tone of the books differ-- because Bilbo differs from Frodo, and one story differs from the other. Bilbo's expedition wasn't about the end of the old ways, departure of the elves and the passing of the third age. It was about a treasure hunt.