[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by davem

I said it doesn't fit, in mood, tone or feeling, with the rest of the Legendarium. It doesn't - & everyone's attempts to make it fit require some \pretty convoluted 'explanations'.

I think yours is the convoluted explanation. The simple explanation is Tolkien's to the schoolboy: "I am glad you enjoyed 'the Hobbit'. I have in fact been engaged for ten years on writing another (longer) work about the same world and period of history, in which at any rate all can be learned about the Necromancer and the mines of Moria."

Now try making your explanation of why TH isn't a Middle-earth book to a schoolboy and see which one is more strained and convoluted.

Originally Posted by davem

I'm saying it doesn't belong in the Legendarium. Sentimental justifications apart I don't see that anyone has offered any convincing arguments for that.

On our side is the opinion of the author himself that TH was an integral part of his world, as well as connections of plot, character, geography, and history. Sorry, but if you want to see The Hobbit excluded from the Legendarium, the burden of a convincing argument falls on your shoulders. TH is self-evidently a book which takes place in and is about Middle-earth. The only "evidence" you've presented to the contrary is yours and Flieger's opinion about its tone and style.

Originally Posted by davem

It wasn't written as part of the Sil saga, the Legendarium.

It perhaps wasn't begun as part of the Sil saga, but that quickly changed.

Originally Posted by davem

I didn't say they were the 'defining factors'.

Then what are the defining factors? You've already stipulated that the characters, events, and geography are the same as in LotR.

Originally Posted by davem

Its a story that makes use of the Legendarium. & which Tolkien attempted to integrate into it at a later date.

This is untrue, or at least misleading. Tolkien did not complete TH and then later attempt to integrate it into the world of the Sil. It was drawn into the world of the Sil as he wrote.

Originally Posted by davem

Whether he succeeded or not is the question.

What he actually failed to do was to "integrate" the old Sil legends fully into the new reality of Middle-earth which TH and LotR created. There is no complete Silmarillion. What you consider to be the rock upon which the Legendarium is built simply doesn't exist in any finished form.