[mark12_30]

Fascinating discussion with many good points...

Moving into Faerie from reality: I'll side with lmp here. Tolkien states, regarding hobbits, that there is little or no magic about them, except the kind that lets them disappear quickly and quietly when large stupid folk like you and me come bungling along. I think the Shire is Mundane. Mind you, I didn't say I don't like it-- just that it's mannishly realistic.

Faerie is woven into LOTR in various ways. One way is that the hobbits physically move from 'perilous realms'-- Old Forest, Rivendell, Lorien, Fangorn, Moria-- back into standard non-magical territory (Shire, Bree, The Road, The Anduin, Rohan, Gondor....) The mannish areas are surprised when the Fae shows up, even in the form of good old Legolas. For example, Eomer doesn't know quite what to do with 'the three hunters.' He considers Aragorn a 'legend' that springs out of the grass, magic sword and all. Eomer is suprised by Aragorn's Faerie-like invasion of his mundanely mannish realm.

If Frodo hadn't been carrying the Ring, then the Ringwraiths wouldn't have bothered with him, nor would wizards, except for Ganda;f's chumminess with Bagginses. Frodo's trip east (had he taken it) would have been uneventful and mannish-- he'd have evaded The Old Forest, Bombadil, and the Barrow Downs. But in essence, the Ring drags or drives him to all these faerie places. Which brings us to, the Beautifully Evil Ring.

But (isn't it odd, now) we knew it as evil only now that Gandalf has done his research. To Bilbo, it was simpy beautiful and useful. Moral ambivalence? Perhaps Bilbo thought of it that way. Once we know Isildur's story we know better, so Frodo is haunted and frightened by the evil that Bilbo was blissfully ignorant of.

It was the Ring (from Faerie) entering into Frodo's mundane life, that drives him into Faerie (Old Forest, Bombadil, The Downs, Rivendell, Lorien). If the Ring were not a threat to 'Faerie', he would not have gone to those places.

[hopefully a clarifying Edit:]I do think LOTR is a faery story-- actually, lots of them, substories, in an overall narrative. Eucatastrophes are there too, for mowst if not all of the forays (out of the mundane into the Fae.) For instance, Bombadil is the eucatastrophe for both Old Man Willow, and The Barrow Wight. The white-horse-flood is a mini-eucatastrophe for the journey to Rivendell. Galadriel's testing, and her own test, is Peril in Lothlorien. It's not uber-consistent or iron-clad-- the narrative would end up predicatable and boring if it were-- but I think the pieces are there in enough abundance to satisfy. (Well, to satisfy me anyway.)