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Originally Posted by Bęthberry
Tolkien was of course free to see, as a sort of academic exercise, if TH could be retoned to suit LotR. But that would/will always remain a post-publication exercise. Once a book is given to the world, it cannot be taken back. It no longer 'belongs' to the author, but to the world. Any revision would be simply a second (or third, as the case may be) version, and left to the tastes of the reading public.
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And yet the 'official' version we all know & love contains the re-written Riddles in the Dark, which (to my mind after reading the original) doesn't 'fit' as well as the version it replaced. That revision was done purely to bring TH into line with the Gollum of LotR. Clearly Tolkien wasn't attempting this revision as an academic excercise but as a potential replacement text. If it had replaced the edition we now have then its possible that TH as we know it would have been as difficult to get hold of as the 1st ed. Hobbit text is now.
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Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin)
Oh, sure, he talked a good game in interviews- most of the time. Well, guess what? Smeagol lied. PJ has also said this: "Tolkien's tale was long and boring....I think I did better."
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I hadn't come across that quote before; however, that attitude came through for me in the movies