Quote:
Originally Posted by cellurdur
It is Tolkien's style to use a lot of superlatives and Christopher Tolkien himself comments on this. However, like with history we have to work with the information that we have. (...) The Hobbit is definite one work where we have to take into account that the 'author' Bilbo was very biased and probably not aware of what was really going on. We even have evidence that he has already lied in the book deliberately.
Even the LOTR is from the hobbit's POV. Advanced medical treatment would be seen as magic by the Hobbits.
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Well I would agree that 'author's point of view' can become an all too easy explanation for seeming contradictions. I stressed 'possibility' above and am more inclined to agree with Nerwen's post and Tolkien's noted love of superlatives, although I do think -- at the point when the Annals were still meant to be different texts from Quenta Silmarillion -- some 'comparisons of interest' were perhaps intended.
That generally said, I would also agree that that has no real force when it comes to specific examples, unless Tolkien comments directly or makes something 'agreeably obvious' I guess...
... for instance did Maglor drown
himself with his Silmaril (poetry, and one of Tolkien's letters) or walk along the shores (prose Silmarillion) after 'drowning' his Silmaril? Despite my opinion that this detail nicely lends itself to the confusion of history, so to speak, which would be nicely represented in the two very different traditions, the matter could simply be external.
Again if forced to guess: more probably external.