[jallanite]

Originally Posted by cellurdur

For instance both Fangorn and Tom are called the oldest, but we know that the Ents were in some part made by Yavanna

But all the Valar and Maiar predate the entire universe. Tom Bombadil may be equally old. All are much older than the Ents. When Gandalf refers to Treebeard to Théoden as “the oldest of all living things” he seems to forget that he himself is older, as is Saruman and Sauron. Or perhaps Gandalf means only that Treebeard is the oldest of the kelvar who still live in Middle-earth.

You picked a bad example.

When Tolkien started off creating his mythology as we know he intended it to be new mythology for England, since we were sadly lacking in that area.

I don’t know that.

Tolkien’s legendarium was too complex in its origins to be so simply described. Tolkien refers in Letter 131 to his early Silmarillion in which the protagonist was the father of Hengest and Horsa, but admits this stage of his tales has long past away. When he refers to the lack of English mythology he is referring to modern times, surely not to Old English days.

That you think or feel a certain way proves nothing when Tolkien writes otherwise.

Tolkien did try to visualize his stories in one way, for the most part, but he kept changing his mind. One thing he seems to have stuck to in his Post-Lord of the Rings writing was the idea that the Silmarillion material was Mannish legend, which allowed him to retain the Silmarillion material as a flat-world story tradition within a round-world cosmos.

Tolkien sets forth Glorfindel as a powerful Elf, but goes no further. That Tolkien originally intended Glorfindel of Rivendell to identical to Glorfindel of Gondolin, and then forgot that that had been his intention, and later decided that they were the same indicates one case where Tolkien changed his mind, and then changed it again.

Tolkien also decided that Sador would be re-imaged as a Drúadan, but did not have time to carry this out. He also has two differing versions of who the Blue Wizards were.

Your belief that Tolkien suddenly decided following publication of The Lord of the Rings to stabilize on one version of the story only is just your belief, but an unsupported one. Tolkien always thought of his current version of his story as the final version, but he kept changing it.