[Ivriniel]

First up Morgathonron,

I've got about 300 posts here. Anyone who's read any of them, knows very well, that I so very seldom --care--to ground an argument in a specific date, or particularly narrow range of dates.

Because - Master Prof T (as Captain Janeway said "temporal causality loops give me a headache"), **never** wrote anything, ever, once, ever that didn't evolved by the time he started on the ensuing chapter of his 'next' works.

Ergo, I ***ditched*** a long time ago, the foolishly narrow attempt (self-reference, right. Put your ego away--no narcissism here please, it's boring) to 'prescribe' an 'exact' position about anything in the mythology.

I never claimed in any of my arguments that Ungoliant ate the Silmarils. Woops, I mean, I never - ever attempted - to EVER argue that "the 1876 version of the Hobbit, had The Ring (proper noun here please for the point of my item) first and foremost in the Prof's mind, and neither did I care, that he did or didn't.

All my materials were on another mode of methodological analysis, entirely. I prefer the mode that is about inferential 'diagnostic' or 'interpretation' of an author's 'tacit intention' and possibly 'explicit motivations and intentions'.

That is - putting as I did, about the longitudinal analysis --theory.

Even if the 500AD version of the Hobbit 'was written with the dreaded Chapter Five' 'winning riddle variation', what, still can we discern about "Ring-shness' (Proper noun here please) in the --implicit--text. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps not nothing. Perhaps some blend of the two.

Then - locate prose (from the Hobbit) to elucidate. AND

to address your other concerns. "Why would I go outside the Hobbit" to elucidate anything relevant.

Seriously, does that need a response? You know very well, I suspect that The prof had an ---obsession---- with publishing his primary love

The Silmarillion. In a multi-decade battle/exchange with Allen and Unwin, during which, there were indeed profound sanctioning pressures upon him to limit the scope of his narrative.

The anxiety in the Prof's letters about this, strikes me ***again*** as I review Letters, and I'm really surprised the point needs to be made.

Given such a background of anxiety and tussling with Allen and Unwin, for a Professor at a University, where you know very well there are significant torsions upon the self to present, argue, publish, write in a manner that very often deviates from how the core-self seek to write, are you saying that that background pressure was (not) operative (as) he wrote the Hobbit? I cannot -- support -- that tenet.

Ergo, why I interceded to introduce the background mythology - which of course -- was, as I stated, in place, partially at writing of the hobbit. Next post...a little more organised.