Ha, brilliant point,
davem. I consider myself knowing On Fairy Stories very well and basically remembering something from it all the time, even this particular part (I have always applied that one to criticise the movies
), but it never occured to me to apply it in this way. Once again a proof of how well can a company of people contribute while single person's thinking always remains limited.
Let me just note, I have never thought that Tolkien was so close in his thoughts to the reader-response criticism - in the light of this, this certainly is something related. Just, like, I never thought of that.
But anyway, that means, long live Tsirith Ungol! (As that's the one, of all of them, which I just cannot discard
)