[Thenamir]

You know, this is, in my not-so-humble opinion, becoming rather like the story about a rich man who commissioned a team of sculptors to fashion a statue of an elephant. The sculptors thought it would make the statue more interesting to add a houdah on the elephant's back and, of course then there had to be a rajah in the conveyance, and before long all the sculptors were focusing their attention on designing the filigree to be sculpted into the rings on the rajah's left index finger.

You all realize, of course, that so passionately arguing that "the finer points of Tolkien's uses of idioms-peculiar-to-the-English are inviolable" wholly invalidates every edition of LOTR that has been translated into other languages. I mean, let's recall every edition in Italian or Swahili, becuase everyone knows you can't have a proper "secondary world" in any language other than Tolkien's original English. Any other language would lose the intangible flavor (or is it "flavour") and local color (or "colour") of the original, and by Eru, we just can't have that. If Tolkien was so careful about language and not-letting-real-world-references-intrude-upon-the-secondary, then riddle me this, Batman: just what in Middle-Earth is a "pop-gun"?

Originally Posted by Gandalf

"It is not like you, Bilbo, to keep friends waiting on the mat, and then open the door like a pop-gun!"

Much has been made of the Learned Professor's quote decrying the "deplorable cultus" surrounding his Magnum Opus, but here as seldom elsewhere do I see the elevating of LOTR to near-Biblical status, with nearly the same injunction:

"if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book" -- Revelation 22:18

I differ with Davem in that while LOTR is one of the most profoundly moving works of fantasy genius, it is just a story. I know that's like calling Romeo and Juliet "just a play", but while it is one of the most famous plays in history, no one would so dissect it as to fume and fuss over his choice of "dinner" over "supper" in a particular scene.

Within the bounds of legality we cannot add to the "canon" of Middle-Earth, but that has not stopped new stories from being written and shared around. We can try to bring this thread back on-topic by discussing whether we should do so, or whether Tolkien intended that others could or should do so, but please let us not elevate LOTR to the realm of the sacred. There are enough revisions and corrections to successive editions to make "infallibility" a moot question.

Personally, I rather enjoyed Gilthalion's "The Hobbits" story in the fan-fic section, and was able to read it and enjoy it as a ripping good piece. The first chapter, describing the death of Mistress Rose, actually brought tears to my eyes. But I wasn't about to pick out whether he chose to use "blueberries" or "cherries" in the pies she baked just before she died. That smacks of verbally breaking something apart to see how it works, and as Gandalf said,

He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.

Well, I've given my detractors a whole new set of targets. Let's hope their ammunition is running low.