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Originally Posted by Mithadan
If there is not some negative connotation to "not canon," (triple negative, woo hoo!) then we are about to enter the Twilight Zone.
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Fair enough. Emphasis on "negative" characterization
that I don't intend, I guess. And granted, that's hard or even impossible to know (unless I explain what I intend, and explain it well enough), but that's why I agree that "canon"
is perhaps not the best word here.
Like WCH, I too can look at the whole corpus and find it fascinating in various ways. And as a reader imaginatively engaging with "the story" as true, being under the
intended spell of the writer, I can also know (to take an oft-cited case) which version of Celeborn's history is true -- and why paint that idea -- the idea the author chose for a once and future readership -- with the same colour as every other idea about Celeborn that happened to pass through Tolkien's mind at some point?
I've seen plenty of threads that begin with questions about something
within Tolkien's world. To borrow the Gil-galad question: who is Gil-galad's father?
Since Tolkien didn't himself
publish the answer, let the debate begin. Personally I take JRRT's last known thoughts on the matter -- as I think "the arrow of time" is the best I can do to try and follow where the Subcreator is going. But if Tolkien himself had published Fingon, what would the "canonical" answer be? Fingon, or a list of every idea Tolkien ever had about Gil-galad's parentage?
And obviously there are posthumously published texts that contain plenty of things that don't conflict with already published text. That said, however great or interesting these texts might be, however fascinating and worthy of attention they are, in my opinion they still haven't passed the same test as the author-published material has.
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Will people someday read Tolkien's actual writings and be disappointed that they differ from the Hollywood depictions?
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Maybe so.
For myself, I wouldn't consider a wiki "reputable enough" if it can't, or doesn't, distinguish Hollywood depictions, for example, from Tolkien's books.