‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

One thing though, I don't think the 'multiple Galadriel's (& Gandalfs & Gollums) is merely 'semantics'. They are different characters - as I've pointed out Galadriel (2) is not an exile in ME, Galadriel (1) is, & their stories, & more importantly, their motivations are different.

It is semantics because it depends entirely upon your definition of "characters". Your Galadriel (1) and your Galadriel (2) differ in certain ways and are similar in others. On the most basic level, that's all there is to be said. There's no need to argue about how to translate those differences into a proposition using the word "character".

The rest of what you said has convinced me that our disagreement really is fundamentally a disagreement about what art is. You say:

Of course, you could construct one - maybe an interesting one - maybe even produce a masterpiece - but it would be your 'masterpiece', not Tolkien's. And that would be of relevance to your fans, not Tolkien's.

Well, it would not exactly be "my masterpiece" simpliciter. Nor, of course, would it be "Tolkien's masterpiece" simpliciter. Most likely, all its virtues would be Tolkien's and all its deficiencies mine. But the real point is that where I would talk of a "work of art", you would talk of "X's work of art". As I said before, our objective is not to create a canonical Tolkien text. It does not matter to me whether you call the thing "Tolkien's work" or "Aiwendil's work" or anything else. The idea is that the thing has value in itself, without reference to its authorship.

I would guess (and I must confess that I have not kept up with the various other sub-threads going on here) that you consider a work of literature to be fundamentally an expression of its author, a sort of message or communication from author to reader. This is the prevalent view in modern literary criticism.

I, on the other hand, consider the chief importance of a work of art to be that work of art itself.

Again, I talked about this view in some depth in those other threads I mentioned. To return to that argument here would veer significantly off-topic.

I have, by the way, rather enjoyed my (limited) participation in this thread.