Canon: what ARE we babbling about?

[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by davem

What interests me in this debate is that when I'm challenged on anything I say & can offer proof & evidence for it that's never acknowledged - like your point on the 'exact' match between the geography of TH & LotR - are you going to acknowledge that what I said about the geography of TH & LotR being only similar was correct?

Ah, you have been known to sidestep a few issues yourself, sir. As to this geography question, you again fail to give the full context.

Originally Posted by HoME 6

The present text of The Hobbit, deriving from corrections made in 1965 and first published in 1966, here introduces an element from The Lord of the Rings but fails to harmonise the two geographies. This highly uncharacteristic lapse is no doubt to be attributed simply to the haste with which my father worked under the extreme pressure imposed on him in 1965.

[...]

My father was greatly concerned to harmonise Bilbo's journey with the geography of The Lord of the Rings, especially in respect of the distance and time taken: in terms of The Lord of the Rings Gandalf, Bilbo, and the Dwarves took far too long, seeing that they were mounted (see Karen Fonstad's discussion in The Atlas of Middle-earth, p. 97). But he never brought this work to a definitive solution.

I can, if you like, cite other instances in which Tolkien made efforts to harmonize TH with LotR. You would disqualify TH because of an oversight, one of the "many defects, minor and major", which Tolkien owned in the foreword to LotR?

It seems clear to me that Tolkien's many efforts to harmonize the texts shows that he did not regard TH as an unrelated sideshow that "wasn't really" set in M-e.

And speaking of sidestepping...

Originally Posted by davem

What belongs in the Sil are those writings which conform to it, in mood, tone & consistency.

Do you, by chance, hold public office?

EDIT:

Originally Posted by davem

Dwarves (as Tolkien said they are based on Grimm not in his own Naugrim

Can you show me, outside of reference to this letter, how the dwarves of TH are appreciably different from the dwarves of LotR? Or the Sil, for that matter, in which Dwarves as individual characters hardly appear at all?