Interlacing in LotR and elsewhere - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

littlemanpoet · 06-18-2002, 08:00 AM

If Tolkien had NOT done interlacing, but had resorted to the OTHER ways of telling the same story (EITHER by an omniscient author perspective which pulls you out of the story too much OR by leaving you hanging until the end and finding out everything else that fed into the climax only at the denouement), it would have been very unsatisfactory, and important characters like Merry, Pippin, Legolas and Gimli, not to mention Theoden, Eowyn, and all the rest that were not directly about Frodo, Sam and Gollum, would never have received the character development Tolkien gave them.

06-18-2002, 08:00 AM	#6
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	If Tolkien had NOT done interlacing, but had resorted to the OTHER ways of telling the same story (EITHER by an omniscient author perspective which pulls you out of the story too much OR by leaving you hanging until the end and finding out everything else that fed into the climax only at the denouement), it would have been very unsatisfactory, and important characters like Merry, Pippin, Legolas and Gimli, not to mention Theoden, Eowyn, and all the rest that were not directly about Frodo, Sam and Gollum, would never have received the character development Tolkien gave them.