‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[HerenIstarion]

davem:

Its the inevitable 'falseness' of the result of trying to construct a 'single' Galadriel, or Gandalf

Same advise as before: try to place yourself inside, stop judging from outside: Gandalf of the Hobbit is seen through Bilbo's eyes, Gandalf of LoTR is retold by Frodo, and Gandalf of later accoutns probably by Pengolodh

When I grow older, loosing my hair, forty (I hope more, but who can tell?) years from now... and clutching my inevitable Nobel Prize will pass away, some dude, likewise inevitably, will want to write my biography. The best way would be to question people who knew me whilst I still walked this side of turnpike. But he will hardly find two people who will recall me exactly alike. Some think I'm decent chap with the heart in the right place, some think I'm a prick, some I'm smart, and some I'm dumb. And poor dude will be forced to roll down all of their accounts into some 'historical H-I' in case he still wishes to go on with teh biography by the time, for I may be all of the four indeed - I react to different people differently, and even if I were to react in precisely the same way, their preception differs too. That's why I do not find several allegedly different Gandalfs and Galadriels such a complication.