Canon: what ARE we babbling about?

[davem]

Originally Posted by H-I

Gosh, davem, even as 'satyrical dig', the whole paragraph is the on Angband of a textual evidence of 'social complexity' you seem denying the Hobbit whatsoever!

But I think its obvious that Tolkien had not constructed the kind of complex social structure you're talking about for the Shire at that time - it only comes into being with LotR. Any 'social complexity' to be found in that episode is actually the social complexity of our world transferred to the world of Faerie.

[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by davem

Bilbo in TH is a typical fairy creture.

I'd say you couldn't be more wrong about this. Bilbo is our mediator in the story, the one who we can identify with, really the most humdrum, human character in the whole fantastic world he inhabits.

Originally Posted by davem

LotR does fit perfectly the mood & tone of the Sil writings - only TH does not.

And you can't see that this is your opinion rather than an objective fact?

"Peripheral" is a long way from "nothing to do with Middle-earth" -- do you concede at least that TH takes place in Middle-earth? Even if you don't I give up. For if you are bound and determined to exclude The Hobbit from your conception of the Legendarium, it is your Middle-earth that is diminished, not mine -- a fruitless victory indeed, I should think. And little more than an intellectual exercise, I might add, since you in fact cannot conceive of a M-e canon in which TH does not exist.

It is Flieger's children that I really feel sorry for. Imagine all the richness that is lost to them. Bilbo's past history and friendship with Gandalf that informs the opening chapters of LotR. The encounter with the stone trolls -- confusing. The moon-letters that prefigure the Gates of Moria -- unknown. The whole history of the Riddle Game, and of Sting, and of Bilbo's mithril shirt -- only guessed at. Frodo's conversation in Rivendell with Glóin about Lonely Mountain and what has become of the members of Bilbo's party -- shorn of color and meaning. Geez, a whole layer of subtext to Gimli and Legolas's relationship -- sacrificed to intellectual pretension. The story of the finding of the Ring, the central element in what you consider to be the culmination of the Sil, available only in bare outline. And on and on. A Middle-earth without The Hobbit is impoverished by its absence. Good thing any future davem progeny will have Lalwendë around to see that they are not so deprived!

It's only quite a little book in a wide world after all, but thank goodness for it.