Fantasy

[obloquy]

Do people in M-e die in the same way as people in the primary world? Do they survive war blinded & maimed? Do their body parts have to be gathered up for disposal? Does that aspect of war exist in M-e or does it not? My suggested answer would be 'Not for every reader'. Some readers will assume those things & 'see' them as they read the story, but other readers won't. Some will deny the existence of those things in M-e, & someone suggests they 'must have happened even if Tolkien doesn't mention them specifically' they will state very clearly 'No they didn't, because Tolkien was writing a tale 'purged of the gross' - the blood, vomit & excrement, the howling of the dying, all the unpleasant aspect of war didn't happen in M-e.

Sure, there are evidently some irrational, thoughtless people who will choose to believe there is some kind of magical prevention of grisliness in Middle-earth. But most of us will have the sense to recognize that Tolkien's characters are flesh-and-blood. Not only do they have sex, defecate, and probably pop zits, they also have their flesh torn and their bones crushed in war--and their arteries severed, and their eyes pierced by arrows, and their limbs removed from their bodies, etc. etc.

If an author writes that a character slaughtered a pig for his guests, it does not make sense for him to explicate the details (the kill, the bleeding, the gutting, the roasting, the piglets left behind) unless he is interested in making a point about the slaughter of livestock. If he does not provide these details, what simpleton would imagine that no such details took place? Similarly, just because you did not understand what happens in medieval warfare when you first read Tolkien does not mean that Tolkien's description was dishonest in any way. Of course people in Middle-earth had their intestines ripped out and died screaming and clawing at the ground. It is implied by the presence of warfare itself.

Again, the problem is your own.