Frodo's Barrow Dilemma

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Gordis

In "the Hobbit" the evidence is controversial IIRC: maybe he did, maybe he did not.

Note also that at the time of writing of "the Hobbit", Tolkien has not yet developed the conception of the Spirit /Shadow World versus the World of Light, had no idea about the nature of Bilbo's Ring and had Gandalf as a Man, not a Maia. "The Hobbit" is not a good source of evidence for such things.

Now... this gets into Canoncity (which, I confess, I am drawn to like a moth to a flame this summer), but Tolkien's own opinion preferred very much to consider anything published--which includes The Hobbit--as canon. Now, it is true that Tolkien gave up the attempt (published in Part II of The History of the Hobbit to rewrite The Hobbit completely, so there certainly remain inconsistencies--notably in the chronology and geography between Hobbiton and Rivendell. However, where there is NOT a statement of contradiction between the books, I think it would be in keeping with Tolkien's own principle to consider The Hobbit as an authoritative source for information wherever The Lord of the Rings says nothing.

Of course, this proceeds from the canonical principle (which I espouse) that the author is the arbiter of the canon, not the reader.