Hot take: Only the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings should be viewed as canonical Middle-Earth books

[GreyLord]

Just a comment on this. First of all, I don't think JRRT would be as much "bemused" by Rings of Power, as aghast, and disavow the show thoroughly.

I would say he would not just be aghast at Rings of Power, he would be aghast at Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings.

I would think he would feel the movies miss most of the points that he had in that even the fair of Jackson's felt more foul than what Tolkien intended, and the foul felt more like someone who made horror movies than incarnate what the veil of evil that Tolkien intended.

They are separate mediums though and different artforms.

Tolkien said to the idea that he did not feel the moving picture was a good match for the books and that it would not be able to capture the books accurately.

I think if they paid him enough money (he DID sell the rights afterall) he would not decline them being made, but he would make abundantly clear that they were NOT his ideas and deviated quite a bit (at least with the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit series). With Rings of Power he probably would say they were about as opposite from his own as they could be and that they should not be taken with a grain of salt on having any bearing in relation to the actual Lord of the Rings...but he would be happy if with the money they paid him (though after he saw LotR it probably would have to be a pretty penny to do so. He might sue in regards to what they were actually able to put in them (despite the claim they are based on the appendixes...when it is obvious they EXPAND on the appendixes and are not really BASED on them), but once paid (I'd say a Billion would make him happy) he'd probably allow for whatever they put in them with the comment I stated above and after that stay mum on it forever after.

 

[Maxperson]

Greenwood's Forgotten Realms became TSR's Forgotten Realms when he sold it to them and it began mutating almost immediately. Even Greenwood doesn't write for the pre-TSR version of the setting any more, an implicit admission that it's a collaborative setting, much like Marvel and DC Comics' multiverses are.

In contrast, in his lifetime, JRRT retained and exercised editorial control, vetoing the Beatles' Lord of the Rings movie, for instance.

Writer(Greenwood) selling his works to someone else = writer giving control to that person. Writer(Tolkien) dying and leaving his son his works = writer giving control to that person.

Why is TSR/WotC stuff canon and Christopher Tolkien stuff not?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Greenwood sold the Forgotten Realms before the public had seen much of it. I subscribed to Dragon during that period and it was only very loosely outlined, from the public's perspective. The public has only ever really known the TSR/WotC Forgotten Realms, which began deviating from his home work (with his participation, of course), very quickly at that point.

In contrast, the public had decades with the two versions of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings before his son's best effort to clean up his next book for publication, four years after his death.

I don't think it's realistic to say that the version of the Silmarillion is what we would have seen had JRRT lived another four or five years. And we know that the public version Forgotten Realms isn't what Greenwood's home game looked like, because he's been transparent about that (although, it must be said, without any particular rancor about that fact).

 

[Aldarc]

That only the Hobbit and LotR should be considered canon is not a hot take. Lukewarm take, at best.

However, the idea that The Silmarillion is a work by Christopher is... not really supported by the history, imho. It is a work finished by Christopher. So maybe it is by JRR and C. But it isn't like Christopher Tolkien was working from bare notes or outlines - his father had worked on The Silmarillion longer than LotR. He'd submitted prior versions for publishing. He left copious materials, and Chistopher was specifically trying to fill out his father's vision, not using it as a vehicle for his own creativity and expression.

Did JRR have issues with the work up to the 1950s? Yes. Did Christopher have to fill in chunks? Yes. But that doesn't mean Christopher should be given primary credit on the work.

I agree, but I would also add...

(1) It is a work finished by Christopher AND Guy Gavriel Kay.

(2) Much as @GreyLord says, Christopher Tolkien essentially functioned as JRRT's primary editor and fact-checker. I recall reading that JRRT would talk of how Christopher would sometimes correct him about some lore detail in the stories he got wrong.

The Silmarillion is a work by Christopher Tolkien, based on his father's work and not actually J.R.R. Tolkien's work.

We know that, throughout his life, JRRT dramatically changed his mind about many elements of the setting -- the orcs, for one, were jerked back and forth creatively a bunch of times. We have no reason to believe that Christopher, four years after his father was dead and buried, was able to make the exact choices his father would have.

And Christopher himself didn't believe that they were 100% canonical: "Complete consistency (either within the compass of The Silmarillion itself or between The Silmarillion and other published writings of my father's) is not to be looked for, and could only be achieved, if at all, at heavy and needless cost." (Page 8 in the Silmarillion.)

This is even more true for the later posthumous works, which include elements that are almost certainly creative dead-ends, like characters that only appear in the History of Middle-earth books and nowhere else. That's a key part of the writing process: Figuring out what to keep and what to discard or at least put on the shelf until a use is found for it.

At best, Christopher was making editorial judgements on what to include and what to exclude and which varying take was the "real" one in all of the books published after his father's death.

It's comparable to "And Another Thing" being viewed as an official Hitchhikers book. Yes, the estate may say it is, but it's not the original's author's voice or intentions. It's a best guess by someone who wants to get it right, but cannot ever truly hope to do so.

I'm a big Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fan, but I would never confuse A Salmon of Doubt or the fragments in The Frood or the upcoming 42 as being a missing Hitchhikers book or even work that was truly destined to be one. (A Salmon of Doubt makes this point quite explicit, referencing Douglas Adams intending fragments for a Dirk Gently book, no, maybe for a new Hitchhikers book, no, maybe we'll do something else with that at some point.)

JRRT would likely be bemused by the Rings of Power, but he'd almost certainly view Unfinished Tales, The Silmarillion, The Fall of Gondolin and The Fall of Númenor with at least as much confusion and alarm. "Contradicting" those books is no more important than "contradicting" Brian Herbert's Dune books that he wrote after his father's death.

"Canon" is decided and created by communities. Authors, corporations, bishops, and other authority figures from on high may attempt to impose their own sense of what are "canonical texts," and communities may accept than canon or reject the authority of that imposed canon in favor of their own, but true authority for canon rests in communities and not the imposition by authority figures. Different communities and subcommunities may have differing notions about what is regarded as acceptable canon for their (sub)community.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"Canon" is decided and created by communities.

Now, THAT is a hot take. I doff my hat to you, sir.

 

[Aldarc]

Now, THAT is a hot take. I doff my hat to you, sir.

My opinions about canon in fan communities has been shaped by an education in ecclesiastical communities.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My opinions about canon in fan communities has been shaped by an education in ecclesiastical communities.

Yeah, I picked up that you had expertise and a vantage point that I do not.

That said, if fans are in charge of canon, that opens up a crazy amount of possibilities. Do Harry Potter fans excise the Cursed Child from canon? How about JKR's latter day pronouncements about Dumbledore's homosexuality? Or about wizards crapping on the floor of Hogwarts before the invention of toilets (which I wish I was making up)? Could they make My Immortal canon if enough people agreed on it?

Think of what this would do to Star Wars, which has a whole cloud of movies and TV shows (are the Ewok movies canon? How about the Droids cartoon?), novels and comics and video games, that officially have multiple layers of canonicity, even before you consider Disney hitting the reset button.

Honestly, this is a much more fun approach to the matter, something I don't know is always associated with bishops.

 

[Aldarc]

That said, if fans are in charge of canon, that opens up a crazy amount of possibilities. Do Harry Potter fans excise the Cursed Child from canon? How about JKR's latter day pronouncements about Dumbledore's homosexuality? Or about wizards crapping on the floor of Hogwarts before the invention of toilets (which I wish I was making up)?

There are HP fan communities that reject JKR's "hadith," so to speak. "The author is dead" and "show in the text but don't tell outside of it" and all that.

Could they make My Immortal canon if enough people agreed on it?

There is not a singular canon. There are canons for communities. If there was a fan subcommunity of HP that considered "My Immortal" canon, then it would be canon for that particular fan community but noncanonical for other fan subcommunities.

IMO, the idea that there is a singular canon that everyone must adhere to is ultimately a tool for imposing power and authority: i.e., Disney's canon, JKR's canon, Marvel's canon, WotC's canon, JRRT's canon, etc.

Think of what this would do to Star Wars, which has a whole cloud of movies and TV shows (are the Ewok movies canon? How about the Droids cartoon?), novels and comics and video games, that officially have multiple layers of canonicity, even before you consider Disney hitting the reset button.

Honestly, this is a much more fun approach to the matter, something I don't know is always associated with bishops.

Think of what this would do to Star Wars? This is how Star Wars operates. There are fan communities who adhere to the "Lucas Canon." There are fan communities who have an even more restrictive sense of canon, while there are some fan communities that have a more expansive sense of canon. There are those who still regard the EU as canon. There are many that have jumped ship to the "Disney Canon." There are fan communities that still hold Lucas's words post-Disney as the "Word of the Almighty Creator." There are some fan communities that attempt to reconcile both and all continuities.

Ultimately, the question of canonical texts is one of community gatekeeping. Who are the people who share our views of "canon" and who do not?

 

[Ryujin]

"Marvel Canon" is a rather mercurial thing. It changes every few years when they reboot, in order to try and shore-up flagging sales. They even had to create multiple "universes" in order to explain why comics released at the same time seem to have contradictory stories. DC did the same. That makes it a little easier to accept changes to "canon" in the MCU. And while I haven't seen it, it would appear that "Black Adam" takes place in the world of the Justice Society of America, not the Justice League of America. This is the same for the TV show "Stargirl."

Then there are the companies that decide to retroactively obliterate canon. The FASA Star Trek RPG material was considered canon for quite a while, until CBS/Paramount started plans to make their Star Trek prequel series. The RPG material explained the existence of various different looking Klingons, for example. "Enterprise" threw that all out the Window, then "Discovery" doubled-down. no Klingon hybrids. No Four Years War. The Romulans show up but there doesn't seem to be a war, let alone a war in which FTL communications only had audio.

And was the Star Wars EU considered canon too? I think that I might have read "Splinter of the Minds Eye", because the cover looks familiar, but can't really remember. All of that was tossed out, anyway, when Disney bought the franchise.