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Message: <blockquote data-quote="molonel" data-source="post: 3361266" data-attributes="member: 10412">That's nice. You still don't know what you're talking about.Celebrim, let's get one thing clear. You have never attempted to understand my points. Your only argument is that you simply cannot allow me to MAKE a point, and you will not allow - in your view - anything I say to have any weight or import so long as it is not sufficiently reverential.So, naturally, what follows is simple disparagement. Not understanding.Just as long as we're clear on that.Perfect? Untouchable? Holy? I really don't care what word you choose. It's not a red herring. Your biggest beef appears to be that I don't RESPECT him or his books enough. Any time anyone suggests that any particular detail in his work emerged from anything but perfect craftsmanship, careful planning or the inspiration of God himself, you descend like Yosemite Sam on his mule blowing a tin bugle and waving your sabre.Naturally, you can't even possibly imagine how my own examples could support my own argument.So let me explain. Slowly, carefully, deliberately. And you'll still miss it, I'm sure.Authors, and artists in general, are often motivated not merely by what is great, or with the best of intentions, but also by factors which are completely external to careful planning. Whether by annoyance and distraction (Bunyan) or anger (Milton) or sometimes even by a random passing thought (Tolkien).Does this prove in particular instance that this is the case? No. But what you dismiss as absolutely impossible is, in fact, quite possible. And demonstratable. Even in the greatest artists. Even in Tolkien.You do require instruction. A lot of it, in fact. Nobody particularly cares how many times you've read Tolkien, or whether you consider yourself a member of the secret Gnostic Tolkien Club who grasp the deeper, subtler truths in Tolkien. The Hobbit started as the absent-minded musings of a bored Oxford don grading papers. Both he, and his friend C.S. Lewis, were known for burning holes in the pockets of their jackets because they would stick their pipes into the pockets while forgetting they were still lit.Is it just maybe possible Tolkien hadn't considered some things like this when he wrote his stories?Yes, I think so.And it just simply isn't ... because you say so. Despite the fact that it is nowhere answered in the text, and Tolkien admitted that there were holes in the story.Yes, we got that part.Then why do you defend him as if this were actually in danger of happening?See? And this is what I'm talking about. You could almost write a hymn with that paragraph. I feel like I'm supposed to say "Amen!" or something like that.Tolkien was a man, my friend. Not a saint. A genius, in some regards. A very good philologist. A story which may be apocryphal says that when he accepted the translation of one of the books in the Old Testament for the Jerusalem Bible - Job? - he didn't even know Hebrew. His work on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as a scholar, was pivotal. His translation was so-so. His poetry mostly blew chunks. He wrote ten yards of crap for every ounce of diamond he squeezed out.But the diamonds? They formed a genre, and everyone who writes about the McGuffin and a quest in a world with maps and strange languages stands in his shadow.Was a serious religious thinker? Not quite so much as C.S. Lewis, though he certainly changed the course of Protestant religious thought on that night when he and Lewis strolled about talking about the myth that became fact. Serious, yes. But not everything that dripped from his pen had to flow past his WWJD bracelet, first.Frodo understood what I don't?HE DOESN'T EXIST!You do grasp that, right?Tolkien gave vague allusions to meaning and destinies throughout his stories. But they are not Christian allegories, and he said so, himself. He also snorted - or harumphed, as a typical Oxford don might - at precisely the sort of reverential treatment and searches for deeper meanings in his stories that you float as a sign of your devotion.He considered the primary purpose of fantasy was escape. Or to have fun, though you scoff at that. He wasn't concerned with creating a perfect, airtight bubble of a self-contained world, flawless in every respect.</blockquote>

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