15 Debates and discussion (Tolkien Newsgroups)
Description
This article is from the Tolkien Newsgroups FAQ, by Steuard Jensen sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu with numerous contributions by others.
15 Debates and discussion (Tolkien Newsgroups)
A great many questions about Tolkien and his books arise repeatedly
on the Tolkien newsgroups. The starting point of each debate is the
same almost every time, and it takes a long time for the discussion to
reach "new ground." In the worst cases, bitter and longstanding
arguments about the basics get in the way before new progress can be
made at all.
The purpose of a FAQ is to avoid this problem by setting down the
basics in a common place so that the discussion can deal with new
issues from the start. However, it is very difficult to balance the
need for conciseness with the need for completeness: many debates that
repeatedly appear on the Tolkien newsgroups have generated very large
amounts of "known territory."
Keep in mind that this FAQ provides only summaries of these debates:
many of their subtleties are omitted for the sake of brevity. Most of
these topics have been discussed at length by many intelligent people,
but there are still cases where we do not agree on the answer. In these
cases, it is extremely unlikely that any unambiguous "proof" of one
position exists. With this in mind, try to be respectful toward those
who disagree with you. To get more information on the usual content of
common discussions, it is often helpful to browse those discussions
themselves at the Google Groups Usenet archive (see question IV.A.5 for
more information).
Finally, be sure to read question III.A.2, dealing with "canonical"
texts. This FAQ addresses only the state of Middle-earth after LotR
was written, which corresponds roughly to the material included in the
published _Silmarillion_. Details from earlier versions of the
mythology will not be discussed in this document (and are generally
given very limited weight in debates about the later state of the
mythology).
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