noWizardme
Gondolin
Wed, 11:22am
Views: 221
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Be careful not to 'dig too deep'! (and some rumblings about 'Word Of God')
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Please dig, but don't 'did too deep'. I mean, look what happend to the dwarves of Moria 
Seriously though, I have to say that I suspect that any publicly available document that's at all relevant to Balrog wings has been so rummaged through and argued about over the years. So it's not too likely that there is much left unexamined on which to build a re-examination.
But of course I could be wrong about that.
For me, at least (and I think this is also fairly clear in Reading Room culture, though that of course may change over time with changing participants, and other boards may anyway differ), there's also an important distinction between:- "what Tolkien Really Meant or "The True Meaning of Tolkien" etc. on the one hand. This tends to be (ortends to be taken to be) a claim that this particular reading is correct or canonical or compulsory (as I sarcastically put it The One Reading To Rule Them All) and;
- Interpretations (these are the ideas I am having; or the connections I am making; or in any other way the fun I am having) on the other
The first is a biographical claim about Tolkien (like "Tolkien didn't like chocolate"). The second may be a personal statement ("I like chocolate")
Of course, in principle maybe Tolkien did mean a specific thing at this point in the text. Or he did like chocolate, or was badly allergic to it, or just didn't like it. And in principle we might find him (or a very compelling secondary source - C Tolkien, say) explaining that such and such a thing was what he did mean. Or about the chocolate.
But Tolkien was serially uninterested in, or even hostile to, explaining with official Word Of God what he meant about a lot of things in his texts. By "Word Of God" I mean the concept handily set out in this TV Tropes article:
A statement regarding some ambiguous or undefined aspect of a work, the Word of God comes from someone considered to be the ultimate authority, such as the creator, director or producer. Word Of God on TVTropes
And that TV Tropes explains well, I think, how expecting Word Of God on every issue is a bit naieve:
It's important to keep in mind that just because someone wrote a character or setting, doesn't mean they decided on a correct answer to every question that could possibly be asked about that character or setting. It is not at all uncommon for fans to ask questions which they believe to be obvious, but which the creator has never considered.
I think that is exactly the situation we are in with whether balrogs have wings or not.
The TV Tropes also raises a further point I think is very relevant to Tolkien:
Fans may look for the Word of God to settle Fanon disputes, but the Authority may have moved on and doesn't care to respond. In many cases the authority does not feel the need to respond; further pressure simply leads to suggestions that the fandom is misaimed . In point of fact, there are good reasons many creators don't respond to requests for this: they want the fans to make their own interpretations. Especially in an ongoing series where the creator knows facts the fans don't, they might very well know for a fact that both fan theories have truth in them and thus not wish to take sides. Alternatively, the author might view both readings of the story as equally acceptable, and thus not want to comment. TV Tropes article on Word Of God (ibid)
That point on 'misaimed fandom', is what is going on in Letter 153, in which Tolkien is expressing some irritiation (as I read it) with some fans having the cheek to tell him he's imagining his imaginary world wrong:
Dear Mr Hastings,
Thank you very much for your long letter. I am sorry that I have not the time to answer it, as fully as it deserves. You have at any rate paid me the compliment of taking me seriously; though I cannot avoid wondering whether it is not ‘too seriously’, or in the wrong directions. The tale is after all in the ultimate analysis a tale, a piece of literature, intended to have literary effect, and not real history. That the device adopted, that of giving its setting an historical air or feeling, and (an illusion of ?) three dimensions, is successful, seems shown by the fact that several correspondents have treated it in the same way–according to their different points of interest or knowledge: i.e. as if it were a report of ‘real’ times and places, which my ignorance or carelessness had misrepresented in places or failed to describe properly in others. Its economics, science, artefacts, religion, and philosophy are defective, or at least sketchy.
...
... I should actually answer: I do not care. This is a biological dictum in my imaginary world. It is only (as yet) an incompletely imagined world, a rudimentary ‘secondary’; but if it pleased the Creator to give it (in a corrected form) Reality on any plane, then you would just have to enter it and begin studying its different biology, that is all.
Letter 153 from 1954, Letters of JRR Tolkien, Ed H Carpenter
Gosh: Tolkien Fandom - taking Tolkien too seriously and in the wronng directions since 1954. Should I get some T--shirts printed?
By 'biological dictum' in the second paragraph there btw, the specific thing Tolkien is talking about is someone lecturing him about (real-world) biology or genetics, and claiming that, as seperate species or races, elves and Men should not be able to have fertile children together.
But I think Tolkien's point applies to balrogs. To paraphrase: if it pleased the Creator to give Arda (in a corrected form) Reality on any plane, then you would just have to enter it and begin studying the biology of balrogs, that is all.
To go back to interpretations (as opposed to claims to have discovered the Word Of God on a matter) I hope everyone can see how if I say "Tolkien didn't like chocolate" it's reasonable to ask for proof, but if I say "I like chocolate" it's ridiculous to tell me that I don't or ask me to prove it. And that remains so even for folks who can't imagine how anyone could like chocolate, or have ever tried it, or for whom it is anathema for some reason.
Good luck with your work on the HoME material Silvered-glass!
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"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Wed, 11:23am)
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