One of these things is not like the others...

[Mithadan]

Readers have many reasons for becoming enthralled with Tolkien's works. A common reason is that his writing is infused with a sense of realism and the various and many threads of his storylines are coherent and consistent. Everything seems correct and right. Everything has a place into which it seems to fit. This is, in part, because his stories were always top of mind to Tolkien. He was forever fiddling, tweaking and rewriting, even taking years to do so. His focus upon detail is what makes everything fit into place.

Everything in Tolkien's subcreated world seems conistent and neat. Everything fits..except when it doesn't. Some of these elements that don't fit are minor but many are obvious. They fascinate us and are the focus of extended discussion. You see, the Silmarillion and LoTR make things very clear. There are the Ainur and their people; the "speaking peoples", the Elves, Men, Ents and Dwarves; the kelvar and the olvar, the animals and plants. All very neat and clean. Which is why we are fixated upon and fascinated by the likes of Bombadil, the Stone Giants, the speaking thrush, Beorn, even Orcs/Goblins, Trolls and Dragons, Werewolves, Vampires and Wargs. These all don't fit and there are many other the examples. The latter examples, the "corrupted ones" are easy to explain, with the exception of Dragons. They were Men/Elves/Ents/Dwarves twisted to serve as thralls to Morgoth and Sauron. But the others do not fit neatly into the Mythos and, in the case of Bombadil in particular, seem to intentionally not fit.

We all know the "what". We could generate a list of misfits and proceed to argue whther they fit or not and what they are in order to stuff them into recognized and proper slots. We have done so many times. The "what" is not the subject of this thread. This thread is intended to delve into the "why". Tolkine rewrote, edited and reviewed his works countless times. He even went to the trouble to incororate edits and rewrites into new editions. The "misfits" are intentional. Tolkien knew they were there and wanted them to be there. It would have been too easy for him to excise them or clarify their status during his endless rewrites. Why are the misfits in Tolkien's mythos? Do they work or serve a purpose? Do they make his works better or worse?

[doug*platypus]

An interesting subject, Mithadan. Why indeed did Tolkien choose to insert these enigmatic and fascinating beings into his works? It seems at odds with the Professor's desire to neatly catalogue everything from etymologies to family trees. As you have stated, most of the beings in Tolkien's created world have a definite place and we feel certain that they belong. Even the balrog of Moria, which could have been one of the more mysterious creatures in LOTR, is given a credible back story.

In the opinion of this humble platypus, there were possibly two reasons why we have enigmas which don't have such a fixed sense of belonging.

Firstly, Tolkien wanted his world to have mysteries to make it more fantastic and more interesting. It would be a little boring if everything was neatly explained, if every creature's origin were known. Perhaps he was harking back to a time in our world when we were not so sure ourselves of the world surrounding us. Even the noble platypus was an enigma at one point, and thought to be a taxidermist's practical joke. Now they have been catalogued by scientists as a monotreme, neatly filed away in the collective mind of the scientific community, and some of the magic alas! seems to have been lost.

Scientific progress has seen us discover the reason why the dinosaurs perished, as well as the evolutionary origin of birds, and we have now mapped the human genome and successfully cloned animals. To Tolkien's mind, maybe, the modern world would be a little sterile and cold, and no longer magical. That could be the reason why certain people are obsessed with inexplicable phenomena such as the legendary Loch Ness monster or sasquatch.

Tolkien, in his invented world, took the enigmatic to new heights. Tom Bombadil is not simply a legend on the periphery of our heroes' consciousnesses; he is a living, breathing character with no explainable background. Something could probably be dredged out of Letters to explain why Tolkien made him so, but I don't know the work well enough to do so. What I do recall though, is that he was left as an enigma, purposefully. I put it to you that the first of the two reasons why Tolkien chose to do so, was that to explain something takes away the magic of it. By some wonderful coincidence, the Björk song I am listening to at the moment has a similar idea:

so don't make me say it
it would burst the bubble
break the charm

Secondly, and this is pure guesswork, I would say that Tolkien lacked either the time or the inclination to explain absolutely everything. As Gandalf says,

"the long explanations needed by the young are wearying"

Yes, there are giants in Middle Earth. They stride along moors or hurl rocks, as the mood takes them. Is any further explanation really necessary? There are nameless things that gnaw the earth below Caradhras; to keep them nameless maintains the horror element.

Tolkien once remarked that certain people want to know more about the geography of Middle Earth, while others want tunes to go along with the songs, and so on. He could not possibly have satisfied all of the Tolkien information junkies out there in one lifetime. He did the best that he could in providing background information and stories, and better than any other author of fiction could ever hope to achieve; the man's imagination and craft were incomparable. You could argue perhaps that the Star Wars saga is more complete in terms of back stories for characters, but that has come about through the works of countless authors churning out books, comics, cartoons, etc. which, as not the work of George Lucas, can never be taken as canonical anyway. Tolkien was only one (exceptional) man.

[Mithadan]

Let's see. He didn't have the time to fix his little "inconsistencies"? I don't buy that. He rewrote the entire Silmarillion in various different formats at least seven or eight times, not including the "Lost Tales" and the multiple variant versions that Christopher Tolkien is so fond of addressing in his introductions and notes in HoME. He created multiple rough drafts of virtually every chapter of LoTR, then did two cover to cover rewrites (if I recall). He reworked portions of the Hobbit so that it was somewhat more consistent with LoTR. He created a "base" language then evolved it into two or more variants taking into account cultural differences and geographic and temporal separation. He wrote personal, not for publication, commentaries and linguistic and philosphical treatises as well as the Appendices.
I simply find it completely unlikely that JRRT would simply not find the time to "make everything fit" in his mythos.

The misfits are in there on purpose. Some would have been altogether too simply to address. He created Ents for LoTR then incorporated a creation story for them in the Silmarillion and even gave them a tiny role in the story of Beren and Luthien. How hard would it have been to drop a line or two into the Valaquenta addressing the strange Maia who "went native" with his wife and chose to live an odd and whimsical life in one of the last remnants of the "Old Forest". He chose not to do so (and this is not an invitation to debate the nature of Bombadil; I'm merely saying it would have been easy for him to address the issue).

He wanted there to be mysteries -- things unexplained? Maybe. But I have my doubts. To me, this issue is like an onion to be peeled. In my view, JRRT intended that the Hobbit be written by Bilbo, a rustic and relatively unsophisticated Hobbit. Bilbo made mistakes or misinterpretations of what he saw and experienced. A lightning storm becomes Stone Giants. Howling wargs seem to be speaking. Gandalf (perhaps) paralyzes Trolls and Bilbo attributes this to the effect of the sun.

Or not. Maybe it's as simple as this. The Hobbit is a childrens tale. JRRT did not want to change its character or make it inaccessible to children. Or maybe it's a little of both.

LoTR? Written by Frodo. More wordly and better educated. But still a Hobbit and subject to the flaws of a Hobbit's interpetation of matters beyond his experience. Silmarillion? Not written by Elves, but rather by scholars in Gondor ages after the events occured, or alternatively a Gondorian editing of Bilbo's Books of Lore. There may have been varying versions of the tales and the distinction between history and legend may have blurred. Information may have been lost or garbled resulting in the literary equivalent of "here there be dragons".

Thoughts? Debate?

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

A fine topic.

Don't you think that the notion of the 'authors' of the books was of secondary importance? The unexplained entities allow the reader to become even more involved in the fantasy. I think this was of primary importance to the storyteller. The quaint idea of inventing different authors was a lovely touch allowed for by the way Tolkien told—and concealed—the story and its elements.

[Raynor]

Which is why we are fixated upon and fascinated by the likes of Bombadil, the Stone Giants, the speaking thrush, Beorn, even Orcs/Goblins, Trolls and Dragons, Werewolves, Vampires and Wargs.

Some of them are, indeed, intended enigmas - such as Bombadil:

Originally Posted by Letter #144

And even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally).

Though I can't recall the letter at the moment, he did state that he wanted others to continue his cycle. The stone giants are a passing refference - but we do see pairs of good evil for almost everything - even Tulkas represents the good side of violence cf Myths Transformed, so maybe Melkor's (?) evil trolls have good counterparts - as in the Letters and in LotR, he rejects the idea of something completely evil. Concerning speaking animals, Tolkien did complain about it:

Originally Posted by Orcs, Myths Transformed, HoME X

What of talking beasts and birds with reasoning and speech? These have been rather lightly adopted from less 'serious' mythologies, but play a part which cannot now be excised. They are certainly 'exceptions' and not much used, but sufficiently to show they are a recognized feature of the world. All other creatures accept them as natural if not common.

The rest of the bunch are indeed interesting, Beorn, wargs, werewolves, etc, but I do think that their primary home, of all the possible humanly conceivable ones, is in fantasy. That is their right place, and they fit with the laws of the created universe, and therefore have a positive participation to the success of the story, not the other way around. However, I do believe that there were things that were beyond what he deem possible to correct:

Originally Posted by Letter #131

It is not possible even at great length to 'pot' The Lord of the Rings in a paragraph or two. .... It was begun in 1936 and every part has been written many times. Hardly a word in its 600,000 or more has been unconsidered. And the placing, size, style, and contribution to the whole of all the features, incidents, and chapters has been laboriously pondered. I do not say this in recommendation. It is, I feel, only too likely that I am deluded, lost in a web of vain imaginings of not much value to others — in spite of the fact that a few readers have found it good, on the whole. What I intend to say is this: I cannot substantially alter the thing. I have finished it, it is 'off my mind': the labour has been colossal; and it must stand or fall, practically as it is.

[doug*platypus]

Mithadan

He didn't have the time to fix his little "inconsistencies"? I don't buy that.

Ah, but I didn't commit myself fully there. I stated that he lacked either the time or the inclination to explain everything away. You make a good case for him having the time available, so that leaves only the inclination.

Raynor has once again provided the right quote at the right time:

Letter #131

What I intend to say is this: I cannot substantially alter the thing. I have finished it, it is 'off my mind': the labour has been colossal; and it must stand or fall, practically as it is.

This quote implies that there was some reluctance to revisit LOTR; this reluctance extending possibly even to the origins of some of the unexplained creatures contained within the book.

We know that Tolkien continued to work on his invented world after publication of LOTR. Why did he not choose to write complete back stories or creations for Bombadil, dragons and giants? Was it because he was too busy with the actual events of the First and Second Ages? Did the mystery elements of The Hobbit and LOTR get nudged aside, as the Professor was preoccupied? Or was it a conscious decision to leave the ambiguity as it was?

Bilbo made mistakes or misinterpretations of what he saw and experienced. A lightning storm becomes Stone Giants. Howling wargs seem to be speaking. Gandalf (perhaps) paralyzes Trolls and Bilbo attributes this to the effect of the sun.

In defence of the original Mr Baggins, and The Hobbit, Gandalf also believed in the Stone Giants, saying that he would have to find a more or less decent giant to stop up the cave in which the dwarves and Bilbo were captured. And in FOTR, Aragorn tells the hobbits that it would be impossible for a troll to be abroad in the sunlight. Surely the lore of Gandalf and Aragorn is to be trusted? I would say they are almost as authoritative as the narrator himself? Dog waiters we may have a bit more of a struggle to reason with!