Canon: what ARE we babbling about? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

**The Saucepan Man** · 08-23-2005, 03:43 AM

To change the subject (

), I found the following comment by Kuruharan on another thread (Melkor's depiction by artists: Flawed?) interesting in this context:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

(It is kind of hard to disagree with how Tolkien drew Smaug in my own view)

Do we include Tolkien's own drawings and paintings of the peoples and locations of Middle-earth within "Middle-earth Canon"? It seems to me that they clearly fall within the third option on the poll, which refers to his "ideas" being included. Which would mean that any concept of Middle-earth which contradicted any of Tolkien's own illustrations would be non-canonical.

View Poll Results: Canonicity means:
The author's published works, during his lifetime	3	15.00%
The author's published works including those edited/published posthumously	5	25.00%
ALL of the author's works, notes, letters, and ideas, published or not, conflicting or not	9	45.00%
What the reading community says is Canon	0	0%
What the BarrowDowns community says is Canon	1	5.00%
What the critics say is Canon	0	0%
Canon is whatever I, the reader, want it to be	1	5.00%
Something completely (or slightly) different [if you choose this last option, please explain yourself in the thread. Thank you]	1	5.00%
Voters: 20. You may not vote on this poll