Another on the pig-pile of "read 1-4 but not more (yet)". I received #5 as a gift, and still haven't gotten around to it; but then, I hated #4, and since adulthood have found the first three increasingly flimsy and excessive. I think I just became immune to the Grandiose King Magic (tm).
As for revision -- not retconning; retconning literally means inserting new information to re-interpret old information in a way not originally intended --, in the original edition of The Hobbit, Gollum lets Bilbo go. It's only when the ring gained significance in Tolkien's mind that he went back and revised that chapter to make Gollum nastier and obstructionist. (I thinkk Bilbo's lying about the ring is also in the later editions, but not in the first.) Notably, the only edition you can find outside of rare book shops is the revised edition.
So, although I'm not always a fan of retro-tinkering, sometimes it can work and even be necessary to future endeavor. Sometimes, however (take note George Lucas), it's just egomania at work.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-11-21 01:36 pm (UTC)As for revision -- not retconning; retconning literally means inserting new information to re-interpret old information in a way not originally intended --, in the original edition of The Hobbit, Gollum lets Bilbo go. It's only when the ring gained significance in Tolkien's mind that he went back and revised that chapter to make Gollum nastier and obstructionist. (I thinkk Bilbo's lying about the ring is also in the later editions, but not in the first.) Notably, the only edition you can find outside of rare book shops is the revised edition.
So, although I'm not always a fan of retro-tinkering, sometimes it can work and even be necessary to future endeavor. Sometimes, however (take note George Lucas), it's just egomania at work.