The fate of Ecthelion the Balrog-slayer

[Elthir]

Look, as long as you reserve for yourself the right to define what a "true inconsistency" is, there is no point in continuing this discussion. No, you're not simply saying "I'm right", you're doing something much worse. You're asking people not to provide evidence for their points, but for distortions you make out of them - and you did so repeatedly during this "discussion".

Tyelkormo: on the contrary I'm asking you to provide specific evidence for your point -- looking for something specific to back up your own statement. You wrote: 'It WAS an inconsistency, because it didn't fit together with the rules he had established, and so he had to do something to make it fit.'


If you like, you can define what a "true inconsistency" is -- then point out which specific elements or details fall in line with your definition.


Again I'm asking: what exactly doesn't fit with what rule?

For example, if you say "reincarnated Elves can't or don't return to Middle-earth at any time" then please provide the text where this is established as a rule. I say that Tolkien had to do nothing here because there was nothing here that didn't fit with any established rules. JRRT no more had to explain the appearance of two occurrences of Glorfindel than he had to explain more than one instance of Rúmil, or Boromir.

If you can't point to A being arguably inconsistent with B -- that is, if you can't provide anything specific that doesn't fit with something else, then yes I'm challenging (not "distorting") your general statement here.

You yourself provided evidence for what I said, but since it doesn't comply with your own set of definitions, you simply ignore it. And as long as that's the case, there's no point in further wasting time.

Here you say I provided evidence for what "you said" (meaning your point I assume), and you also wrote: '"The whole point -your own quote showing that Tolkien "took up the question" illustrates that the situation was far from self-explanatory. So Tolkien came up with an explanation."

Well, here you are not using "glitch" or "inconsistency", but saying the situation is "far from self-explanatory."

In my opinion inconsistency and not "self-explanatory" are not the same things. Tolkien simply deciding to write about whether or not there were two Glorfindels is very different from a need to explain something because it is not consistent with some established point or rule.

After the publication of The Silmarillion in 1977, people began to wonder if the Glorfindel of the Gondolin tale could be the same one from The Lord of the Rings. The matter wasn't self-explanatory, but why characterize the mere appearance of the same name as inconsistent with something else?