I find it interesting that throughout the LotR trilogy and Hobbit, Elrond and Galadriel never talked to each other. They were in the same places as each other but I don't recall them ever speaking to one another except for that telepathic scene in the Two Towers.
@user14111 Yes, but it was originally released as a trilogy in 1954 and 1955. The Hobbit, on the other hand, is a small book that was miserably and excruciatingly stretched into a trilogy by Peter Jackson.
@MishaRosnach Now who am I to believe? You, or the wise and mighty Wikipedia which avers that "One of the most popular 'trilogies' of fantasy books, The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, is not a trilogy, though it is often referred to as such."
@user14111 Me, in this case. Or, if you prefer, the Lord of the Rings Wikipedia article, which talks about the book's release in three consecutive volumes in the Publication History section, as well as gives the release dates at the top.
@MishaRosnach We all know that LoTR was released in three volumes. As Wikipedia goes on to say, "Tolkien regarded it as a single work and divided it into a prologue, six books, and five appendices. Because of post-World War II paper shortages, it was originally published in three volumes. It is still most commonly sold as three volumes, but has also been published in one-volume and seven-volume editions (six books and the appendices)." I guess, if Tolkien had written a trilogy, he would be one of the first to know.
@MishaRosnach "Released as a trilogy" is meaningless. The word "trilogy" does not mean "a book published in three volumes". I have an old unabridged dictionary in three volumes, with subtitles "A–G", "H–R", and "S–Z". It's not a trilogy.
@user14111 "A set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works." This is from the Wikipedia link you yourself provided earlier. I'm not sure why you think "released as trilogy" is meaningless - I'd say it describes exactly what happened with TLoR. But if we're at the point of a dispute where one of us attempts to appeal to semantic minutia, I think I'm ready to end it and be happy that isn't me.
@Richard Yeah, if The Hobbit hasn't managed to teach them a lesson about what happens when you let Peter Jackson screw with the story. He had something as wonderful as The Hobbit, and he gave us that. The Silmarillion, good as it is, is kinda boring to someone who's not into that stuff already. I'd almost be curious to see the depths of awfulness Peter Jackson might explore in a Silmarillion trilogy.
@MishaRosnach - I disagree. The films, although somewhat simplistic, were an excellent adaptation of a difficult work. The fact that they also needed to cater to a mass audience made it doubly difficult but Jackson and Pippa Bowens did a fine job, in my humble opinion.
@Richard Yeah, I dunno. I think you could say that about TLoR, although I wouldn't call it excellent. I'd say it wasn't bad. But The Hobbit? The story was written really well already, and Tolkien gave it its appropriate length. I'd say Peter Jackson tried to outdo Tolkien in writing fantasy - Tolkien's own fantasy - and it shows. It's like trying to stretch out Beethoven's 7th into an hour and a half. I think it would have been much better if he didn't do that. But I suppose it's a matter of preference in the end.
@ATB The technical definition of "trilogy" was never the point. The point was that LOTR was large and released in three books and three movies, and The Hobbit small, one book, and three movies. I'm not sure where you're getting such confidence about the term "trilogy," considering that the definition of it is extremely loose and varies from source to source, but let's step back for a sec and recognize this for what it is - a stupid semantic discussion that always begins when the real discussion is over. Let's all move on.
room topic changed to Is "The Lord of the Rings" a trilogy or not?: Imported from a comment discussion on scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/126637/… [lord-of-the-rings] [tolkien]
Is "The Lord of the Rings" a trilogy …
Is "The Lord of the Rings" a trilogy …