Talk:The Lord of the Rings

"Although often mistakenly called a trilogy..."

Even if Tolkien hadn't himself called it a trilogy (which he did), this is slightly unhinged / WP:POVy wording for something that—regardless of original intent—was in fact published and has continually been republished as a trilogy, innit?

People who call it a trilogy aren't mistaken in any sense, although there are historical / resurrection-of-the-author reasons not to consider it a mistake to refer to it as a single book or a hexalogy either. — LlywelynII 13:17, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. However, the statement is not an editorial Point-of-View as you imply: it is reliably cited both to one of Tolkien's letters, and to the Tolkien Society, so we have it on extremely good authority. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:44, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Except those aren't authorities, any more than the guy who tried to get everyone else to change how they talk by putting up a sign that "GIF is pronounced JIF, not GIF".

Trilogy has a straightforward meaning, is widely used for this work, and original authorial preference for how the work wasn't published has no bearing. Leaving aside that you've got a separate source for Tolkien himself calling it one, not that it especially matters.

In any case, the wording as it stands is incredibly WP:POVy. See Archive 7 for how it used to be more sensibly worded based on the same sources. — LlywelynII 13:51, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

There are any number of critical and scholarly sources saying the same thing, e.g. Robert T. Tally. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:56, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Your source admits in his opening sentences that everyone but the people involved in the process of publication (and a minority of fans) considers it a trilogy. Ngram bears that out, showing the balance of scholarship and actual use isn't on the side of using the word "mistakenly" here. — LlywelynII 14:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Note also that Tolkien pointedly objected to describing this works as a novel (Archive 3). The current article begins

This article is about the novel... The Lord of the Rings is an epic[1] high fantasy novel[a]...

Any particular reason you're devoted to following the guy's opinion on one term but not the other? If anything, it's certainly a 3-volume work and only questionably a novel, unless you're going by the definition that any long piece of prose is automatically one. — LlywelynII 14:02, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

You are very argumentative. I'm aware of what Tally says, and we are not relying on him alone, you won't get anywhere by picking and choosing among the evidence. As you have already been told, there are multiple RS of which I've told you about 3 so far, there are others: the matter is reliably cited and not in doubt. Tally makes quite clear that folks think it's a trilogy but, and the emphasis is on the but. The weight of sources is more than sufficient for the statement. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:24, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I would tend to agree that 'mistaken' is too strong to be written in wiki voice. Whether the 3 published works are a trilogy or not is not an objective fact that one can be wrong or right about, it's a descriptor applied to the work by sources. If we're going to say that it's 'mistaken' to be described as a trilogy without in text attributation, the bar isn't that there are sources that support mistaken, it's that any that don't are so outnumbered or discredited that they're basically fringe. I'm not seeing that. Britinaica refers to it both as a novel and also the Fellowship as being the first of the trilogy, which I think is reasonable; both descriptors are valid. I'm fine with the top of the lead describing it as a novel, but would support removing the word mistakenly, which would have added advantage of being in line with the body text in the publication history section. Scribolt (talk) 16:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)