Talk:Christian light in Tolkien's legendarium

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Christian light in Tolkien's legendarium/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 10:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: SnowFire (talk · contribs) 22:48, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Start

I'll take a look at this one. Been up since March, I see. SnowFire (talk) 22:48, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Usual disclaimer goes here that any prose suggestions are just that, suggestions, and you should feel free to push back or revise if you prefer the wording as is.

Many thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:18, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

That said, I think the main topic here isn't prose. The main worry is that this article seems to skirt the lengths of WP:SYNTH, original research via synthesis. To be clear, I think it is a good and interesting article and deserves to exist somewhere, but I'm also not super comfortable giving it a GA stamp of approval as is. (Like, the extreme hardcore option is "this should be an essay published elsewhere, which is then cited as a source by a smaller Wikipedia article." Which is not what I'm recommending to be clear, I think is fixable, but there is something to be fixed.) I think the article is sort of okay as a very, very long WP:SUMMARYSTYLE spinoff of the Splintered Light article if we think that Flieger's thoughts are worth a true deep-dive, along with the Robbins source, but there's a lot of stuff in here that appears to be either primary sourced, or using secondary sources in service of a point that isn't really in them. For example, the Robert Steed article on the Harrowing of Hell & Tolkien is very interesting, but the comment on Jesus being a figure of light is just one fragment of a list. If you asked someone to read the article and summarize it, I don't think they'd come across with a major theme of light; that's just one aspect reinforcing the parallel. (It DOES talk about light in the legendarium, but the connection to Christianity is something in passing.) I think the best thing to help the article would be to include more secondary sources that directly tie together Christianity, light, and Tolkien.

• Several things here.
  • On the relation to Splintered Light: that is on Flieger's book, and its focus is obviously on the reception of that book; it's not appropriate for a book article to go into much detail on the book's actual topic (and the thoughts of other scholars on that).
  • What that book of Flieger's does establish, is that the theme of light is extremely powerful within Tolkien's thought as expressed in the legendarium. Flieger is one of the top few Tolkien scholars (up there with Shippey, certainly), and the reaction to the book has been pretty much universal acclaim. That means that I have certainly not invented the topic of this article; nor have I had to do anything to build it up to make it look big or anything of that sort, as it's simply there. If you're worried that I'm a closet Christian shooting a personal line, I'm happy to tell you I don't subscribe to any religion; I'm just reporting this theme in scholarly thought, and I've written up multiple other major themes (like courage, and England, and environmentalism, for instance).
    • Not accusing you of inventing the topic, just that it does seem like Flieger is really what this article stands on. In other words, if Flieger somehow didn't write the book and nobody wrote a replacement book, this article wouldn't exist, not because it isn't 'true', but because we wouldn't be able to source it (WP:VNT). That said, if Flieger really is a big deal in Tolkien scholars, then I'm not disagreeing with you that it's defensible as a separate article, just presenting the issue. (To be 100% clear, I've written on some obscure topics too, including one where there's basically a single book-length treatment in English.)
    • But given the above, I think if anything we need to be citing Flieger more aggressively and more specifically here. As I stated in my original paragraph, I feel like there's too much primary sourcing at the moment - see below for more. If we end up with an article with heavy Flieger cites everywhere, it's okay.
      • Well, 3 things here: 1) Flieger is already thoroughly cited; 2) the Primary/Tolkien sources are cited ONLY to enable readers to find the material being discussed; 3) Flieger is by no means the only scholar who has written on the topic, as Robbins goes deeply into it, and the other scholars cited illuminate significant aspects of the subject.

* Yeah, to be clear, I'm not complaining about primary source cites as a "side note" deal. I'm complaining about where primary sources are covering everything without a secondary source specifically on this topic (e.g. Flieger / Robbins). That's the whole trick with WP:SYNTH - we're not supposed to cite some primary sources ourselves and use it to draw conclusions, merely report what others wrote. See below for more.

As a thought, I see this used to be at just "Light in Tolkien's legendarium", and it might be worth considering a move back to expand the scope of the article. That would make the SYNTH issues less pressing as sources that merely discuss light in Tolkien become more valid. It could start with Light first, and then go into "by the way Flieger wrote a whole book tying this into Tolkien's Christianity." That would be another way to make some of the current structure more palatable and less SYNTH-y, since the primary sources clearly mention light, but "Christian light" is only in a select set of the sources.

• I don't mind whether the title includes the word "Christian" or not; but it wouldn't change the article. Tolkien was a devout Christian, and he intentionally (and perhaps also unconsciously) wove Christianity deeply into the legendarium. There are no subtopics about light that would somehow arrive in the article by modifying the title; everything Tolkien wrote about light has been stated by scholars to fit Christian themes.
  • Well, this is GAN not WP:RM, so I certainly won't insist on adjusting the title. I'm just saying that there are currently primary sourced aspects that are obviously, noncontroversially talking about light, and thus more defensibly on-topic than restricting to "Christian" light. As an example, the Kocher reference is talking about light, but not really Christianity. The Steed article self-admits that this whole Harrowing of Hell analogy is a hypothesis. A grounded, supported hypothesis, but it's not something Tolkien directly confirmed. It changes the tenor from "Here's some Christian Light, fact" to "Here's a use of Light, here's the main hypothesis why", and the second is more supported IMO. (But, it's up to you, and I won't push it anymore if you feel the current title is best.)
    • Noted.

Context

• Light is a major Christian symbol, denoting God and creation in the Old Testament, and the action of Christ in the New Testament. Is this really supported by the body of the article? I'm not sure this is really true. The "problem" is that the Bible is the most analyzed book ever written, so you can find Somebody Saying Something anywhere. I could just as easily say that one of the Plagues of Egypt is supernatural darkness (clearly said to be from God), and there's more divine darkness during Jesus's crucifixion (before he dies, yes). I'm being a bit contrarian here, but the point is I think this may be overstating the case. A weaker claim might be better, that light has a positive resonance and can be used to emphasize God's power in the Bible or the like. But I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.
  • I've tweaked the claim; anything that improves clarity is good. However, light appears right at the start of the Old Testament, and again right at the start of John's Gospel, so it is certainly given pride of place; and each time, as quoted in 'Context', it is explicitly given extremely high status. The 'Context' carefully cites both primary (biblical) and secondary (theological) texts for balance. To put it another way, Christian scholars do not go about saying light is a trivial symbol. On your darkness, the section already quotes "the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not", i.e. the light is divine and more powerful than the darkness. Even we non-Christians can feel the importance of that statement.
    • This goes back to the OR concerns above. I just don't think the sources later on are strong enough for such a powerful claim. (Christ acts quite a bit in the NT, and light is only sometimes part of it, so this claim really seems too strong. And saying it "denotes" God's creation also seems too strong - it's an extremely famous part of Genesis 1, yes, but denotes in general?) Going into the body for where this lede sentence is drawing from - the point is that citing Bible verses directly, and some random articles (Vincit Omnia Veritas was published only from 2005 to 2007? Five issues total? Unclear editing pass?), aren't really selling this as noncontroversial. Again, I could cite some Bible verses directly, as well as some obscure essays, talking about the Christian God as a God of darkness and themes that reinforce this. And this would be real shaky, right? It's an example of the perils of heavily primary and weakly sourced stuff, that it could allow the hypothetical God-of-darkness slant through, so we want secondary sources. Even the devil quoth scripture primary sources. The Context section needs to be citing secondary sources that also discuss Tolkien, and the primary source references is just for side interest, ideally being primary sources that the secondary sources also found relevant to discuss the matter. (As an example, if you look at Attalus I, you can see sorta joint references that say "Here's the secondary source from a modern scholar, here's the primary source the secondary source is citing from Livy / Polybius / the Bible / Tolkien / etc." Although we wouldn't be using raw-text and would just use separate reference groups to match style here, of course.) Based on what you added, it sounds like Robbins 2017 at least confirms the relevance of Genesis 1? I think the other verses need the Robbins / Flieger ref added as appropriate if it's supported there. (Not even necessarily a prose change, but a "these Bible verses are directly cited by Robbins as relevant" deal.)
      • A 'Context' section can perfectly well cite primary sources to establish details about primary things, that are then discussed in a secondary way in the body of the article: the function of such contextual material is just to situate the reader, not to establish notability or even (given that it's just context) to describe the article's subject, that's not its job. That said, basically all the 'Context' is discussed and cited in 'Analysis'; and readers may well find that it illuminates the 'Silmarillion' and 'Lord of the Rings' plot sections as well.
      • The use of primary sources [T2]..[T15] is what would for a book article be the 'Plot' section, which is always primary-sourced: these refs just say where the material is in the legendarium, so that when 'Analysis' discusses things, the reader knows the outline of what is being discussed.

* On the Simarillion / LOTR sections: You're correct that plot stuff is usually fine to primary source. There'd be no big deal of reciting the basics, e.g. citing Frodo's basic plot arc or the like. The problem is that "light" is a really common and vague motif where secondary sources help out. A quick CTRL-F shows "light" showing up in "Fellowship of the Ring" 400+ times. Which ones are really on the theme of this article? This is where secondary citations can help out, as Flieger & others DO agree with you that Lothlorien is associated with Light. So I say we should use them to show that this isn't some editor going rogue with primary sources. (I keep mentioning ridiculous hypothetical primary source citations not because I think they're likely, but to show the problem with article sections sourced to pure primary sources. From primary sources, you could write "Light is associated with Bree; there is a blazing log-fire at The Prancing Pony, and the lamps of the town deter the Nazgul for a time," which is obviously bananas, but the fact it's bananas is shown by no secondary sources making such a ludicrous claim.) We DO have sources associated Lothlorien with Light, so use them here. You can keep the primary source references too, just add in the secondary ones.

• • • • • Added refs.
          • Thank you, this is better. My one thought is that Flieger p. 136 identifies Rivendell and "perhaps even the Shire" as "islands of light" - do you think that's worth mentioning in the LOTR background section? (I get that the section title is "Lothlorien", so up to you.)
            • Yes, I had wondered about doing that. I've adjusted the section heading and added the mention.

• On the Context, and the lede sentence about "Light is a major Christian symbol, denoting God's creation in the Old Testament, and the action of Christ in the New Testament" - oddly enough, for such a short section, this remains my largest worry with the article. As already mentioned, the Bible is the most analyzed book of all time. The Scott reference is very weak (no-name short-tenured journal, no-name author), the Spear reference is verifying one tiny side-note, and the Behr reference is more like a possible thought. The best reference by far is the Achtemeier reference (published in Interpretation (journal), a journal that at least has its own Wikipedia page), but it verifies it's mostly a Gospel of John thing in the NT writing the other gospels largely do NOT have this (so the mention of "New Testament" might be too broad already). She writes "In the Old Testament, light is continually associated with God and his word, with salvation, with goodness, with truth, with life." Nothing about it denoting creation. Later she writes "This first light (Gen. 1:3) is the result of the creative word of God." Result of creation, not equal with creation. Later she writes "wherever [God]'s word is spoken, this light is created," which is again a little different. Now, Tolkien obviously had his own spin on things, which is great! But it's not just that he was 100% honoring the OT, which is fine. Maybe there's something to be written about how Anglicans / English Catholics portrayed light in the early 20th century that they DID think it was about the act of creation, but that isn't sourced currently either. If you want to differ from Achtemeier, surely we can find other real, scholarly sources on Light in the Bible and Christianity, then repeat what they say. (EDIT: Realized I dropped the NT comments here too, but Achtemeir also isn't saying "light = action of Christ", either. She says that in John specifically, "[Jesus] is the source of light. He is the light of the world, and without him there is no light." The closest is "Throughout the New Testament, the good news is that Jesus Christ has brought light and eternal life to all men," but this is a bit more vague - he's bringing light, but it's not exactly "denoting his actions.")
  • I think that's resolved with your recent edits to 'Context'.
• I'm not trying to be a hardass here, I get this isn't FAC, just even as potentially a GA in the Philosophy & Religion section, it would still be an example to others of how Wikipedia does things. We can and should expect very high-quality sources for sweeping statements about the meanings of themes in Christianity and the Bible, even at the GA level. I'm happy to help look for them if you want.
  • Good. If you have one or two such Context sources, please let me know.
    • I wouldn't normally make significant edits as a reviewer, but since this was contentious, I went down to the library and grabbed two encyclopedias of Christianity. If either of them had talked about Light-as-creation-itself, I'd have included it, but neither did. I was trying to just present the Christian sources as what they said on Light, nothing more, nothing less, and including the Achtemeier source more deeply which I think was the best source before. I'm happy to send you pictures of the article if you want to check it yourself (the 2003 article seemed the better one). (They also talked a bit about the medieval reception, which might be relevant for Tolkien's medievalist instincts, but I'd definitely want a source on Tolkien to help with that rather than guess on whether Bonaventure treating divine grace within humans as light was relevant.) Anyway, take a look - does this work?
      • Yes, that's fine with me.

Other points

• The elf-lady Galadriel

This is a rather old-fashioned form of address. "The elf Galadriel" is fine. If you want to invoke her title, then "Galadriel, the Lady of Lórien" or the like.

• • Edited.

• The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that Tolkien equated light with God and the ability to create

Does she? Reading p. 47 of the copy of Shattered Light on archive.org (dunno if the paging is different in the cited edition), she says "all three elements—man, light, and truth—have their origin in God." Having an origin in God is not the same as equating with God. But maybe I'm looking at the wrong citation?

• • Not just one brief phrase, I'm afraid. The cited passage is about Tolkien's theory of subcreation, and p. 47 notes the "light/word correspondence", "both light and word ... can be instruments of sub-creation". Subcreation, in turn, is man's God-given ability to echo in miniature God's own act of creation, by doing things like painting or writing books; p. 45 "man is still the sub-creator, but his material now is light rather than word." To answer your question, then, light is God's creative Word; if in Genesis light seems to be something created, in John's Gospel it is seen to be the Divine Logos (the Word), which is Christ, so it's up to you if we call that God or not. We could say "equated light with God's ability to create", for instance. Let's try that. And his gift of that, of course, in subcreation.
    • The lead sentence looks better now. I read all of 44-49. In the body though, I'm still not 100% sure I agree "This creative light, she states, was for Tolkien equated with the Christian Logos, the Divine Word." She speaks that she personally sees the Word / poetry / etc. is "splintered light" on p.48-49, and p. 44 mentions the Logos as part of the law of creation, but a lot of her comments on p. 45-48 treat the word and light as two separate methods of creation, perception, etc. "Man is still the subcreator, but his material now is light rather than the word" and "Both light and word, then as Tolkien sees them, can be instruments of subcreation." While she thinks that the word is splintered light, it's also distinct from light, IMO, so I'd suggest a different phrasing here, unless you think I really am misinterpreting something.
      • Tweaked the sentence.
        • Looks good to me now.

• Paul H. Kocher writes that the Galadriel perceives Sauron with Lothlórien's light, "but cannot be pierced by it in return".

I can't find this quote - is this a different paging between editions matter? I checked the 1972 and 1977 editions on archive.org (not the 1974 one cited) and cannot find this quote anywhere near p. 57. I checked the index for "Galadriel" and "light" and didn't check EVERY reference, but the closest was p. 88, which talked about Lorien and Dol Guldur as being opposed forces and the darkness not perceiving the light's secret. But that's not quite the same thing. Can you point me to where to look?

The 1974 edition says on p. 74 "Like Galadriel in Lórien he perceives the Dark Lord and knows his mind, though Sauron gropes for his thoughts in vain. This basic epistemological superiority of the good over the evil is symbolized by Lórien's light, which pierces to the heart of the darkness of Dol Guldur but cannot be pierced by it in return." The chapter is "Sauron and the Nature of Evil"; this is the third page of that chapter.

Okay, the 1974 edition does indeed have different page numbering than the 1972/1977. I found the 74 edition on archive.org and it's on p. 57 as expected (was on p. 55 or so of the other editions).

This is quite a minor mention, but it's fine.

• Elizabeth Danna comments that this echoes the phrase in the Gospel of John

I'm a little skeptical of citing her in the lede. She appears to just be some person who had a website with an essay for awhile. I suppose she does say she was a PhD, but I'm not sure she's significant enough to be lede-worthy - it was a personal website, so there was presumably no editor or anything.

• • Removed from lead.

• and the book repeatedly equates "the light" with him

I would say "the Gospel of John repeatedly equates..." to be clear, as this theme isn't seen as much elsewhere in the NT.

• • Done.

• John Behr takes this to be a hymn expressing how the events of the New Testament occur in line with Christ's will.

Per above comments, it would really be great if we could be citing someone specifically talking about light & Tolkien & the Bible together. If that means more cites of Flieger / Robbins, so be it. (I guess the Behr cite can stay to show that they're not totally out of left field, but I wouldn't play it up without verification it's relevant either.)

• • Behr: noted.
  • Robbins: added some more detail, including corroborating Flieger.
    • I see the Robbins addition, but I'd still prefer if we could add extra references to the "Context" section, if merited (or to draw back the claims to what is in the secondary sources).
      • I've replied on 'Context' above.
      • I've added a ref for the Tolkien part of the context.
        • See above comments on potentially adding more secondary sources to Context, The Simarillon, and the LOTR sections.

• She cites from Tolkien's poem Mythopoeia ("Creation of Myth"):[6][T 16]

As a side note, this is the kind of thing I'd be hoping for to help solve the SYNTH worries above - tying the primary source and the secondary source right next to each other.

• • Good. Flieger, Kocher and others such as Wood spend their time drawing their own opinions from Tolkien's primary writings.

Splintering of the Created Light

• Splintering of the Created Light, with repeated re-creations

Is there a more specific cite here for this table than Flieger, passim?

• • The citation provides specific page numbers.
    • Yes, but they're "pp. 6–61, 89–90, 144-145 and passim." That's 60+ pages. I think that's fine if we're summing up just the overarching message of a ton of material (I had a cite recently on an entire 70 page journal article, but the claim was merely the main point of the whole article, so trivially correct) but this table is much more detailed than that. Is there are more specific page range that could be used? Or if it really is scattered across all of this, then separate cites per claim in the table? (I understand this may be a lot of work, but saying "just read the half the book" is also a lot to ask for.)
    • The three page ranges are the key parts, and yes, the whole book is about light. I've already given a much narrower range for ref [7]. For ref [6], pp. 6-61 is basically introductory, so I've cut it, leaving you with a very narrow summary page range.
      • Okay, I read the new smaller sections (although "passim" suggests that it could still extend further out). I'd say that it verifies the "Jewels" column of the table. This page range doesn't seem to verify the "Blue/Silver light" or "Golden light" columns, though. Does Flieger discuss that elsewhere? (Maybe move the current cite to "Jewels" and create separate citations with new page ranges for the other two?) SnowFire (talk) 20:57, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
        • Ah, went too far to please you... pp. 61-63 are needed for the other columns of the table. Column refs it is.
          • This is better, even if shorter. (Always fine to restore the stuff on the White Tree if a secondary source ties it with Light.)

• The theologian Ralph C. Wood comments that Melkor was "jealous that Ilúvatar alone possesses the Flame Imperishable, the Light of creative action",[8]

I didn't read the Wood source, and if this is what he says then okay I guess, but... this sounds fishy. Isn't one of the ideas of Tolkien that Ilúvatar basically wanted company, and so the other entities he created did have "creative action"? Not just Men, even Istari like Saruman can just neglect their duties if they want. Melkor rebelling is "creative action" too for that matter.

• • Checked the quote, it is directly from p. 50 of Wood. Tolkien says in a letter that the Flame Imperishable (the Secret Fire) is the Holy Spirit, so indeed Ilúvatar alone has it. Tolkien allows Elves and Men to have the ability to (sub)create; but even Fëanor, the hugely creative maker of the Silmarils, does not have the Flame Imperishable. So in the cosmology of Middle-earth, the two are distinct. You are also involving a third concept, the ability to rebel (in Christian terms, to sin); that is given to all sapient beings, but it isn't the Flame Imperishable either.
    • Fair enough. (archive.org has this source but absolutely won't load it for me at the moment.)
    • Archive.org is showing this to me now, and seems fine I suppose, although oddly enough it isn't really the passage I'd most highlight from the source. Rather it'd be Wood's comment on the next page that the Shadow in Tolkien-ology is inherently secondary and derivative from "Light", not its own thing of substance. (Which going back to the title of the article, I'd think is perhaps more theologically on point to the Christian analogies, since as pointed above I'm more skeptical of the current focus on light = creation in Christianity.)

• "The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

The Bible citation is a primary source, not a secondary source, so I'd switch with reference set it's in. (Also, and this is super optional since editors have the absolute right to pick whatever Bible translation they prefer... but... KJV? I'd humbly recommend something more modern, or if we want to honor the translation Tolkien probably heard, Douay-Rheims. But like I said, optional, it's up to you.)

• • It was the translation most likely to be familiar to his audience at the time, who I guess he conceived of as English. England was a mainly Protestant country back then.
    • Sure, so keep it KJV if you prefer that. But I still think we should switch the reference set - the Bible is absolutely not a secondary source, so it should get the group=T treatment for primary sources. SnowFire (talk) 02:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
      • Moved it out of Secondary.
        • The in-text attribution you changed it to works too.

• The scholar of humanities Susan Robbins notes

MOS:SAID, it's okay to closely repeat "writes".

• • Done.

Harrowing of Hell

• Per above comments, I found Steed's article interesting and worth covering on Wikipedia, but I question including so much of it in this article. The Steed article is on a Harrowing of Hell motif and the fact that Sam is light-bearing is just part of a larger package. (I dunno about Tolkien's Old English sources, but the Greek / Latin Gospel of Nicodemus does mention light but doesn't make it the full focus of the story either.) Is there not some other Wikipedia article on the legendarium that could cover this, and then we'd just have a sentence in this article pointing over there?
  • No obvious second home for it. It's definitely valuable here for showing the "light overcoming the darkness", to coin a phrase. We could trim the examples, or cut the later examples altogether, but we'd then be open to the question of why we'd mention something that Steed had discussed so briefly and with so little evidence. The fact that Tolkien has actually used the theme three times is itself remarkable, as Steed notes: once might be a coincidence, twice is emphatic, three times is definitely a statement about the theme's importance. Minor trimming, on the other hand, won't shorten the section much.
    • I guess to restate my case... suppose someone writes an academic article on the character Bob from Epic Fantasy Saga X. Bob 1) Initially antagonizes the heroes, 2) Is chasing after them on a road, 3) Suffers from a mysterious vision problem caused by the evil miasma threatening the world, 4) the heroes end up fixing his eyes with a magic herb despite their mutual hostility, and 5) Bob switches sides and joins the heroic party. The academic article argues that the author was invoking the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus. This might be a valid inclusion in a "Christianity / Mythology references in Epic Fantasy Saga X" topic, or for something more specific maybe "Bob (Epic Fantasy Saga X)" too. But it would be strange to include this topic in a Wikipedia article called "Roads in Epic Fantasy Saga X." Yes, a road is involved, but only as supporting evidence that this is a Paul analogy. That's basically the situation we're in here. There's 3 words in a list saying "4) associated with light" as a way of reinforcing Steed's point that Tolkien was drawing on the Harrowing of Hell in these various arcs, but the main point is the Harrowing of Hell, not Light. This is valid for Christianity in Middle-earth and maybe some of the character articles (Samwise Gamgee? The Gandalf / Theoden parallel seems like a stretch to me), but it's weird to put it in an article on Light. If there's truly, truly no other place for it, I guess, but I'd suggest the Christianity article if nothing else. SnowFire (talk) 02:19, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
      • "Setting the captives free with the irresistible power of his divine light" ... does make it seem as if the light might be really rather an important element (to put it mildly) of the story: and basically its whole point. On the Christianity article, I take that to be about plain, vanilla, unvarnished Christianity as she is spoke. The HoH theme is a medieval variant, a historical curiosity, so it would fit in a 'Medieval Christianity' article, but not as part of the general case.
• (de-indent) I still don't really agree. If I hadn't read this article and someone sent me Steed's article for use on Wikipedia, I'd use it to add to Sam's article "Robert Steed argues that Sam's rescue of Frodo from Shelob while wielding the Phial of Galadriel was a callback to the Harrowing of Hell." And possibly add it to "Of Beren and Lúthien" and "Tom Bombadil" too that Lúthien's rescue and Tom's rescue were also possibly callbacks to the Harrowing of Hell, or influenced by it. The key aspect here is the Harrowing, not the light - the light is supporting evidence of a Harrowing callback. Steed's article is titled "The Harrowing of Hell Motif in Tolkien's Legendarium"; it's not that subtle. Note that the word "light" appears in the Wikipedia article Harrowing of Hell all of twice currently. But maybe the WP article is bad; I went and checked a secondary source with an entire chapter on the Harrowing of Hell (Bart Ehrman's "Journeys to Heaven and Hell" p. 212-232), and it mentions the great light that precedes Jesus, sure, along with it being a fulfillment of Isaiah 9:1-2, but doesn't spend any more time on it. It's a story about Jesus's power to dramatically free captives from darkness that also fills in details about Jesus "descending to Hades", not about the power and meaning of Light. So no, I don't agree it's the "whole point", it's one aspect, just as the Road to Damascus is one aspect of Paul's conversion. A notable aspect, which is why I'm arguing that mentioning it here and pointing somewhere else would be totally fine, but it's not the main point.
• To be clear, this is not a blocking demand, I'm not going to fail the nomination over this. But I do think it's a mistake and as a regular editor would strongly suggest it stands out as not really a good fit. Please keep this in mind if you ever find a more natural place to stick this material. Surely you agree that Steed is talking about the Harrowing of Hell as a motif as the primary topic of his article, right? That's what he directly says in the title. This wasn't a typo where he meant to title the article "Light as a motif in Tolkien's Legendarium."
  • Noted. I'll note that Steed quotes Piers Plowman, a medieval 3rd-party source, directly and contemporaneously linking light with the Harrowing of Hell. I've added this, with both modern and medieval refs, to the context, as it's evidently necessary.
    • It's a fair addition, but per above, I'm not questioning or surprised that light is involved with the Harrowing of Hell. I just am arguing that it is not the main focus such that the story is a meditation on the power of the light or the like (nor are the LOTR parallels). Piers Plowman is a long poem, after all, with lines on lots of stuff. Jesus is the star of the Harrowing, Sam is the star of the Shelob showdown.
      • Noted, but that isn't the requirement for a subsection.

Summary

• The images all appear to be correctly licensed. Clearly not a copyright violation or a close paraphrase. Citation style is fine, neutral, stable. So the side criteria are all set. It's really criteria 2c that's the main concern per above - hopefully it shouldn't take TOO much tweaking to satisfy, just per above, the article is uncomfortably close to the borderline on SYNTH currently in parts IMO. SnowFire (talk) 00:10, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
  • Noted, thanks. I've replied to your comments above, which doesn't mean the threads don't remain discussable, or that we can't change things in the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:22, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
    • Sent back another set of replies above. SnowFire (talk) 02:19, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
      • Noted.
        • One more set, think we're close now. SnowFire (talk) 20:57, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

        I'm off to bed, but if you want to find sources as above for some reason, why not do that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:25, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

        • • I'm not trying to waste your time - or mine, for that matter. I think one of the worst, most soul-killing anti-patterns of GA / FA review is "hey you should write the article like I the reviewer would like to write it, not how you wrote it," and I'm mindful not to be that villain myself, hence why I've qualified many of the critiques as optional. But sourcing is the one thing that there can't be a compromise on, and that also aren't matters of personal opinion anyway since either the source backs it up or it doesn't. I've checked your sources and some of them don't verify the text, and some are weak. Per my original comment, this is fixable, but it does need to be fixed before promotion. SnowFire (talk) 21:40, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
            • Added more Flieger refs. And see above.
              • Thank you. Can you take a look at my revisions to the Context section, as well as the lead? That was the biggest stumbling block before to me. I think we're very close. SnowFire (talk) 07:25, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
                • Certainly. Lucky you're mentioning it here, as my watchlist failed to show the change: weird as it's listed correctly. Must mean issues on the Wiki-servers.
                • Lead: all good.
                • Context: all good, I fixed a typo. So I think we're complete now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:33, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
• Looks good. Something lost in the back-and-forth sometimes can be the overall effort made, so good to point out that the article still is an impressive deep-dive. I think we've both said our piece on the Harrowing of Hell stuff - I agree the content is good, but still think the relevance to the topic of 'light' is overplayed, but it's not the end of the world to discuss it in this article anyway. And thanks for the catch on the typo.
• Nice work! SnowFire (talk) 09:45, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

GA category

@Chiswick Chap: I only realized this after I went to promote it, but checking Wikipedia:Good articles/Philosophy and religion, there isn't really a good fit currently in the subtopics. Any objection to moving this to "Tolkien analysis" in "Language and literature"? It could arguably go on either side, but there isn't a good subgroup in P&R, and there's a very relevant subgroup in L&L currently. SnowFire (talk) 09:52, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

That's certainly a good place for it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:53, 6 July 2024 (UTC)