I propose to merge The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King into this page. A recent AfD was closed as keep in this matter, mainly on grounds that the AfD was really a merge discussion, and should have happened as an RfC instead. While I think that was overly bureaucratic of us, I understand the community's concern, and open this RfC. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 21:51, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

As User:WanderingWanda put it in the AfD:

I'm nominating The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King for deletion [merging - CE]. Has a palantír driven me mad? No, let me explain:

WP:PAGEDECIDE says editors should consider how best to help readers understand a topic and that there are times when it's better to cover a topic as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context.

Tolkien conceived and wrote Lord of the Rings as one novel, split into multiple volumes, and I believe that's the easiest and best way to talk about the work. (Just like the best way to talk about Moby Dick is with a single article, even though, like LotR, it's very long and was originally published in multiple volumes.) Just look at the sources, and how they largely focus on the work as a whole and not individual volumes: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]...etc.

Now look at how comprehensive the The Lord of the Rings article is, and compare it to how under-developed the articles about the individual volumes are. If a reader types "Fellowship of the Ring" into Wikipedia, do we really want them to wind up at the start-class Fellowship of the Ring article? An article with just a handful of references, that mostly conists of an overly-long plot summary, that barely touches on the things a reader would want to learn about, like the work's development, themes, influences, etc.? Wouldn't it be better for them to wind up at the comprehensive Lord of the Rings article, which covers everything in the FotR article plus lots more? Of course the three sub-articles could be expanded over time, but, in the end, is there a compelling reason for them to exist in the first place?"

Discussion

• Merge, as nom. Since I copied WW's nom, I am also copying a slightly edited version of my support from the AfD. A bold nomination, but I must agree. The subpages are mostly plot, with little actual sourcing. Per WP:PAGEDECIDE, we have the leeway to decide how to best present the series. The three book breakdown is a bit of a publisher's formality, as it was intended to be a single volume, but of course you're not going to sell a single, 3,000 page book. I note that the main page could certainly absorb the others without crowding; the LoTR page has only 43kb of prose, well under the 100k max we prefer. Creating a single subsection for each of the three books would make a complete article that was not overly crowded. Most of the sources (even on the subpages) discuss the series as a whole, rather than as individual books. I also note that the main page receives some 5-10 times the page views as the subpages. I see no need for us to maintain several poor pages, when we could simply maintain one good page and have the same end result: our readers become well informed about LoTR. Combined with issues of context, I agree that having standalone pages is unnecessary. I would urge others reading this not to reflexively vote oppose, but instead consider that our duty is create an excellent encyclopedia, and that having a certain number of pages is less useful to our readers than having concise and accessible content. Smooth sailing, CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 21:48, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
• Merge. Although merging seems almost sacrilegious at first, the individual books are seldom considered as independent subjects, either by sources or WP readers. This fact has probably contributed to make the separate book-based articles weak, and will forever limit their potential. WP readers will be much better served by a redirect to this article. -- A D Monroe III^{( talk)} 22:07, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
• Merge: LOTR is one novel which was split into three volumes for initial publication. It is often published as one volume. Peter Jackson filmed it as a trilogy (which didn't correspond to the tripartite division of the novel), but other adaptations, such as the BBC radio series, treat it as a single work. Individual volumes do not represent a standalone story; the episodes of the breaking of the Fellowship and the capture of Frodo are split between volumes, giving the first two volumes cliffhanger endings. Many characters, plot points, themes, influences, critical responses etc are common across the volumes. Having four volumes where one would do is unnecessary quadriplication.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 23:18, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
• Merge (as original nominator): one thing I'll point out is that this merge won't be set in stone. If someone is developing and expanding The Lord of the Rings article, and determines that there is an actual need for individual articles about the individual volumes, they could re-create the articles at that point. So there's no need to keep the articles "just in case" when they aren't serving much purpose at present. WanderingWanda ( talk) 00:23, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
• Merge The divisions into books, volumes, chapters are relatively unimportant. I think the current articles should redirect to a table of chapters/books/volumes/ in LotR. PJTraill ( talk) 00:37, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
• Merge My comment at afd: None of these article have demonstrated the need to be split from the main topic. The main article's plot summary could be extended but the rest is redundant. Adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and Reception_of_J._R._R._Tolkien#Reviews_of_The_Lord_of_the_Rings are likewise duplicates and merge targets: the volumes do not need separate pages just to give a longer summary. Reywas92 ^Talk 06:37, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
• Merge: Tolkien wrote LOTR as 6 books, the publisher wanted three volumes to print. There is little separate notability for the individual volumes, though there could perhaps be an article on the publication history and the evolution of the work's reception by critics, the public, and academics over the decades (the three things being markedly out of phase with each other). Chiswick Chap ( talk) 08:59, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - I said merge at the AfD, and I'm not opposed to that, but while looking into another AfD nomination I stumbled across Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Popular pages (while that page was created by a bot in 2017‎, this is a bit of a trip down memory lane for me, as I was active in the WikiProject many years ago and page views was something discussed at various points, IIRC - while on that topic, it might be an idea to see which of the WikiProject participants are still active, though some will have just moved on). Anyway, the point about that is that it is an automated updating of which pages get the most readership. I was looking to see how little views some pages got, but in this case you can see several things (a wider discussion could be had at the WikiProject talk page): (i) the film articles are very popular; (ii) video games are also popular; (iii) Middle-earth Orc characters (recently deleted at AfD) is surprisingly popular (number 48 on the list) with 19,647 page views in the month of December 2019 (the cynic in me says that this is views from video gaming people); (iv) to get to the point and back on-topic, the main book article (LotR) is number 3 on the list with a stonking 214,000+ monthly page view total, and over 5000 daily page views, while the three book articles are numbers 42, 75 and 54 on the list with between 10,000 and 22,000 page views a month each (about 370 to 720 daily page views). This is not a lot compared to the main book, but we do need to consider that there might be a reason for this and to not disrupt the experience of the readership too much. i.e. best to retain what the readers are coming here to read! (Quite how we work that out is another matter.) Carcharoth ( talk) 10:08, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

A thoughtful comment, Carcharoth, thanks. Halbared ( talk) 11:40, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Are you suggesting it's the same group of readers year after year?-- Jack Upland ( talk) 22:30, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose The proposed merger would not improve this page (The Lord of the Rings). This page used to be a featured article but it isn't any more. At the head of this page is a to-do list which starts "Return to FA level; don't let the article grow too much..." So, merging in the content from three substantial pages is therefore the opposite of what's needed, which is splitting into more managable and readable pieces. Of course, actually improving this article is not the point of the proposal which is part of the current campaign to delete most material about Tolkien topics from Wikipedia. This is being fomented by a handful of fanatics who do not represent the many thousands of readers that this material currently gets, as Carcharoth explains above. The majority of these readers now access Wikipedia using devices such as smart phones and smart speakers so combining the material into a restricted number of colossal compendia is not smart. The original publishers of these works divided it into separate volumes and Tolkien himself structured it as six books plus appendices. They divided the content for both artistic and practical reasons and we should stick with their multi-level structure so that readers can pick the appropriate level for the aspect of interest. Andrew🐉( talk) 19:27, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm with Andrew. -- Queen Shore the SeaWing ( talk) 05:38, 6 February 2020 (UTC)I is American English.

+1. If such a merge would bring us farther from being a Featured Article, then oppose. — Tonymec ( talk) 06:53, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure how a merge would keep the article away from FA status. The subarticles are already chiefly plot, which is covered at this article already, and more concisely. The rest is mainly context, which is already covered here too. We do not need absurdly in-depth plot summaries. I am of the opinion that all can be covered concisely at this article. And, as I note above, this article is still well below being a large page. A merge isn't going to add the entire content of the subpages, as the subpages don't actually have much of use, being just rather long plot summaries. If folks feel that we need a whole page for plot summary, then perhaps we create The Lord of the Rings plot summary instead, though I think that unnecessary. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 07:06, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

According to Andrew, this is "fomented by a handful of fanatics"!!! The only opposition seems to be a bumbling band of orcs.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 08:28, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment There seems to be a zealous campaign to purge a lot of Tolkien articles in the English Wikipedia. While I approve some of the AfDs, the rather important and notable ones are somewhat being affected. If, I dare ask, try to take a shot at composing a unique prose/article on each of the three volumes as well as the main Lord of the Rings article, can we reconsider merging them all? I have just finished contributing to the Rings of Power article so that it would (at least be somewhat) spared from the on-going inquisition, and I would love a chance to tackle this as well. Chihciboy ( talk) 16:36, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Changing to Oppose. I've been perusing at some sources to see if the three articles can stand on its own, and it appears that the each volume's publication history since the 1950s have been covered in print media at the very least. I've just found some sources (correspondences, reviews, studies, etc.) showing analyses of each volume (titles, themes, ), which are independent from the film adaptations and could help in expanding those articles. A rare early print of the third volume alone is valued at £13,000 more than than each of the first two, showing that there at least has some interest in them being separate than as a single volume of work. Attempting to put those in the main LotR article could also risk overloading it eventually. 12:51, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - We can clean this up. Having an article for each of the books is a valid content fork, as we can go into more detail on each book. As it is, the articles need cleanup, especially with WP:ALLPLOT, but just because it's flawed in this state doesn't mean we have to merge it. Hog Farm ( talk) 15:33, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

If there's some good ways to improve them, fine, but nothing specific has ever been proposed. There's a reason why these articles have remained little more than violations of ALLPLOT for over ten years.

The books of the Bible are intensely studied individually by scholars, yielding multiple sources focused just on single books, and thus easily supporting separate book articles for WP. But the great majority of sources do not treat the LOTR books as separate subjects, making it difficult to ever improve the single-book articles beyond their current unhelpful and redundant state. -- A D Monroe III^{( talk)} 22:23, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose: The books were reviewed separately when they came out: W. H. Auden, 1954-10-31; a tepid review in The New Yorker, 1954-11-13. When reviews like this exist, clearly the book articles can stand on their own, although I agree they need improvement. I also understand that deeper criticism usually acknowledges the work as a whole, but as I stated in the previous discussion most (popular/non-scholarly) RS treat it as a trilogy of books, not a single novel, and they are most often sold separately to this day. I vote improve rather than merge.-- MattMauler ( talk) 22:40, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Tepid?-- Jack Upland ( talk) 00:29, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. Few if any works of F&SF have attracted as much literary analysis as LotR, and there's way more than enough material out there to develop very rich per-volume articles here. WP:NODEADLINE. The main article, focused on overall plotline, and on general cultural impact and media franchising, is already overly long. These volume articles are a good place to get into more of a literary criticism and textual analysis approach. They can also be used to provide more detailed plot summaries while reducing the size of the one at the main article, which has a lot to cover. Frankly, this merge idea makes about as much sense a merging all the episode articles for Star Trek: The Next Generation into a single page. (Hell, it would probably actually be easier to do that and do it well than to do what has been proposed here.)  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:44, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

  Well, I'm keen to create a strong set of articles on Middle-earth, and am working to improve many of them. Now, let's assume this goes well and we end up with splendid articles on Tolkien's themes, linguistics, characters, regions, influences, rings of power and so on, and a fine plot summary in the main LOTR article, all handsomely supported by the shelf of critical and scholarly books beside me. What then exactly am I going to put in the articles about each of the 3 volumes that LOTR has been printed in? (Why not the 6 LOTR books Tolkien actually wrote, by the way?) We'll have explained the plot, the geography, the history, the Old English origins, the scholarly debates, the films and games in the other articles both "above" and "below" in the hierarchy. If you look in the index of any of the scholarly texts, I can assure you that there is a mass of detail on motivation, language, origins, etymology and so on, but basically nothing about how exciting it was that LOTR is divided into 3 volumes for the publisher's convenience. Well, we could have a paragraph on the publication history somewhere. Frankly, it's not worth having three enormous articles for. We should be writing on all the things that the scholars pick up: in other articles. I'll go on working on those. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 10:58, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

  That's an "interesting" set of straw man arguments which are not responsive to a single thing I wrote. You seem to be presuming that we can't have "a strong set of articles" without this merge, but there is no relationship at all between this merge idea and how well we write articles on Middle-earth fictional stuff like the languages, and regions, and yadda-yadda (which you stress, twice, are in other articles than the four proposed for merging together). No one suggested anything remotely like scholars being "excited about" the division of the publication (though they were in fact excited with each new volume's release, or at least critics were; I'm not sure how much scholarly attention, in the strict sense, was brought to bear before the the entire work was published). Confusing book in the published bound volume sense with book in the mega-chapter within a volume sense is the fallacy of equivocation. You don't appear to have followed my argument in the slightest. No, we should not cover the full depth of all available material to write about LotR "both above and below", both in the main article and in the volume-specific ones, any more than Das Kapital is just total rehash of Das Kapital, Volume I through Das Kapital, Volume III, or vice versa. Those articles are a a very good example of how and why to have volume articles and a WP:SUMMARY-style main article, with markedly different material in them. So, yes, fine, go back to working on the other articles about the linguistics and characters and geography; that needs to be done, too, but it has nothing to do with WP having a SUMMARY piece at the main article giving the overarching plot and the general public reception, the pop-culture influence and legacy, etc.; and volume specific articles going in-depth into the events in that part of the massive story, the critical reception to that material when it was released, actual scholarly analysis of text in that volume, debates over and reactions to specific elements in that part of the story being changed or dropped or added to in different adaptations, notable artists' work in visually depicting scenes from this section of the story, how the places and characters mentioned in it relate to other Tolkien material, to RPG adaptations (MERP, video games, etc.), and bunch of other subtopics that fit well as "drill-downs" into volume articles but would would overwhelm the main one almost immediately. This merge is a terrible idea because it is absolutely inevitable that the main article will rapidly get too large and force the WP:SPLIT again. Probably within the year.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:20, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Please steer clear of rudeness. My arguments are reasons for merging, not only rebuttals of your comments. The problem with your suggestions is that they presuppose the existence of a large body of scholarly materials addressed to the 3 individual published volumes; but the overwhelming volume of LOTR criticism is not of that kind, and barring the few reviews contemporary with the release of each one back in the 1950s, there just aren't many reliable sources on the individual volumes. In that light, your suggestion that we select "scholarly analysis of text in that volume" would mean artificially splitting the critical analysis by volume, where in reality it is by topic or theme.

Your point about length and splitting is a good one, as it raises the question of how much plot summary we should have of a single work, even if it runs to almost 1,000 pages. We do not seem to have a hard limit in policy for such matters, but the 1,225 pages and four books (and Epilogue) of War and Peace are summarized in that article in some 2,800 words (18,000 bytes), which may be a rough guide: it certainly aligns with common sense. I think we should do the same here. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 15:32, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Das Kapital is not a good example. Firstly, it is clear Das Kapital is not a trilogy, but a single work published in three volumes. The articles on the volumes probably shouldn't exist. They are just summaries of the chapters which use very few secondary sources. We could easily do that with LOTR, but what's the point?-- Jack Upland ( talk) 00:26, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Please don't straw man people (which is very rude) then presume to lecture on rudeness. My argument "presupposes" no such thing as what you suggest at all. There is not just a massive plot but also, in fact, a massive body of scholarly work (and despite your handwaving, some of it is volume-specific, though that doesn't matter). A proper, WP:FA level of encyclopedic coverage will necessarily produce an article that exceeds the length limits, so it would have to be split no matter what, and the super-mega-obvious way to do that is by volume, especially since quite a lot of analysis is focused on particular scenes/events/dialogue in the plot, and that does matter (such material tends to be confined to a particular volume, which makes the current WP:SPINOUT trio of articles eminently sensible). Moreover, the work in adaptation (multiple times in multiple media) has been treated as effectively a trilogy. It would be a confusing exercise to try to address all of that material in a mingled, sprawling mega-article. Critical/theory response which is more about the entire work as a whole ("a story") belongs in the main article along with a heavily abridged, "just the gist" plot summary. Here you're just arguing against your own point: "Das Kapital is not a good example. Firstly, it is clear Das Kapital is not a trilogy, but a single work published in three volumes." That's exactly what LotR is, and it's why I picked the example in the first place. [sigh] If you want to go try to delete or merge away the DK volume articles, good luck with that, but I would bet you whatever you want that such an effort will WP:SNOW fail, for the same reason this merge discussion is failing to gain consensus for a merge: the sub-articles serve a different purpose from the overview article, and they are not redundant. The overview is a piece on the general nature and scope of the work and its cultural impact, which the three volume articles drill down into the specific content of each volume and critical, etc., responses to that content (not to the entire work as a piece). I can't think of any way to spell this out more clearly.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:45, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

• Strong oppose per SMCandlish because he articulated what I would have said. The Drover's Wife ( talk) 10:30, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
• Comment How long is this discussion open for? Halbared ( talk) 11:03, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

  While this doesn't have an RfC header on it (yet; I may put one), RfCs run a month, typically, and this is RfC-like enough I would expect that. Though WP:SNOW cases close faster.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 

• Merge This actually makes a lot of sense - being generally unfamiliar with the series I never realised these books were functionally one novel, and our current discussion of Books III-VI basically contains only plot summaries. I think it makes more sense to not entirely up-merge these but perhaps to create a plot fork article in order to deal with article length. The important distinction between this and the Star Trek episodes (assuming that's like any other television show) or any other up-merge of multi-volume work is that these books weren't necessarily intended to stand on their own as separate works, whereas different TV episodes or even other fantasy books (Narnia) clearly are. The fact Tolkien wrote six parts instead of three - should we have six articles instead? To analogise further, should we have three articles, one for each book of The Tin Drum? Of course not, because it's viewed as one work. (I'm assuming the above claim that a majority of sources review this as one work to be true as I haven't checked it out myself.) If this as claimed lost FA status there's clearly improvement that needs to occur. I'm not sure what improvement needs to occur and it may not need to involve a merge, but I don't see any problem with merging as part of that cleanup. SportingFlyer T· C 11:11, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
• Adding RfC tag, to pull in uninvolved editors via WP:FRS. Typically takes several days to distribute.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:25, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose I was uncertain on this until SMCandlish put forward good reasoning. So I think I agree on all of those points listed by that user. Halbared ( talk) 20:08, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
• Improper RfC, WP:RFCNOT shows that the WP:MERGE process should be observed. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 23:03, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
• Clearly merge These are one work, published in serial form, not 3 works. I of course do not advocate one article Literary works of Tolkien, clearly the Hobbit is a work needing a different article. However three titles do not make 3 books and so they should not have 3 articles. As I have mentioned before I have a one volume copy of these works. Of course, in cases like The Bible, being published in 1 volumne does not negate seperate histories. However in this case the 3 books emerged together, they were published together, they did not come out as 3 works but one. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 23:12, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

No one disputes that they were written together, but they were not "published together" as stated in the above comment. They were released separately, and each one was reviewed by RS before the trilogy was released in its entirety. True, the number of these reviews is dwarfed by the number reviews of the entire trilogy, but these reviews are enough to make each part notable on its own.-- MattMauler ( talk) 23:41, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

However those are only a few reviews, and we are talking about months. The first volume was published 29 July, 1954, the next 11 November 1954 and the final 20 October 1955. Hmm, considering that The Two Towers Ends with Frodo captured I can see a lot of head banging over those months. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 20:02, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment If I am a "fanactic" I am one for limiting Wikipedia to articles on notable subjects. The articles that have been deleted related to Lord of the Rings were articles on very minor characters mainly from Rohan in the Two Towers, articles that went into absurd detail about every road, river or such in middle earth, and lots of articles about non-characters, the extreme being Queen Beruthiel or whatever her name was, who is mentioned in one line once, which is actually an off hand allusion to her cats. We had an article on Barahir for 16 years without sources for crying out loud. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 23:23, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
• The Bible is the wrong analogy, since it was compiled as seperate works, over a period far exceeding the time between Tolkien's birth and the present, and later compiled, and there exist multiple distinct collections known as the Bible today. The Torah or 5 books of Moses is a more relevant issue, since it seems to have been written as 1 work noted as having books, but of course there are lots of competing theories about its actual compilation. The work has been deeply studied for it 2500+ years of existence, and debates about its time and method of origin were consuming scholars years before Tolkien was born. Scholarly study of Tolkien's work has only existed for maybe 40 years. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 23:27, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

I introduced the Bible analogy as a contrast. Unlike the Bible, LOTR books are not treated separately by great majority of sources, leaving nothing for editors to expand the LOTR books articles beyond repeating 1/3rd of the plot, in violation of WP:ALLPLOT. They have languished in this poor state for over ten years. Anyone stating they could be improved has yet to give any suggestion on how. The LOTR book articles are currently unhelpful, and will remain so. WP users will be much better served by redirects. -- A D Monroe III^{( talk)} 23:51, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Someone brought up Narnia. I have read that originally C. S. Lewis inteded to stop writting it with The Voyage of the Dawn Treder. Those works actually came out faster than I thought they did, they were completed in 5 years and published in 6, but they have so much variation in feel and theme and time frame and characters that they are hard to treat well as one work. The time producing LotR was longer, but it came out all at once with just a little lag. Fan Magazines follow by the 1960s but actually scholarly study does not really begin until the 1980s. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 23:39, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
• Comment Of course Lewis said in a litter "When I wrote Lion I did not know I would write any more". The Horse and His Boy can basically be read as a free standing book, without knowing the others. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 23:45, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
• Merge This is one work; that it was published in volumes doesn't mean each volume must have a separate stand-alone page. Right now, they separate pages are short enough that they can be merged onto one page, and thus they should be, as it's more convenient for the reader. In the future, if the one LOTR page expands to a very large size, it can be spun off again. Leviv ich 03:49, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The size would be disproportionate. (or at least, ought to be disproportionate if coverage were given). As mentioned, the reviews covered them separately. DGG ( talk ) 06:32, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose Stands on its own as a notable subject. Has had significant films sourced to the book. Per WP:NBOOK/ WP:BOOKCRIT #3 "The book has been considered by reliable sources to have made a significant contribution to a notable or significant motion picture, or other art form, or event or political or religious movement." It probably had had all those, but off the top of my head certainly "significant motion picture". Also notice this article has existed since Nov 2001 making it one of the oldest longest standing articles in the history of Wikipedia, which in itself is a form of weak consensus. -- Green C 18:02, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

@ GreenC: You are aware that neither the author nor the vast majority of people who have read "the book" have ever considered "The Fellowship of the Ring" to be a standalone book in its own right, right? Tolkien wrote an enormous novel that he divided into six numbered "books", which his publisher (who was experiencing paper shortages) insisted on arbitrarily dividing into three volumes that would be published one at a time, right? NBOOK definitely applies to The Lord of the Rings (the most-read novel of the 20th century), but whether it applies to the arbitrary divisions introduced by the publisher and given somewhat arbitrary titles is not something that you can take as fact and just quote the guideline itself to demonstrate. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 06:52, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose While I appreciate the reference to the author's intent, the fact of the matter is that reviews, criticism, and like have tended to treat the work as it was published in three distinct parts. I understand where the merge and spin out later view is coming from, because all the prose could fit in one article, but the existing articles are not unduly brief either, so it really isn't needed. And as has already been mentioned above whether examined from the perspective of WP:NBOOK, or just WP:GNG these all pass. The only guideline based argument presented thus far references WP:NOPAGE. However I don't see how appropriate context is lost, or that a lack of sourcing will prevent detailed treatment in separate articles. 74.73.230.72 ( talk) 18:23, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
• OPPOSE I already mentioned why the articles should be kept and not deleted/merged in the AFD. This is a pointless discussion. Each book came out months apart, and since the Hobbit had been such an extremely popular book, obviously all three of these books got ample coverage when they came out, just sources from back then harder to find. Each one is notable on its own, and no reason to shove three books together as one, there just too much valid information to fit. Dream Focus 18:41, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Strongly agree with the points raised by SMcCandlish and 74.73.230.72 above. And if the above discussion is any indication, there is clearly no WP:CONSENSUS for such a drastic merge to occur. — Hunter Kahn 19:03, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

A lack of consensus at AFD to merge doesn't preclude subsequent specialized merger proposals, and opposing based solely on such a lack of consensus is pretty disruptive as it arbitrarily creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 06:52, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

• Merge: The Fellowship of the Ring article for one has a paragraph about Tolkien’s dislike of the name of the third volume (Return of the King), cut that out and the excessive plot details and there’s no much left. Lava Lamps ( talk) 22:00, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
• OPPOSE I would echo the comments in support of oppose — Gareth107 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. The preceding unsigned comment was added at 08:26, 11 February 2020 (UTC).
• Comment Just looking at the state of the artilce on the Return of the King I am unconvinced we need it now even if there might in some future be a need for it. The article is overwhelmingly focused on plot summary. I see no justification for an article so focused on such and really no way to save it from being such, nor have people showed us what sources we could use to justify a seperate article on each of these publisher convention breaks. Of note the Return of the King article does not even discuss the appendices which form about a third of the length of the work when published on its own. The Hobbit can be read on its own, it is really not possible to stop the work at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 20:06, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
• The call on consensus above is a bunk call. The reality is that before 2006 Wikipedia was a wild west land where almost any article could be created, and there was no sense of order. The article on Barahir dated back to 2002 and we deleted it less than a month ago. Just because in a rash rush to articles people made multiple ones does not mean that they are needed to stand. Beyond this, the Movies are built on the Lord of the Rings. The film The Fellowship of the Ring includes events from the Two Towers, and the end of the Two Towers and the start of Return of the King do not line up. The notable thing is The Lord of the Rings not the individual volumes that the publisher broke them into, and scattered their publication over about 15 months. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 20:12, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
• Comment: The arguments so far are:

1. It was published in separate volumes and still sometimes is, and was once adapted as a movie trilogy (which didn't match the original volumes). Response: so what?

2. When it was published in separate volumes, it was reviewed separately. Response: well, dur!

3. The articles could be improved when the pixies finish building Santa's ice castle. Response: OK, pixies, we can split the article then!

4. The editors who support this are North Korean Marxist-Leninist Islamist narco-syndicalist Islamist cyberpunk fanatics working for the deep state, who want to put Colonel Saunders in the White House. But on the negative side they don't appreciate the Silmarillion. And they have interfered with our attempt to break every rule of Wikipedia, which is annoying. Response: how did you find out who we are???

5. Basically 4 sums up all we have to say.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 09:09, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose as per @ SMcCandlish: we seem to have a couple of editors trying to bludgeon this through and comment on every oppose in a disruptive manner. It is clear the AFD was for keep not merge and this is forum shopping. A combined article properly written with the wealth of reliable sources available would be far too long as per WP:PAPER for the millions of wikipedia readers with slow connections such as in many parts of South East Asia, and its as simple as that, imv Atlantic306 ( talk) 01:08, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

  No one is bludgeoning. No one is commenting on every "oppose". That is absolutely without foundation.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 08:33, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

  Jack, with all respect, you responding to this oppose has made Atlantic's point excellently. Responding to some alt viewpoints in a discussion can be good. Replying to a majority...eh not so good. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 09:01, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

  I felt the same, but didn't want to vocalise it, but as someone else has, yip. Halbared ( talk) 18:12, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

  I was joking.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 18:57, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

  I got it! :-) To fairly recapitulate the general point: There are times when it may be necessary to respond to quite a few !votes in a discussion, if they are objectively making some kind of demonstrable error (e.g. Respondent A says Delete, but on a basis that is provably false, then Respondents C–E say "Delete per Respondent A", without noticing that Respondent B proved A completely mistaken; it's reasonable for B to ping them back to the discussion and point them to the rebuttal so they have an opportunity to revise). It gets into WP:BLUDGEON territory very quickly, though, when it's just a pattern of proof by assertion, re-re-re-stating the same subjective argument over and over again despite others having already rebutted it. If you're going to refute a rebuttal, you have to demonstrate that the rebuttal was wrong/weak, and why. But those in favor of the merge have not and probably cannot do this, because the merge rationale comes down to things covered for over a decade at WP:AADD, and we even have WP:P&G material against doing things like this ( WP:N, WP:SUMMARY, etc.). This simply is not a case of three individually non-notable books that should merge into an article on an actually notable series. Each of these is obviously and without question independently notable, and the main article is overlong as it is (and would get much longer if it actually contained all the material it will need to reach WP:FA level).  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:45, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

  I think the comment by CaptainEek is bizarre, implying it's OK to bludgeon at minority. Personally, I think it's good to reply to someone's point, when there's a counterpoint to be made. And, on the other hand, simply ignoring points of view you disagree with is not good.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 08:51, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

  Jack Upland, That's not what I meant. Its never okay to bludgeon. But determining when something has gone from critical replies and into bludgeoning can be difficult. I don't think I'd call two or three replies bludgeoning, unless they were decidedly uncivil or crafted to prevent further discussion. That's why it is easier to spot bludgeoning the more numerous it is. But to be clear here: I don't think anybody is bludgeoning here, I understand that this is a very controversial article and a lot of discussion is to be had. Hopefully we can put that behind us and get back to the issue at hand :) CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 17:12, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Clearly this is a somewhat contentious issue, and I'm seeing a lot of editors who are apparently more familiar with this particular and understand the history of how this single book was arbitrarily turned into a "trilogy" and random Wikipedians who may be more familiar with the Peter Jackson film's that were in fact intended by the creators to be a trilogy (actually two separate films until, according to the late Christopher Lee, some magnanimous executives at New Line Cinema said "But ... isn't this three films?") falling on both sides of the debate.

I'd like to think I'm in the former camp, but I am inclined to somewhat conservative position of maintaining the status quo, which I have no doubt is more popular among the latter camp. I am, however, open to change my mind if a draft of what a merged article would look like, with a comprehensive list of all the information that currently exists in our four separate article but would be left, and preferably an analysis of how much of the articles currently overlap and are therefore redundant. I imagine, based on my preliminary speculation rather than the kind of careful analysis I don't have time to do myself at the moment, that the latter would be quite extensive and would be very convincing to not just me but to most "average Joe" Wikipedians who don't much care one way or the other but are opposing this proposal based solely on how radical it appears on its face.

Obviously some editors ( SNAFURFM) are opposing this primarily because they hate "the deletionists" and don't want to "let the deletionists win" after the AFD ended and "the deletionists" opened this merge discussion because they are "sore losers", and such editors will no doubt be more reluctant to change their position, but they are almost certainly in the minority of the current "oppose" !votes.

Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 06:52, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

• As others have said, the three "volume" articles are little more than plot summaries. The small sections about publication and reception largely duplicate what's here. I think you could merge without losing content. What you would get is more detailed plot summaries here.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 00:51, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
  • WP:SURMOUNTABLE, WP:NOWORK. What these articles can and should be doing has been clearly spelled out above. The fact that they are not in that improved shape yet is not a deletion (merge-and-redirect or just redirect) rationale.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:45, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
    • This is not about deletion; it is just about a merge. These issues have been flagged for a decade, and no one has stepped up. If, in the future, there is enough material for volume articles, they can be spun out. I don't see anything justifying separate articles as things stand at the moment. Nothing I have heard hear explains why we need separate articles. Sure the volumes were reviewed separately, so what?-- Jack Upland ( talk) 09:10, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose - Basically per Hog Farm They express my concerns in a short comment. - FlightTime Phone ( open channel) 00:26, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Shall we merge all of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels into a single article too while we're at it? Orbs Whiz ( talk) 18:13, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
  • This is a strawman argument. Those works were not written as one whole and broken up by the publisher. They were published over time. The first was published in 1996, and originally it was to be a trilogy. Now 24 years later, 5 have been published and a total of 7 are planned. That is not at all like what we have with The Lord of the Rings, where it was broken up by the publisher after it had been written in full. If Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows had been published in the same way as it was filmed, as 2 volumes, we might be discussing having one article for it, but never just one article for all Harry Potten books. In the same way no one has proposed we merge The Hobbit or The Silmarillion into the Lord of the Rings article. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 19:24, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The resulting page would be extremely long and unwieldy, if the individual articles were fully developed, and the individual volumes were issued and reviewed separately. I agree with SMcCandlish that it would make more far sense to roll all episodes of Star Trek: TNG into one article. [Only just seen this debate; given the potential for general applicability mentioned at Village Pump, it might have been wise to advertise it on CENT.] Espresso Addict ( talk) 11:52, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per many of the comments above. Also I agree with Espresso Addict above. This page is already 7000+ words, adding the other plot summaries plus analysis would make for a very large page that might eventually get split. Also I took a few moments to check sources and in only a few moments found this about The Return of the King and this resource for criticism. I've not looked at either but suspect that with good scholarly sourcing this page can be improved and the others can be fleshed out appropriately. We should focus on that rather than merging. Victoria ( tk) 16:04, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
  • But neither of those articles are actually about The Return of the King. They are about LOTR. And that's the point.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 07:44, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Been thinking about this for a while. While I agree that the trilogy is more notable than the individual books, it's clear that the volumes as published are also notable enough for their own articles as well. The fact that Tolkien may have not intended his text to be published in this configuration is interesting, but not relevant to the discussion imo. Scribolt ( talk) 06:54, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• Comment The claim of forum shopping is diningenous. Some of the opposition to deletion specifically said that AfD was the wrong forum to consider merger. I think even here we are too influenced by people who have not looked beyond the quick impression of book covers and films. The fact the books and films do not break at the same points, and that no one who understands would ever start reading with The Return of the King is telling. I on the other hand readThe Block Cauldron" before reading The Book of Three, and have to say that on the whole I understood it well enough. I later realized that the animated film The Black Caudron is a merger of the stories of the Book of Three and the Black cauldron, so I would submit the movie argument is not fully relevant, but 3 movies does not make the book publishing break definitive. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 19:14, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose I agree the complete works are more notable than the individual books, but this particular trilogy is notable individually as well. The fan following, the movies, all of that stands as evidence of the notability of each book. I believe a specific article for each book is appropriate. Nightenbelle ( talk) 20:25, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose for reasons mentioned earlier in the discussion by SMcCandlish. -- Java Hurricane 13:47, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose on account of the fact that most reviewers, and the public at large, tend to treat the work as three distinct books. As noted, it is also the case that this article is already long, and merging in three other large, detailed articles will make it unruly. Further, as Nightenbelle notes, the individual works are hugely notable in and of themselves. Balag12 ( talk) 09:42, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose They're three different books and have had a significant impact on the fantasy genre. They're separate works and are viewed, read and reviewed as such. It makes no sense to merge them when there should be enough cited content for separate, impactful articles. Ciridae ( talk) 17:31, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Seeking consensus for early closure of this RfC

I'm not quite sure why this was set up as an RfC. I could find no recommendation for using RfC from the previous AfD, other than Levivich's recommendation to use RfC, though I suspect he was speaking generically about some sort of consensus-forming discussion process, not specifically RfC. As noted by @ Redrose64 and SMcCandlish:, this should've been done as part of the merging process. There is consensus here, and I'm happy to close it, but since RfCs typically run 30 days, do I need to seek consensus to close it early? If no, that's fine. If so, to the previous participants, do I have that consensus for early closure?

Thanks,
Doug Mehus T· C 15:14, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

RfCs can be closed early, and it seems discussion is starting to trail off, but noting Hijiri88's added comment and Atlantic306's yesterday, it seems it might be better to give it a few more days, unless everyone would prefer it be closed today? Doug Mehus T· C 15:23, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind the RFC being closed early to allow the proponents of merging to regroup and prepare the draft/analyses per my suggestion. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 16:59, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Dmehus, If SMc said that this should have been done through the merging process, then why were they the one to add the RfC tag? I created this as a regular merge, not an RfC, SMc added the RfC ID about halfway through. I am not opposed to an early close if a closer thinks there is consensus, but given the contentious nature, a longer run probably couldn't hurt. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 17:30, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

CaptainEek, okay, I'm willing to let it wait unless there's a WP:SNOW consensus to having an early closure. SMcCandlish, care to comment on CaptainEek's comment that you added the RfC tag? Doug Mehus T· C 17:35, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

I would say this should definitely stay open. The numbers are even, and there are still participants coming in. It is a popular book after all, and I'm sure a lot of editors have an opinion. Seeing as the Tolkien articles have been contentious for ten years, it would be good to get a solid consensus on where to go from here.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 23:49, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Meh. Just means we'll have a bigger pile equating to "no consensus". There's already too much opposition for it to be even vaguely possible for this to close with a consensus to merge. But letting it run is harmless.

WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY. And it doesn't matter who added an RfC tag. Merging isn't a formalized process. There's a noticeboard for listing merge proposals, at WP:PM, but no one pays much attention to it, and most merge discussions don't actually end up getting listed there. WP:RFC isn't really a process, it's simply a request for comments, which is tracked by WP:FRS which tells people about the RfC in a semi-randomized way to get them to come comment. Given that this proposal is a simple question (merge or don't), it's actually a good RfC question, and the RfC tag helps get the question discussed. Since the AfD failed to come to clear consensus on the matter, this is the sort of thing we should have an RfC about (especially given the close there, suggesting further discussion). But that doesn't "unmake" it a merge discussion. To merge or not to merge is simply the subject that the RfC asks about, that's all. Given that there is clearly still no consensus to merge, the status quo prevails, and we should just get back to work. It really doesn't matter if the RfC is closed early or not, since the odds of it producing either a consensus to merge or a strong reaffirmation in favor of the spinout articles, is extremely unlikely; the results are already too split. Given that the volumes individually pass WP:GNG, there would have to be a strong community sense to invoke WP:IAR to force the merger, but we don't have that.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:23, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

At the moment it's 11 tomerge and 16 oppose (with tonymec a likely 17th oppose). It's not even but could go either way with a long enough run. Halbared ( talk) 07:12, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that true.-- Jack Upland ( talk) 08:59, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

No, it could not "go either way". This is not a vote, and it's already clear there is no consensus, with many strong voices on either side. -- Elphion ( talk) 16:46, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Well it's either going to be merged or not. Halbared ( talk) 18:56, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

If there's no consensus to move from the current structure, you try to work within the current structure. -- Elphion ( talk) 23:56, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

So it doesn't get merged. Halbared ( talk) 23:59, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the Three don't get overpowered by the One, just like in "real" life. Clarityfiend ( talk) 21:00, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Very good. :D Halbared ( talk) 22:28, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment from Potential Closing Editor In the interests of procedural fairness, I will let this RfC run its course, though I agree with Redrose64 per WP:RFCNOT. This, arguably, should've been promoted on related WikiProject talk pages and the appropriate village pump within the confines of WP:Merging. Nevertheless, it's an open RfC, so best to let it run its close, or at least until there's no further participation. Doug Mehus T· C 17:34, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
• Comment despite the atempts to claim otherwise, the scholarly work is not volume spectific. It is about the whole of this work, which is why it is treated as such. This is not a case like the Harry Potter books or the chronicles of Narnia where the works grow over time and develop. The development did occur, but the wordd as we have them were composed in one burst. We do not have three indepdently notable books, but one book published in three parts. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 19:09, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose early closure This should be allowed to run the full time. It has sat for 10 years notified as needing revision. An early closure here would just continue the past practice of doing nothing about the problems in our article related to the works of Tolkien. We need this to stay open for at least a month. We need a merger, and baring that, we need clear evidence that there will not be one. There is no reason to suppose we have a clear consensus right now. All the more so when people argue against merger by citing unfinished series that have been in process of being published for two decades, which is nothing like a work that was written in all before the first publiscation started and took 15 months to print in all. Time frame matters, and so does if the end is composed before the first part ever goes to print. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 19:27, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• Comment There is really no "general applicability" here. Very few series are series because of publisher decisions to split. Most series are series because they were written and published in sequence. Most series the first book went to press before the last one was written. In extreme cases like The Chronicles of Narnia reading the books in any order is not fully neccesary. The mention of The Song of Fire and Ice above shows how this if made in any way generally applicable creates a false analogy. There may be other cases of one work published initially as multiple works, but more often people think of what is clearly distinct works, and think they are a similar case when they are not. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 19:32, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

  I have to agree, I do not think that the outcome here should set precedent or community consensus on series as a whole. The reason this discussion is happening is because The Lord of the Rings is a unique case. This is not a proposal to merge all series, or to even merge any other series besides LotR. Whatever the decision reached here, it has no general applicability. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 21:07, 17 February 2020 (UTC)