I think Houshalter thinks it means “given the premises, is this a way things are likely to turn out?”. It might be true that “balrog eats hobbits, destroys Middle-earth” is a realistic outcome given everything up to the release of the balrog as premise.
So you are using the word in the sense that a balrog “realistically” can be killed only by a very specific magic sword, or, say, Ilúvatar “realistically” decides that all this is too much and puts his foot down (with an audible splat!)? X-)
I think the appropriate word in the context is “plausible”.
Making a small step towards seriousness, yes, Ilúvatar suddenly taking interest in Middle Earth isn’t terribly plausible, but super-specificity has its place in Tolkien’s world: the only way Sauron can be defeated is by dropping some magical jewelry into a very specific place.
I think Houshalter thinks it means “given the premises, is this a way things are likely to turn out?”. It might be true that “balrog eats hobbits, destroys Middle-earth” is a realistic outcome given everything up to the release of the balrog as premise.
So you are using the word in the sense that a balrog “realistically” can be killed only by a very specific magic sword, or, say, Ilúvatar “realistically” decides that all this is too much and puts his foot down (with an audible splat!)? X-)
I’m not using the word at all in this thread, so far as I can recall. FWIW neither of those seems super-realistic to me given Tolkien’s premises.
Well, yes, by “you” I meant “all you people” :-D
I think the appropriate word in the context is “plausible”.
Making a small step towards seriousness, yes, Ilúvatar suddenly taking interest in Middle Earth isn’t terribly plausible, but super-specificity has its place in Tolkien’s world: the only way Sauron can be defeated is by dropping some magical jewelry into a very specific place.