Tolkien did not purposefully tap into the demand. He indicated so himself afterwards by estranging himself from the "popular" fantasy movement, which he labeled as the cult-like dredge that inevitably latches onto greatness. What you fail to understand, however, is that Tolkien's detailed studies in appendices had little to do with his popularity and influences on high fantasy. As the good professor himself observed, people were not so much interested in depth as they were interested in surface archetypes. Hobbits, elves, wizards, orcs, and the struggle between good and evil (often characterized as West vs. East), nature and industry, all set against a medieval "epic" time - these were Tolkien's so-called "legacies" on high fantasy. The rest wasn't popular, and therefore are no more than footnotes in history.
As far as my credentials with LOTR goes, I would refrain from making impossible suppositions, metaldigital.
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That depends on whether you make ludicrous statements that cloud any learned wisdom you may have.
I don't know why you think that the details are not important to Tolkien's popularity. How can anyone say that: has there been a study done to explain the popularity, or is it just a bunch of speculation by certain individuals?