more than 6000 posts on .htaccess writable/writeable…

My .htaccess file (both of them) has two copies of the section of code, one repeating below the other. Is this necessary? If not does it create problems?

I gave WordPress its own directory
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory
and, as that page instructed. configured the .htaccess, according to the instructions on the Permalinks page:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

The other .htaccess file is the original one that I was instructed, as per “Giving_WordPress…”, to copy, and revise as above, and place in my root /public_html folder.

The page said that this manual change of .htaccess was necessary because, apparently like many thousands, “If your .htaccess file were writable, we could do this automatically, but it isn’t so…”

I’ve searched and read scores of posts about this, changed both of my .htaccess files to every possible combination above 664,and still my Permalinks page says “If your .htaccess file were writable, we could do this automatically, but it isn’t so…”

I need it writable (probably for many reasons, but) especially because I want my site to be primarily about Pages w/comments, and the Blog/comments secondary. The instructions for Pages explicitly warns that the .htaccess file needs to be writable.

I’ve been using my FileZilla to change the .htaccess permissions.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.