[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

Originally Posted by Folwren

I've considered this. I honestly don't believe that Sauron could have written a history and make it look good. It would be like the chap who wrote 'Inside the Third Reich'...he was on Hitler's side, but he couldn't make it look good. Sauron, of course, is the author of all the evil that would have happened, and he would have done his utmost to make it look alright in the end, but how can you turn what he would have done to make it look good?

Why would Sauron have been interested to try to justify his actions? If Sauron had written his view of the wars I don't believe that he would have tried to give a I'm-trying-to-make-the-world-a-better-place-speech. He was a selfish tyrant and I doubt that he would have given a tinker's dam of what others think of him and his motives.

There isn't an author who can write completely impartially. Even though two authors have exactly the same facts, a few adjectives can change the stories' feeling completely. Look at newspapers and news of wars, for example. Whose side is the author on? Is there a photograph of a wounded child or a triumphant tank? Also the readers always make their own interpretations of a text.

I wonder about how the Redbook (or BlackBook) would have read if perhaps Gollum was the author.

"Nasssty hobbitssess sstole our preciousss, yess they did!"

Folwren's RL examples are really good. How much does an author's own personality shine through of a historical survey? In addition that different writers may twist the facts as they please they also have their own distinctive writing styles. (Just for fun, you can check this thread: If LotR had been written by someone else.)

The books have been written in a manner that you can't really tell who the author is. We know it's Frodo because Tolkien told us. Though "Frodo's" version of LotR seems very neutral, a hobbit who has had to endure much pain and agony is doubtlessly rather biased. If LotR had really been written by Frodo and if it was our only source of information the question if "the orcs were really pure evil" would be more interesting and well worth of speculation. However, we have lots of other sources for knowledge of Middle-earth than LotR: UT and letters, for example. Another question could be, was Tolkien biased or did he just tell the "truth" about the War of the Ring?