[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I believe that, in the dim and dusty recesses of the Barrow Downs' past, there was some kind of dust-up between Downers and said MM. I was told when I first arrived that he is not accounted much of an authority in this here Dodge City--by none other than Mithadan the Admin. (His comments can be found in a reference thread deep in the dark archives of the rpg forums--er, fora.)

Oh, I've had some rather violent disagreements with Mr. Martinez elsewhere on the net. I don't necessarily agree with all his postulations, but he can be very thought provoking (I mean, after all, he's not as bad as David Day). I merely invoked his name as a more accessible scholar, as most of his material resides on the internet.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

And what is wrong with Rohirrim?

Nothing at all. Why do you ask?

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Gandalf wasn't maybe lying about his encounter with the balrog - that has been proved unprobable already - but can we take all what Tolkien's characters say as true? This was discussed somewhere some time ago, but it is a very intriguing topic. Tolkien fans are probably the least critic fans in the world when it comes to evaluating whether the heroes of the story are being completely honest or not.

Strangely enough, it seems Tolkien could not always vouch for the veracity of his own written material, as if the books had taken on a life of their own. Cases in point would be the origin of Orcs and the fate of the Blue Wizards.

I suppose one could say that LotR and the Silmarillion are legends and fables of a long-vanished Middle-earth, not unlike one could argue the historical fine points of the Bible, or dismiss it utterly (and thus one becomes an Ardan agnostic or atheist). Or one could say that The Hobbit and LotR were written by the 'winners' of the war, and therefore the true story of the losing side was buried under a great, mouldering pile of propaganda. Thus, one could say that the Dunlanders were a people oppressed by a more powerful neighbor (like the English of the Normans, or the Irish of the English), and that the National People's Front of Dunland was merely seeking their rightful independence from subjugators and usurpers.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Also, LotR is, although in arguable fashion, written by Frodo Baggins so basically it's from his perspective. He might have exaggerated things or simply not remembered them totally correctly. Nevertheless, we can expect quite high accuracy from it as Frodo is a first-hand narrator in many cases, and we can consider his nature quite honest.

Interesting that both Bilbo and Frodo should have written (ostensibly) their memoirs in third person narrative (whether third person omniscient or limited could be argued), rather than in first person narrative, which is the case for most autobiographies. I suppose it would be considered a limited third person narrative, in that we know far more of the Hobbits' thought processes; however, that is not always the case.