Who, in The Lord of the Rings, was the most effective liar?

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age

This wasn't what the original question you raised. But on some level, it's fascinating to ask how the author stands in relation to truth and not truth. Either he is an enormously effective liar or the conveyor of some fundamental truths that the rest of us can't see as well as he did.

Well, there is no better time to post this conversation between Tolkien and Lewis:

Originally Posted by "He has been inside his language, Part Four, JRR Tolkien: A Biograph, by Humphrey Carpenter

- But, said Lewis, myths are lies, even though lies breathed through silver.

- No, said Tolkien, they are not.

And, indicating the great trees of Magdalen Grove as their branches bent in the wind, he struck out a different line of argument.

- You call a tree a tree, he said, and you think nothing more of the word. But it was not a ‘tree’ until someone gave it that name. You call a star a star, and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. And just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.

We have come from God (continued Tolkien), and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a ‘sub-creator’ and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic ‘progress’ leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.

I find this view of myths/myths making as one of Tolkien's most profound ideas... and one of the main reasons I like his work so much