Alan Sisto

Now, truth to tell...

That little aside, that sort of almost a nod to the reader did make me wonder a question that I don't think we've talked about yet.

I don't know if it's answerable is who is the narrator here?

Who is, who is that supposed to be?

There are a lot of times where it's clearly, you know, Frodo writing down Gandalf's words or like, like in the first part of this chapter, when it's the tale of the hunt for the ring as told by Gandalf to Frodo.

So therefore, you know that Frodo is the narrator and,

Is that still the case?

Because I don't know.

I'm not convinced.

Or is this Tolkien almost like doing a rough outline and changing the voice of the narration later once he figures out how that's going to work in the metanarrative?

This is the omnipotent narrator and Tolkien doesn't use an omnipotent narrator.

It's almost like The Princess Bride.

It's a narrator who is so present in the story because he says things that tie you into the modern world, you know.

Well, you know, like you would have done with your friends if this had happened.

He has these asides to the reader that you're like, what?

but yeah, nothing like Lord of the Rings.

Yeah.

Because the only thing I can think of here would be if you were to add little bits, like historians believe that this is why this person acted that way or yeah.

you know, Gandalf later says that, you know, Saruman's jealousy is likely what led him to this or, you know, so we get, some say that blank, you know, yes, but right now it does feel like that, that omnipotent narrator, which is, is interesting because right now, truth to tell really did throw me for a loop.

Like, you're right.