Unfinished Tales: The Lost Lore of Middle-earth
What is the narrator point of view in Unfinished Tales: The Lost Lore of Middle-earth?
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The point of view of these stories varies. Often the tales are told from the point of view of an omniscient third party who knows all of the happenings and the thoughts and feelings of all the characters. The narrator, in this case, is generally anonymous. At times, however, the narrator is not omniscient but knows only what is written in the histories of the people of Numenor and Middle-earth. In many of these cases, the narrator explicitly states that the stories come from best guesses based on the written lore and history. Occasionally, the story meanders into a long quote from one of the characters (as is the case when Voronwe explains how Ulmo brought him to Tuor), essentially telling the narrative as a flashback in the first person point of view. In a single case, the story is told from the point of view of Frodo, who relates a long story quoted by Gandalf, a story in which Frodo took no part.
Often the editor steps into the narrative during the stories at places where the stories are ambiguous or incomplete and makes clarifying comments. These comments are placed in the narrative rather than with the endnotes to the chapter because they come in places that the reader would have difficulty understand the flow of the story without them. Many of the editor's comments transition from one version of a story to the next. They also point out places where the stories conflict in their details. The editor, as the son of the author, is intimately interested in the author's work and digs through many seemingly minute details from many sources to reach conclusions as to the author's intentions for the nature of the characters and the plots.
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