> In the context of LOTR, all the narrators are now untrustworthy. I think that's a common misunderstanding of the 'untrustworthy narrator' concept. All narrat

> In the context of LOTR, all the narrators are now untrustworthy. I think that's a common misunderstanding of the 'untrustworthy narrator' concept. All narrators are untrustworthy, the question is not a binary one: 100% or not. The question is how trustworthy, and where and when can we trust this narrator? Like real people, nobody is perfect - everyone tells >0 lies and >0 truth - but putting them all in the same basket is meaningless and aburd. Some are far more trustworthy than others. Tolkien was very clear that knowledge had great power (Gandalf, for example) and that deception and untrustworthiness were works of the enemy, of evil. Bilbo's lie was driven by the Ring, the ultimate corrupting evil. The protagonists, including the hobbits, Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli, Legalos, etc., were exceptionally trustworthy and took it very seriously; look at Sam's faithfulness to Frodo, for example. Boromir was depected as flawed, and ultimately broke trust and was corrupted by the Ring.