[Numenorean]

Lalwendë

I sometimes get the impression that there are two distinct histories of Elves, one which we can all read, the other never having been written down at all. On the one hand we have the Noldor, and those of the Teleri and Avari who chose (maybe?) to follow them. Then we also have the unwritten history of the Teleri and Avari who remained independent of the Eldar.

and

The Hobbit on the other hand is Bilbo's personal tale, and it is here that we see the Elves of Mirkwood acting in a sinister fashion, and the Elves of Rivendell having fun; maybe The Hobbit is the most 'unbiased' view of Elves that we have, being written by a Hobbit with no 'agenda'?

I really like those theories Lal, and to me at any rate they go a long way to explaining the differing realities and perceptions of Faerie that saturate through the Legendarium, or as Drigel succinctly states:

Considering the body of work (Legendarium, OFS, SoWM, LOTR, Silm, et al), I can find different aspects of:
1: how a traditional fairy tale aught to be
2: how a fairy tale could and should be
3: what a fairy tale really is, once you strip it down to it's essence. No cultural stigmata, no yarn-spinning - just the original tale, as told by the players.

Lalwendë

Perhaps in the case of LotR it is that the story cannot allow any room for traditional Faerie, it cannot allow for amoral behaviour?

Maybe because it deals with – amongst other themes - the ascendance of Mans Dominion over Arda? Moral ambiguity in the LoTR seems to be evident only when we are hearing of someone or something second or even thirdhand, notably the Rohirrims warped and superstitious viewpoint of Galadriel. They are deemed to be an honourable and ‘good hearted’ race, yet their fear and lack of comprehension as to what Galadriel is actually about is perhaps indicative of humankinds fading respect and understanding of Faerie as a whole.

On a bit(!) of a tangent:-
Davem

In Smith he seems almost to be going back to traditional Faerie - almost, but not quite ...*The chronology Tolkien constructed for the story has Smith born in the year 1063, discovering the Star in 1073, marrying Nell in 1091 & making his last journey into Faerie in 1120 - making him about 57. 'His long journeys in Faerie probably were undertaken mostly in the years between 1098 & 1108, & 1115-20

Davem, when I saw the above chronology I was struck by the curious and maybe deliberate coincidence of the Smith storyline intersecting with the arrival and ascendancy of the Normans in Britain from 1066 onwards. Was this a conscious motivation for Tolkien?
History records that their policies were harsh and oppressive upon the native Anglo-Saxons and Brits, and heralded the commencement of the grim ‘modernising’ feudal era. The Norman invasion and subsequent proliferation of their culture across the land can also be seen as a time when traditional Faerie waned. The mystery of the land was greatly lessened via Norman military conquests, power motivated projects such as Domesday and as a result of local administrative centres based in castles.
In short, the erosion of traditional Faerie was vast and in most places irredeemable, and where it even survived at all Faerie was pushed back to the deepest corners and forests of the land. JRRT was probably acutely aware of the crushing impact of Normanisation upon the previously rich tapestry of native British myths, legends and lore, and that leads me to believe that the Smith timeline is no mere coincidence, or perhaps it was…