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Ah, but in the Third Age the world was round and there were 'new lands like to the old lands'- analogs of the Americas. We know that Dunedainic (presumably Gondorian) mariners succeeded in 'setting a girdle about the earth,' Magellan- like. A Hobbit conceivably could have wound up on one of these trans-Belegaer Mannish ships, without any reference at all to Valinor (since the Straight Road was closed to all but Elvish vessels).
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it.
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