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....are described as swarthy or squint-eyed.
One of the travellers from the south in the Prancing Pony, for example, is described as a "squint-eyed ill-favoured fellow".
Errrr, in British English, a "squint" means cross-eyed, or one or both eyes having a sideways aspect; sometimes the connotation is "sidelong" or "shifty." The American usage meaning "partially closed" or even "slanted" was completely alien to JRRT-- even Christopher Tolkien, just a few years ago, was quite surprised and nonplussed to learn that to Americans the word means something so different.
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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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