Diamond18 has hit the nail on the head, I believe, and must have read a few books in her time.
LOTR in first person would be awful. The story has such a wide scope. The poor main character would be emotionally exhausted by the end of it, after describing so much of his thoughts and feelings.
Tolkien did a masterful job of retaining the point of view of the hobbits. I think the whole piece only works because he had four (five counting Bilbo) different hobbits that he could focus on, while reverting to a high form in certain places as well. One style throughout would make it a very lengthy 1100 pages.
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But Gwindor answered: 'The doom lies in yourself, not in your name'.
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