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Some nice points davem (as always) but I think that you are shifting my point a bit. I was not arguing that E, G, and B are in love with (or desire) the 'wrong' things, or simple things and that they then learn to love the 'right' things: what I'm saying is that their journey is one specifically from self-love to love of the other.
I point this out because in your post you seem to be aligning BEG with characters like Frodo and Merry. The way in which you are putting them all together works well with your formulation of growing love, but I would resist putting Merry or Frodo into the same 'camp' with BEG in terms of the self-love I am working through. I simply do not see the other 'heroes' as suffering from self love. I think that the story is really quite clear: any form of loving the self before or more than the other is extremely dangerous -- Sauron springs to mind, here. . .
I want to retain a very special sense of the role of Boromir, Eowyn and Gollum that excludes the other characters (their growth from self-love to other-love). Of course, I think that these characters must work in comparison or relation with others, but I really do want to figure out how they are unique in the story.
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Scribbling scrabbling.
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