[Kalimac]

Diamond - I've wondered that about Sam as well, whether he just started "growing" as Tolkien wrote about him. This is largely because if you go back and read the beginning of FOTR after finishing the trilogy, seeing Sam is a real shock; he's definitely much more the boilerplate Comic Servant, complete with the accent and the just-a-little-slow approach to understanding things (he's still very well-written, of course, but still much more to pattern with the goofy servants who have existed in Eng Lit from time immemorial). At the end he still has the mannerisms, but there's so much more to him that they're almost invisible. Of course, in large part these qualities were brought out by the hardships he went through, but it's still easy to believe that Sam's developing qualities were as much of a surprise to his creator as they were to Sam himself [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img].

And yes, I became very fond of Sam when I first read the books, and he was definitely my favorite character (well, co-favorite - I tend not to count Frodo in these rankings because OF COURSE he had the hardest time, etc etc). Later on, though, I got to like Merry almost as much, though for very different reasons. Nowadays I'd say it's a four-way tie between Merry, Sam, Faramir and Eowyn. (Not to slight Pippin; give me another ten years and he'll probably have ascended to be the favorite).