Quote:
Originally Posted by Lotrelf
He wasn't treated as "secondary" at all. After returning from the quest, he and Frodo are treated as "equals" and not primary or secondary.  |
I agree with you here about Samwise,
Lotrelf. He was certainly intended by Tolkien to be the biggest hero of
LotR. He was treated as an equal by Frodo to the extent that the latter made him his heir, everything he had being given to him. Sam and his wife Rosie are pushed upstairs by this into the ranks of the gentry.
This is only one of the many rewards received by Sam during his life, the greatest his being allowed to go over Sea. Unlike others, he is a hero who is justly rewarded.
The most heroic thing he did was to, thinking Frodo dead, decide to take the Ring and continue the quest on his own, not matter how much it hurt him to do so.
In terms of the
Silmarillion, the one I regard as the biggest hero is Húrin. Despite being captured and tortured by Morgoth, and totally at his mercy, he still defied him to his face. When Morgoth told him that his family was at the former's mercy, Húrin pointed out, '
You have none'. What particularly impressed me, however, was his calling Morgoth '
an escaped thrall [slave] of the Valar', something that stands along with Fëanor's description of him as a '
jail crow of Mandos'!
