[Lily Bracegirdle]

I admit to disliking Tom Bombadil.

*hides with Finwe*

Tom Bombadil was colorful, but his constant "hey dol derry dol" routine got old pretty quickly as far as I was concerned. I don't think he was interesting enough to justify the number of pages devoted to him.

I have to defend Sam a bit. He was a servant of Mr. Frodo's, and a lot of his behavior was modeled on what was probably considered an "ideal" British servant. These days those notions seem antiquated and elitist, especially to us Americans, but in Britain a hundred years ago being "in service" was an honorable job and "giving satisfaction" to one's employer was a source of pride. Whether the class system was wrong or not and whether the servants were deluded or not wasn't something most people thought about then.

Cheers!
-Lily