"People do not decide to become extraordinary....

[Boromir88]

Just poking my head in Mith to point out you might be interested in reading this thread (Small hand do them because they must...)

What I particularly like is this bit from Tolkien's Letter to Milton Waldman:

A moral of the whole is the obvious one that without the high and noble, the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless.

You need Aragorn, Boromir, Glorfindel and those "noble" warriors to do the grunt work and inspirational leadership. Yet you think those guys are going to get their nice clothes dirty and take a ring into Mordor and go through extreme mental/physical pain? Most likely not...so that means it's up to the 'smaller' ones of the world.

I think this correlation also exists with the Villain and his servants. The villains that strive to be Dark Lords (Sauron, Saruman) are the guys who have control over their servants (Orcs, Grima). Without the servants the Dark Lords wouldn't be able to get much done. Yet, without the Dark Lord the servants are lost and go insane.

Like the Orcs:

The Captains bowed their heads; and when they looked up again, behold! their enemies were flying and the power of Mordor was scattering like dust in the wind. As when death smites the swollen brooding thing that inhabits their crawling hill and holds them all in sway, ants will wander witless and purposeless and then feebly die,...~The Field of Cormallen

There is a great visual comparison made between the Orcs reacting to Sauron's destruction as ants to the loss of their queen.

And Grima:

at that something snapped; suddenly Wormtounge rose up, drawing a hidden knife, and then with a snarl like a dog he sprang on Saruman's back, jerked his head back, cut his throat, and with a yell ran of down the lane. Before Frodo could recover or speak a word, three Hobbit bows twanged and Wormtounge fell dead.~Scouring of the Shire

Excellent thread, Mith.