Tolkien's Characters

[davem]

Which characters, specifically, don't you find developed? The characters are developed to the extent that they are needed to be for the story.

There's a great deal of back story in Tolkien's other works. At the same time you have to remember Tolkien was not writing a novel, but an epic romance.

I don't think the arguement against what PJ did with Arwen was about his giving more emphasis to her, but about the way he CHANGED her character, & how that impacted on the rest of the story. There are two ways to view LotR, as a 'stand alone' work, and as the culmination of the whole Legendarium. There are things in LotR which are there because Tolkien was drawing together threads of story which stretched back over the millenia of Middle Earth history, & are not necessary to LotR as a stand alone work. Many of the objections to what PJ did are from those who see LotR as the culmination of the Legendarium, & therefore feel that it should fit in with the earlier history as closely as possible. So, Arwen defying the Ringwraiths is a problem, because she doesn't have the inner power of Glorfindel. Glorfindel could do it, Arwen couldn't. Things like that grate on some fans.