The diminshing of the characters

[The Saucepan Man]

You didn't notice when I used The Hobbit - I said the characters of that book are more easily identified with (like the characters of The Lord of the Rings) than are their counterparts in the First Age tales.

Sorry Legalos, I was being a bit flippant.

I think that you are absolutely right in what you say. The characters in LotR are far more accessible to us and we can more easily identify with their struggles.

I still believe that this comes down to the style in which the tales are written. I do not necessarily believe that Aragorn would have been no match for his counterparts of the Second or Third Age, any more than the Duke of Wellington would have been no match for King Arthur. We are not really comparing like with like. The heroes of the Silmarillion were from a Golden Age, yes - a Golden Age of legend. This is the way in which they are portrayed. The characters in LotR are portrayed very much more at first hand. Irrespective of whether some of the characters in the latter were alive at the tine of the former, this is the way in which they are presented to us.

I do not feel from reading the Silm that it diminishes in any way the characters in LotR. They are two different "types" of character.