Psychological depth in Tolkien's characters

[Theron Bugtussle]

Congrats to Saucepan Man on a great thread. [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

The Saucepan Man: But there is less psychological depth here because, as I said earlier, noble characters who have no inner turmoil are less psychologically interesting than those who are struggling inside (note that does not necessarily make them less interesting characters, just less psychologically interesting).

...though it does get extremely tedious (or challenging) to follow the intricacies of a discussion like this! (I refer to the whole string of thoughts leading up to and including your quote....)

I find the strength of nobility and purpose, and the insight into others' thoughts and weakness, and the gentleness and humility of Aragorn, for example--as pointed out earlier by some contributors here--extremely
psychologically interesting, but not from a Freudian or other modern psychological standpoint.

I disagree with (perhaps my understanding of) your definition of psychological depth, if by it you mean a character has to wallow in temptation to sin, indecision, or some other angst in order that the reader find the character interesting, or to assure that the character be perceived as deep or having something of great value to contribute to today's reader.