Giants among men, or just another player in the Long Defeat

[Sapphire_Flame]

Why are the heroes of this book little people, literally, in case of the hobbits; why are they little people? Even Aragorn who, by the end of the book, is a great hero and he's king and he's great, at the beginning of the book he's just this scruffy fellow who even the innkeeper doesn't like. Why are these people great? Not because they have a shiny sword that glows in the dark. These people are great because they have the little person's strength to endure in the face of adversity. The little man, the British private soldier who Tolkien saw in the trenches at the Battle of the Somme, the kind of dedicated will that gets Tommy Atkins up over the trench parapet and walking slowly toward German machine guns; that level of individulal herosim is what it's all about.

~from "J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of the Rings"

Abedithon le,

~ Saphy ~