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and hardly at all as a paradigm of something
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Point taken, though I suppose that something can be
both quite deeply worked out and independent character and
yet a paradigm. You don't think I picture Frodo and Sam and Gollum as
bodily one person, do you? Just depends on angle of view. Just as married couple is at once merely (I dislike the word 'merely' in this case, yet still) married couple, symbol of Sky Father-Earth Mother union for a heathen and, at the same time, symbol of union of Christ and Church for a Christian.
And one of Tolkien's great gifts is his ability to make his characters symbolise something retaining ther depth and 'believableness' (for a lack of better word) for a reader