Kalessin, I am given to understand from your posts that you read LOTR for the first time rather recently, perhaps within the last year or two. Is that so?
Irregardless, C.S. Lewis and Tolkien had a catch-phrase which served as a critique of much of the criticism of which they were targets: "chronological snobbery". They used this term to describe a perspective by which critics and their ilk considered something to be less good merely because it was no longer popular, extant, 'the way it is done'. Lewis and Tolkien considered themselvs dinosaurs, willing to consider aspects of times past frankly better than current.
Your comments regarding Tolkien's idealisization of kings born-to-be and the master/servant relationship of Frodo and Sam brought this to mind.
Your comments are incisive, and I would consider 'snobbery' to be saying far too much of them; nonetheless, I do sense a chronological bias in your comments, sometimes persuasively so - that is to say, I have been persuaded by your words to change my views about certain things as better now than what was then. I can't think of an example off hand, though. Nevertheless, I would be interested in your estimation and response to the chronological bias notion.
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