Ah, but I do not think the hobbits in the fellowship were so "ordinary". I think they are the very opposite of ordinary. Look at this in regard to a discussion of hobbits and how those who were "chosen" were not ordinary at all:
Quote:
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Bilbo was speciially selected by the authority an insight of Gandalf as abnormal : he had a good share of hobbit virtues: shrewd sense, generosity, patience, and fortitude, and also a strong 'spark' yet unkindled. The story and its sequel are not about 'types' or the cure of bourgeois smugness by sider experience, but about the achievements of specially graced and gifted individuals. I would say, if saying such things did not spoil what it tries to make explicit, 'by ordained individuals inspired and guided by an Emissary to ends beyond their individual education and enlargement".
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The italics belong to the author.
The problem comes when you introduce the word "charisma". Is this what Tolkien is talking about? I guess it depends on what our definition of charisma is.
Dictionary.com lists several variations:
1. Theology. a divinely conferred gift or power.
2. a spiritual power or personal quality that gives an individual influence or authority over large numbers of people.
3. the special virtue of an office, function, position, etc., that confers or is thought to confer on the person holding it an unusual ability for leadership, worthiness of veneration, or the like.
Interesting, I never thought of Bilbo as "charismatic". (I'm not talking about the actor here.) Yet, if we take Tolkien at his word, what he says in the quote above does seem to come close to meaning number one in dictionary.com (not so sure about 2 or 3).
Still, I don't think Bilbo's neighbors thought of him as being charismatic. Rather they saw him as a non conformist. That certainly seems to be the case from Gandalf's dialogue in Unfinished Tales. Perhaps it is only someone like Gandalf who can look at a hobbit like Bilbo and see the potential for charisma (as defined in #1 above). Perhaps others who are "ordinary", at least those hobbits who were not close to Bilbo, could only see strangeness and think him an "odd" fellow.
Nogord - Regarding your comments on the actors, I do think the two Ians were more commanding on the screen (just as Boromir was), but that's simply a matter of lucky casting. If someone else had played Frodo, perhaps his character would also have had more of this dynamism. The kind of charisma you are talking about here may be more attunded to the luck of casting rather than any true representation of the characters in the book.