Psychological depth in Tolkien's characters

[Lord of Angmar]

I agree with most of the content of your post, Saucepan Man. I do feel, though, that Mr. Pullman's own critique of Professor Tolkien is rather flawed (if Pullman's aforementioned remarks are to be taken as criticisms of Tolkien's work). That is not to say that the characters in Professor Tolkien's novels are the quintessential psychologically "deep" characters, but it is to say that they should not necessarily be so. Professor Tolkien did not approach the novel as a venture into the human psyche, but rather as a grandiose epic, and having thus approached it, it is rather unfair for a critic to approach it from an entirely different angle in his criticism. An epic is designed to take its reader on an expansive journey, and although it is the part of the writer to make readers care about the characters and their endeavours in his writing, it is not necessarily the epic writer's part to indulge in deeper psychoanalysis or to delve into the internal fastnesses of his characters' ids and egos. That does not seem to me to be the reason for epic writing. Having said, that, I have no problem with Mr. Pullman's claim that Professor Tolkien's epic lacks "depth" of psychology. I simply see it as a general statement rather than a pointed criticism.