Who's your favourite hobbit...

[Folwren]

*flushes red and tears start to my eyes*

That's hard! Cruel hard!

Originally posted by TGWBS:
Slight omissions may have been carried out to portray Sam in a more negative light.

Yes, I assumed that.

I don't think that Tolkien disliked the scamp...he couldn't have. You can't write a book as long as the LotR and turn one of the characters you dislike into the hero of the story.

Besides that, I'm not talking about what Tolkien thought of Samwise, I'm talking about how good Sam is. I'm not even comparing him to Bilbo Baggins. The two are uncomparable, really. Sam is a lot better than Bilbo, but I'm not going to go on and on about that fact. I'll defend Sam to the death (and I don't see that happening any time soon) because if you brought any real complaints against him, I could thwart them as easily as I...squished that caterpillar the other day. (That as gross.)

But what's a chap like me supposed to say when you come up with fragments of a letter I have no way to get my hands on? Fragments, I say, taking what makes Sam appear the worst? I have no possible way to refute what you just said! Do I?

I don't believe that any one in their right mind could dislike Sam, or be irritated by him. No one in the book ever was...besides when he was obviously bad by trimming the grass around the window sills when he wasn't supposed to be listening. (Many people got mad and irritated at Bilbo, but I'm not going into that because I said I wouldn't earlier.)

Honestly, TGWBS, if you're going to argue and rail against Sam, bring stuff from the books!