Aragorn truly is fantastic, in any incarnation. I kind of love Sam the best though. It's the cooking thing, I think. The fact that he thought to bring some decent herbs and spices to make their camping meals more palatable is just precious and I totally relate to it.

I didn't know that about Austen! I'd love to hear her thoughts as to why. I've seen other authors have that problem, too--their most popular work is often the one they connected with the least, for whatever reason. Anthony Burgess felt the same about A Clockwork Orange, to go in a completely different direction, but I wonder why that is.