A pudgy bourgeoisie half-ling is recruited by a wizard to steal a priceless treasure from a dragon. Against all odds, he succeeds.
A disenfranchised adventurer of somewhat dubious lineage but of undeniably stout heart and noble character regains an ancient throne.
A vagabond human falls in love with the fairest of all elven maidens, is sent by her royal father on a hopeless quest to accomplish what entire armies of valiant warriors could not and yet prevails and weds the Elf king's daughter. A sailor sets out to find a continent hidden by godly enchantment and, under penalty of death, reaches the forbidden land and pleads before the gods to grant mercy on the people of Middle-earth and deliver them from the malice of Morgoth. The gods are moved and come to the aid of Elf-kind and mankind.
Yet another comfortable half-ling becomes embroiled in a most deadly game of 'cat & mouse' which involves traversing leagues of wilderness, crossing miles of hostile and desolate territory carrying a talisman of stupendous power to the very stronghold of the most evil and powerful being on earth to destroy that talisman and save the world from utter perdition and ruin. Despite the odds, he and his companion accomplish their impossible task.
Tolkien wasn't simply indulging a romantic pre-occupation nor - most assuredly - was he catering to the proclivities of public tastes. He was delivering one of the core messages of Old Norse and Gothic myth and legend: the struggle of man to survive in this harsh world is doomed to failure from the out-set. Though one foe may be vanquished or subdued, be the foe natural or supra-natural, the ultimate battle against death is pre-ordained. Death is the doom, the judgment pronounced for all men by nature. In the pre-Christian world of Northern Europe, that doom was spoken by the gods of nature. In Arda, that doom was pronounced as the 'Gift of Men' by Iluvatar, the creator, for by it, mankind is removed from the cycle of endless life and so, the endless suffering inherent in human life.
For the people of Middle-earth and for Northern Europe before the arrival of the Christian doctrine of eternal spiritual life, the only redemption for humanity from the void of death was the quality of their struggle. If the struggle was bravely done and merited being regarded as heroic, the man or woman's effort would be remembered by their people in a eulogistic line of a ballad. Their struggle became included in the body of traditional verse, legend and song, that is, the collective memory of the clan or tribe. Inclusion in the group's collective memory of an individual or an episode in which the individual played part was the only hedge available against the long forgetful oblivion of death. The collective memory of the clan was the vehicle by which the story of an individual's life-struggle lived on generations after his passing. It was the only means to attain immortality and deathlessness prior to the proselytizing of Europe to the Christian doctrine of 'life everlasting'.
