Austin isn't Texas though. Austin and Paris sounds characteristic for who he wants to be?
And nothing (or rather no one) really changes in Tolkiens books. I think that is a fair point. People ARE (good, evil, shadowy, treacherous, wise) they don't become or evolve and are not typically multifaceted.
Unless the people are humans or elfs (hence orcs) or dwarfs or hobbits - then they aren't influenced or changed at all by the power of the ring.
The fact that the characters are somewhat like woodcuts might also be owed to two things:
- Tolkien was a linguist, not necessarily well-versed in the craft of literature. Writing good believable characters is extremely hard; moving stick puppets around (Dan Brown comes to mind) is practicaly the default-state, entry-level of writing.
- the books were his answer to the edda. I can't find a sources on this but I believe part of what he wanted was England to have a set of epic myths commensurable with those in the edda - this motivation certainly influenced the overall style of the stories.
I wouldn't call the analysis necessarily wrong or completely unconvincing (the pdf linked here shows his ideas much better), but I would call tendentious in that it looks like everything that doesn't fit conveniently is left out.
And nothing (or rather no one) really changes in Tolkiens books. I think that is a fair point. People ARE (good, evil, shadowy, treacherous, wise) they don't become or evolve and are not typically multifaceted.