[Critics like Edmund Wilson] and others are taking too narrow a view of what a Tolkien "character" is. As Tolkien conceives the matter, characters are not limited to the individuals who play parts in the war against Sauron. They include also, and perhaps even predominantly, the various races to which each person belongs. Tolkien is at least as interested in exploring the characteristic traits of elves, hobbits, dwarves, men, ents, and other intelligent species who swarm Middle-earth as he is in depicting, say, Frodo, Elrond, Aragorn, and Gimli, or in telling the events of the War of the Ring. - Kocher, P. (1972). Master of Middle-earth: The Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien.