Whoa . . . just last night I got to thinking more on this subject and came to this same conclusion. There are a great many inspirational characters in Tolkien, but Samwise as presented by the books (more so than in the movies) leads the pack for me. He has a great many commendable virtues and only one negative; his sometimes unreasonable pettiness toward smeagol / gollum.

This does not negate or lessen my earlier listing of Thomas Covenant from the first two "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" trilogies (but not the third, which I found a great disappointment).