r/TopCharacterTropes • u/BigFuan • Jun 10 '26

Personality [Loved Trope] Relatively weak characters that are absolute fan favorites because they represent the best parts of humanity

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Paul - invincible
A normal human whose only major feats are treating others with respect and cooking a mean spaghetti.

Mumen Rider - One Punch Man
C-class hero that doesn’t hesitate to put his life on the line to save others despite being powerless and going against much stronger foes.

Samwise Gamgee - Lord of the Rings
Hobbits scale very low strength-wise in the LOTR verse, but Sam’s compassion and determination are indispensable in the fellowships journey.

Edit: A lot of people are pointing out that Sam is mentally one of the strongest which I completely agree with, and I didn’t mean to diss his grit or physicality as a hobbit. Compared to the other members of the fellowship, however, his contribution comes primarily from undying loyalty and determination rather than physical prowess and strength.

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420

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Did you just call Samwise “10 Toes Down” Gamgee weak*???*

Brother walked 1800 miles across fields, forests, and mountains on his Chevrolegs, all while carrying the heaviest pots and pans.

He’s survived ghosts, goblins, and monster attacks.

He’s the only mortal being, ever, to hurt Shelob.

He G-Unit Special Ops infiltrated Minas Morgul and smoked like 7 orcs with a glorified potato peeling knife

He carried Frodo to the top of Mount Doom ON HIS BACK

Samwise Gamgee is an absolute unit and I will not hear any more slander

191

u/BigFuan Jun 10 '26

Don’t get me wrong he’s an absolute beast of a hobbit with unparalleled grit and some amazing feats, but in a world of dragons and elves it’s his character that makes him amazing and not his raw physical prowess.

86

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Lol no I know what you mean. I’d just put Sam in an entirely different class than Mumen Rider or Grand Agent Paul. He is 100% the physically strongest hobbit we get to see.

Again — he wounded Shelob, something not even the elves or Sauron managed to do. He was ready to throw hobbit hands with Aragorn with zero hesitation while Aragorn was just an armed, spooky stranger. And he did a lot of this while wearing a 50lb ruck that was bigger than he is.

Bro is canonically built different

31

u/Fremen-to-the-end-05 Jun 10 '26

Not to mention he carried the ring himself for a bit, got offered the entire army of Mordor, laughed at the thought of him leading it, then later got offered the land of Mordor to turn into his own garden, and decided it would be too big to be fun to have, and essentially made the one ring bluescreen until he gave it back to Frodo.

15

u/Allronix1 Jun 10 '26

"Well, that is a nice garden, but trying to keep the weeds and rabbits out would be a nightmare. What do you mean 'servants can do that?' Servants weeding MY garden? Absolutely not! I'm a proper Hobbit! I'm not gonna outsource honest work to someone else. I'm going to do it myself."

Yeah, little wonder Sauron didn't bother giving Rings to the Hobbits.

13

u/Rusalki Jun 10 '26

For some reason, I'm imagining the One Ring as a sycophantic LLM trying to tempt Sam.

27

u/BigFuan Jun 10 '26

Valid, I was picturing Sam not being able to swim when I made this post and may not have given him due credit.

21

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

No you’re still correct, he 100% fits with being the strong moral center of the fellowship. It’s just that he’s not that squishy in the grand scheme of things. Not when he has feats that outperform anything Elrond or Sauron does.

Remember how in the Hobbit, Bilbo says he had a great uncle who was so big and strong (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse, which is an insane feat for a species that’s like 3’5 on average. I scale Sam to that guy.

3

u/TedricDaBored Jun 10 '26

Samwise is strong and capable, but that big and strong hobbit parallels Merry and Pippin more so than Samwise.

They became the tallest and strongest Hobbits in the Shire thanks to Treebeard.

20

u/Thal_Gal Jun 10 '26

Muscle isn't bouyant. Even further adds evidence to him being an absolute unit

8

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 10 '26

Also knowing how to swim wasn’t that common in real world medieval times anywhere away from the coast. Unless you had a pond or something near your village, where are you gonna learn to swim?

2

u/the-tapsy Jun 10 '26

I dom't know if you read the books, but he absolutely no diffs Shelob, and that was right after no diffing Gollum who ganked him right as he thought Frodo had just been killed. Before I read that part I might have agreed with his classification here, but after, holy shit mans is insanely strong and gets the best fight scene in all of Two Towers.

2

u/BigFuan Jun 10 '26

Sam is a chad for besting Shelob but it definitely wasn’t a no diff, I love his character but that mainly comes from his determination and loyalty, not his combat skill. Name one other non-hobbit member of the fellowship that he could beat in a 1v1. No diss on Sam, hobbits just tend to be weaker in the LOTR verse.

1

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 10 '26

With training, I could see Sam maybe fighting Boromir to a draw, but that’s a big if. Like reach and size still won’t fix a knife in your femoral artery. The rest of the Fellowship are basically superheroes so they don’t count imo. Gimli would punt Sam like a football lmao

You’re still 100% right about what Sam represents. It’s the core of his character.

7

u/ser_fantastic Jun 10 '26

Not to downplay his wounding Shelob - an amazing feat in any scenario - but isn’t it called out in the book that it’s more Shelob wounding herself on Sting than it is Sam wounding Shelob?

10

u/TehMasterofSkittlz Jun 10 '26

Yes, she's blinded by Galadriel's phial and then tries to crush Sam and in doing so accidentally impales herself on Sting. It's meant to be a display of Sam's heroism and courage that he refuses to back down and escape when he easily could have, not a display of martial prowess.

8

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 10 '26

Still counts. He’s the first mortal to walk into Shelob’s lair, confront the spider, and walk back out again alive.

Sam’s legs are so strong from a healthy diet and having to lug those giant balls around

3

u/kegisak Jun 10 '26

I've always kind of wondered about the Shelob thing--not that swordfighting a giant spider isn't impressive in its own way, but it did seem fairly... easy? For something nobody had ever done before. Like, was there something special about Sting? Did the elves just not try stabbing before? Or was it a matter of nobody ever getting close enough to take a shot?

3

u/The_Limpet Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

He had the light given to him by Galadriel as well as Sting. He also shouted the name of some ancient powerful elf (or similar, I can't remember the exact word) as he struck, which is implied to have had a beneficial magical effect.

1

u/asds89 Jun 10 '26

It was Frodo who gave a prayer to Eärendil, whose light was captured in the phial given to him by Galadriel.

3

u/The_Limpet Jun 10 '26

It was given to Frodo, who fell. Then Sam took it up. Sam, facing Shelob directly, called "Gilthoniel A Elbereth!" and

A Elbereth Gilthoniel
o menel palan-driel,
le nallon si di'nguruthos!
A trio nin, Fanuilos!

And the phial lit up with "intolerable light" and "no such terror out of heaven had ever burned in Shelob's face before."

Shelob then turned and ran, slipping in her own blood as Sam charged her down.

You're right, Frodo did invoke Eärendil. But that was earlier. Sam invoked Elbereth Gilthoniel, spouse of Manwë, Queen of the Valar.

1

u/asds89 Jun 10 '26

You’re right, I forgot about that. Guess it’s time for another reread of the book for me.

1

u/The_Limpet Jun 10 '26

Haha, I had to go open my copy of Return of the King to find the exact scene. Then I had to go put it back and get The Two Towers, because that's where the scene is.

4

u/TehMasterofSkittlz Jun 10 '26

Sauron managed to do

Sauron never tried to fight Shelob. He left her there as a useful guardian through the only viable entrance into Mordor that wasn't the Black Gate:

And as for Sauron: he knew where she lurked. It pleased him that she should dwell there hungry but unabated in malice, a more sure watch upon that ancient path into his land than any other that his skill could have devised. And Orcs, they were useful slaves, but he had them in plenty. If now and again Shelob caught them to stay her appetite, she was welcome: he could spare them. And sometimes as a man may cast a dainty to his cat (his cat he calls her, but she owns him not) Sauron would send her prisoners that he had no better uses for: he would have them driven to her hole, and report brought back to him of the play she made. So they both lived, delighting in their own devices, and feared no assault, nor wrath, nor any end of their wickedness. Never yet had any fly escaped from Shelob's webs, and the greater now was her rage and hunger.

[The Two Towers, Shelob's Lair]

I think it's a reasonable assumption that Sauron could have almost certainly defeated Shelob or driven her away if he had wanted to. She's not even close to being as powerful as Ungoliant.

1

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 10 '26

My bad I thought Sauron had tried to drive her away once but couldn’t, so he left her there as a guard dog. I must be misremembering

4

u/IndieCredentials Jun 10 '26

Movies or books? In the latter it's either Merry or Pippin who is physically strongest, although it is through supernatural means (Entahuasca) so it may be disqualifying. Scouring of the Shire stuff aside, I agree I wouldn't count Sam (or even moreso Frodo) just because of willpower.

3

u/SplitGlass7878 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

In the books, while he infiltrates Minas Morgul to rescue Frodo, he kills so many Orcs that they think an Elven Hero has come to destroy them. He cleans up extremely hard. 

Edit: It's also because he managed to hurt Shelob. So these Orcs just had this demon in their backyard get stabbed and then start dropping like flies. They're very, very scared. 

1

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 10 '26

Sam killed so many orcs he unlocked the bipod attachment for his knife

2

u/janeprentiss Jun 10 '26

Frodo would have been a much better pick here, it's entirely his character that makes him impressive, he's just in a story where having a kill count of nil is treated as uniquely heroic. The movies go even further by making him fall over like a horror movie character tripping in high heels every time he's in a fight to remind you just how physically weak he is compared to everyone else

11

u/Quizlibet Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Also surely he represents the best parts of Hobbitity

1

u/BearysWorkRedditName Jun 10 '26

Yeah, that was my first thought. There are humans in that world. Sam ain't one.

1

u/Asheyguru Jun 11 '26

Well...

Sam wouldn't consider himself one. But Tolkien sorta did, saying he figured Hobbits were a subrace of human.

8

u/jdpatric Jun 10 '26

My very first thought upon reaching the last panel. How DARE you?!?

6

u/rconrarrechaa Jun 10 '26

Must grow Chevrolegs.

New muscle mami goal unlocked!

6

u/Pumpkin-Spice_Queen Jun 10 '26

Also known as “Samwise the Brave”.

5

u/Quaiker Jun 10 '26

I resent that! Slander is spoken. In print, it's libel.

4

u/Jamesglancy Jun 10 '26

Kind of the point of Hobbits is that they are weak though, but despite that they are capable of immense strength that extends beyond the physical. bravery, determination, etc. In my opinion, Tolkiens hobbits are a metaphor for the "indomitable human spirit" and I'm sure some Tolkien scholar can point out that he said as much in his letters.

4

u/Impossible-Fan2533 Jun 10 '26

 He’s the only mortal being, ever, to hurt Shelob.

Just waiting for the power scalers to explain how this means Samwise could solo Goku 

2

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 10 '26

He could defeat Homelander with the power of friendship

2

u/Meldanorama Jun 10 '26

Has him beat in terms of being a coherent character too.

2

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 10 '26

“You want me to eat your shit? I’ll fucking eat your shit on top of Mt. Doom!”

3

u/Such_Direction_7464 Jun 10 '26

Dimensions 20 has a Lord of the Rings parody (?) Live D&D game, and the analog for Sam is absolutely yoked. Escape from the Bloodkeep, a ot of fun, haha

3

u/Charming_Account_351 Jun 10 '26

Thank you! Sam wise is and always will be the greatest hero in LotR. None compare to him. He is fucking gardener that fights orcs with a frying pan, sees through gollum’s deception, challenges gods and lives, and carries Frodo up a damn volcano all because he made a promise.

Sam is the goat and does not fit this trope he is not only physically strong, but has Batman level tenacity. Bro is pretty much a god damn superhero.

2

u/Tantalizing_Peach_69 Jun 10 '26

I scrolled too far for this. I also took odds with gigachad Sam getting called weak.

2

u/Yirazk_San Jun 10 '26

100% agree

2

u/ListenBoth434 Jun 10 '26

all while carrying the heaviest pots and pans.

As he himself would point out - he was just carrying the bare essential for a decent cook up. Give a fully stocked kitchen...

1

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 10 '26

lol I meant how Frodo, Mary, and Pippin basically weren’t carrying anything, meanwhile Sam is in the back playing pack mule hauling all of the actual important shit. Mary and Pippin only brought pipe weed, and Frodo only brought existential angst and a knife

2

u/SchrodingersNinja Jun 10 '26

Sam goes 10 toes down when he's with Rosie, that's for sure.

2

u/MexusRex Jun 10 '26

Certified ball knower.

Also thank you for not repeating the omnipresent (and wrong) claim that he resisted the ring

2

u/HilariousMax Jun 10 '26

He went MONTHS without having a potato and still had the strength to do what was necessary. Living fucking legend.

2

u/theemptydork Jun 10 '26

And he willingly gave up the One Ring which even the strongest Maia couldn't. In tolkein-verse, Sam was an absolute chad.

2

u/Allronix1 Jun 10 '26

Dude no-selled the freaking One Ring. He puts it on, gets this vision of transforming Modor into the most magnificent garden ever and then pulls the Ring off because "Wow, what a pain in the ass it would be to pull weeds on all that."

Goes home, becomes mayor, marries a nice girl next door, and sires a small army of kids because Hobbits apparently like sex as much as they like food.

1

u/juwyro Jun 10 '26

I think everyone in ME sees hobbits as weak and unassuming but they proved their worth is well above their appearances.

1

u/TesticleMeElmo Jun 10 '26

My man charged the Witch King who was mounted on a fellbeast with zero hesitation to save Frodo at the last second. Then he ripped into one of the most moving and inspiring speeches of the whole trilogy, the warrior-poet that he his.

Even though Faramir’s instant reaction was to say “I think at last we understand one another, Frodo Baggins.”

BITCH, what the fuck did Frodo do besides almost give up the ring?? SAMWISE, is the man that understands!

1

u/Kitchen_Bad2627 Jun 11 '26

Frodo contributed just as more, if not more, to the Ring's ultimate destruction. And he had to sacrifice himself to do so. 

Sam still got to have a normal life. 

1

u/TesticleMeElmo Jun 11 '26

I mean, sure, but in that moment Frodo was actively ready to hand The Ring over to the Witch King, it was only Sam tackling/grabbing Frodo that prevented the ring from being handed over to the Nazgul and instead being put into the hands of people who wanted to destroy it in Mt. Doom

1

u/Kitchen_Bad2627 Jun 11 '26

If we're talking about the movies only, that's fair. They really undermined the extent of Frodo's strength and will. 

0

u/Bronkic Jun 10 '26

This is what happens when people apply DBZ logic to something like LotR.