Sorry I got political-response to Dr. Donovan

For this question I would like to focus on how we see basic behavioral structures related to values reflected in Tolkien’s works. We see throughout all his works the dichotomy of good vs. evil, which is directly related to light vs. dark. One of the best examples of this is Gandalf’s near death experience with a Balrog. As we may know Balrog’s are Maiar corrupted by Melkor and Gandalf is an uncorrupted Maiar. Gandalf the gray while a powerful wizard only has limited power against the forces of evil, but when Gandalf the gray defeats the Balrog and returns as Gandalf the White the forces of evil recoil from his splendorous brilliance. The one value that is also reflected a lot more subtly is rich vs. poor. I would argue this is something that isn’t very clear to readers because it is often discriminatory. We know that Bilbo and Frodo are from money, and while Sam’s the most heroic Frodo and Bilbo are meant to be seen as heroes. Aragorn, Boromir, and Legolas come from powerful blood lines, so we can assume they have money. Dwarves mine precious rock and minerals so I’m going to make a wild assumption and guess he didn’t suffer scarcity. We can't assume Gandalf has money, but since he is a Maiar, we can assume he has little need for it. While well known that it is hard to seek adventure when you are busy seeking a way to sustain yourself and family this relationship between heroes and money is problematic. I know the prompt didn’t ask me to get political but this is still relevant today and shouldn’t be ignored. If we always have heroes with money we aren’t empowering people who come from the lowest income brackets. If they continue to feel powerless, how can we expect them to escape the oppressive system they are in?