Aragorn can't defeat Sauron, though, and he knows it. His role in the final victory is to distract Sauron, who assumes that the ring will be used against him by a "somebody" like Aragorn, rather than destroyed by nobodies.

And Gandalf, who is not a man, but rather an angelic being or minor god (Maiar) sent to Middle Earth to oppose Sauron.

Their point seems to be strengthened by these facts. The story is about these people without any inherently powerful qualities performing a duty and going home without aggrandizing themselves. The fact that this happens in a world which has a “true King of Gondor” and these angel-wizards drives home how mundane and down-to-Middle-Earth Hobbits are.

I mean, yes, the hobbits go back home where Sam becomes the mayor of the Shire for 50 years, and Gimli and Legolas sail off together into the sunset.

But it's also unambiguous that Aragorn, who was previously a nobody raised by elves, turns out to be the long-lost king and definitely does not just go back to whatever he was doing previously.

> does not just go back to whatever he was doing previously.

He absolutely does. Being the future king was a core part of his character, everything in his life was preparing him for it. The book version of Aragorn doesn't have the hesitance to accept his duty that the films portray, he doesn't have to be prodded into it: his whole life has revolved around his future kingship.

In a lot of ways the book Aragorn is just as superhuman as Gandalf is. He's an archetype, not a perspective character. The hobbits are the only normal humans.

Aragorn begins Fellowship as the reigning monarch of "the rangers," actually a dispersed nation. They call him Chief to outsiders but his people know who he is and what he hopes to become. I reread the books pretty recently and this was one of the most surprising things that I forgot/got overwritten by movie characterization. He was never a nobody, by the time we meet him he is 40 years into the project of preparing himself for a great trial and then kingship.

> And Gandalf, who is not a man, but rather an angelic being (Maiar) sent to Middle Earth to sort out Sauron

But that’s just what all wizards are and always have been. It’s the only way to be a wizard. It isn’t, like, a hidden fact or anything. Wizard is a race not a profession. Like elf or dwarf or hobbit.

> It isn’t, like, a hidden fact or anything.

It really is, in-universe. Almost noone knows this save other maiar. The wizards are perceived as men by most people, them being maiar is far from common knowledge.

My point is to contradict the notion that

>the entire story is about a weak and almost completely unknown set of people who were "chosen" only by the most inexplicable series of events anyone could imagine.

I don't know what your point is.