Though I concede most of the characters in the Trilogy usually aren't easy for the average person to relate to themselves, in part, I think, because it is intended epically, which among other things means Tolkien wanted the line between good and evil to be sharp and clear (whereas Jordan wants just as badly to blur it in a very human way.) I still suggest, however, what I do to everyone who tells me they stopped reading the Trilogy at the Council of Elrond, or the Silmarillion at the Ainulindale: Keep going, it's worth it, and if the genealogies are confusing or boring the first time, skip 'em till later, because it took me three readings before they started to congeal anyway. The Silmarillion's characters are even more epic and less familiar than the Trilogy's, like something out of the Elder Edda, but then, that's intentional, and we can appreciate an Arthur or Aeneas just as much without being reminded of anyone we've met. Within the Trilogy Hobbits are very purposefully our Everyman, subject to a lot more frailty, indecision, temptation, fear and prejudice as any human. With TWoT I'm helped because the ta'veren remind me a lot of me and two brothers I've known since our HS days (though Mat doesn't take half the crap I did from them, and Perrin and Rand don't fight like they did. )

With Tolkien though it is largely about the story, hence he also referred to himself as a storyteller, and never mind that when we all read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in HS English the byline was "translated by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien."