I find it funny when people talk about how men are raised to exert power over women and to hide all their emotions, be unfeeling and cold, and accept only anger and avoid intimacy with other men, to then look at the most popular fantasy author in history, who's heroes are mostly noble, self sacrificial men who also care deeply and openly for both the (admittedly few) women in their lives and each other. Everyone thinks of Frodo and Sam as having gay undertones, but I don't believe it would have been seen that way at the time. The truth is... emotional intimacy between men was not always, if it ever was, a major social taboo. Male bonding is clearly shown as being healthy and meaningful back in the 1940s when Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings, and that's far from the only example, just, I think, a strong one, as Tolkien's heroes are mostly presented as being role models.