Links between characters. Why is tolkien different?

[engwaalphiel]

While writing a tiresome essay on Sherlock Holmes , I was asked to analyse links between Conan Doyle's characters . This brought me to thinking about Tolkien's "links" between his characters. One such link in Holmes is the links between Villian / Victim, Does Tolkien actually have a victim / villian relationship as such or is it more a balanced ecosystem of a story in which one changed decsision can change the path of the story ?

In many topics we have speculation on What would happen if ?
And the same answer occurs every time . If one thing hadn't have happened then neither would such and such leading on to such and such. What makes Tolkien's work (especially the link from silm to LOTR) so special. is it the non-definitve links between characters ? The eco-system he has created ?

Don't know if any of that made sense to anyone, it's just a thought.