If Merry and Pippin went with Frodo

[Rose Cotton]

What if, for topic sake, Merry and Pippin had managed to go with Frodo and Sam? What would Legolas, Aragorn, Gimli, and Boromir(who wouldn't have died) have done? What would the hobbits have done?

[Arwen Imladris]

I think that they would have gone strait to Minas Tirith and helped out there.

[Elenya]

I have nothing against Merry or Pippen (I luv 'em both), but for some reason, I think that they most likely would have been a hindrance rather than a help.

[Rose Cotton]

That's what I was thinking. I wonder how they would have reacted to Gollum. I don't think they would have grown-up either because they would have Sam and Frodo to be the grown-ups.

[Ms. Took]

If Merry and Pippin had gone with Frodo, the ents wouldn't have destroyed Isengard, the witchking probably wouldn't have died, Faramir would be dead, and Eowyn would just keep chasing Aragorn around.

[Birdland]

Good point, Rose. Sam would have wound up taking care of three hobbits, instead of one.

Also, it would have turned into a "destroy the Ring by committee" quest, with Merry and Pippin second-guessing Frodo's decisions all the way.

And when they met up with Faramir, I'm sure P. and M. would have tried to convince Frodo to turn back to Minas Tirith to "get advise".

At which point Frodo would have ditched them in Ithilien, and his story would have continued on as written. smilies/biggrin.gif

[Child of the 7th Age]

Have you ever heard the adage "two's company and three's a crowd"? I think four would make it even more so. (especially with Gollum thrown in as the fifth wheel) The whole heart of the ascent of Mount Doom is the back and forth dialogue with Sam and Frodo, especially as they react and respond to Gollum. I hate to think what that dialogue would have sounded like with Merry and Pippen along. And I have serious doubts about how long Gollum would have remained alive. Plus, by breaking off from the more staid Sam and the serious Frodo, Merry and Pippin have the chance to distinguish their own separate adult identities which they do in a wonderful way. sharon, the 7th age hobbit smilies/smile.gif

[VanimaEdhel]

Another chiming in saying "They would have been a hinderence", but: I agree!

I believe they would have gotten in the way of Sam and Frodo and a lot of important before-mentioned things would or would not have happened.

[Kalimac]

I'm probably not saying anything that hasn't been expressed already but here's the 2 cents anyway. Merry and Pippin, far from being a hindrance, might have been a little too much of a help. Granted that they weren't nearly as "grown up" at Parth Galen as they were later on, they were still much more hardened and experienced than they were in the beginning, when they were doing things like deliberately wandering into the Old Forest, almost getting snarfed up by the Barrow-Wight, etc. You're right that since they're social equals to Frodo, they would have felt more authority to second-guess him than Sam did (all those doubts that Sam thinks but does not express might have become pitched battles, probably between Merry and Frodo). And it's very easy to see Merry and Pippin doing several very helpful-at-the-time things that would have plunged all of them into disaster; for example, going off on their own to hunt for extra food (hey, they're running out, aren't they?), attacking Faramir in defense of Frodo instead of keeping cool, killing Gollum (to protect Frodo from him) and, God help us all, maybe even wrenching the Ring from Frodo somewhere along the line (because they could see what it was doing to him and refused to see him endure it any longer). None of these things would be motivated by ill-will, and all of them would have been the right things to do according to the mores of the Shire, but as for what the end would have been....quite. Ultimately they were much better off where they were, even though while Pippin was watching the cloud lower and Merry was confronting the Witch-King neither one would have shared our opinion of the matter.