[littlemanpoet]

Thanks much, Kuruharan, both for the kudos and the thorough research.

Aratlithiel: Hoo! You're even more of a purist than I am, and that's saying something. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Merry and Pippin HAD to escape and stumble into Fangorn in order for the Ents to become involved in the war.

Sorry, I cannot agree with you. As Tolkien's text shows, Treebeard knew Gandalf was alive and well and in the environs of Fangorn, and Gandalf didn't need Merry & Pippin to motivate Treebeard.

Tangent: So why did Tolkien include that plot point if it wasn't necessary? Well, it was necessary, but not for the above stated purpose. Hobbits and Ents needed to be introduced to each other for the purposes of individual and racial characterization, and to connect divergent aspects of the whole Middle Earth myth.

If Aragorn had accompanied Frodo to Mordor, who would have looked into the palantir and threatened Sauron and gotten him to empty out the lands so that Frodo could get to Orodruin?

Gandalf - perhaps with not quite the same effect, I admit.

And who would have travelled the Paths of the Dead gathering much-needed forces for the final battles?

I still give Aragorn the chance of doing this, and here's how. Aragorn would have realized that he of all the remaining members of the Fellowship, stood out like a sore thumb, and in Mordor, would have made it more likely that the quest would FAIL, precisely because he would be harder to miss. Gimli might pass for an orc, even if he didn't want to, and Legolas would be able to avoid detection. So Aragorn, it seems to me, would have concluded (after much painful questioning of his own heart) that it would be better for the fate of all free peoples for himself to repair to Minas Tirith and leave the quest to its secrecy. At least, that's my guess.

SOMEONE in the company would have finally attempted to take it from him.

You credit Frodo's friends too little, I think.

Any deviation from these events would have resulted in the failure of the Quest,

Actually, there is evidence that this is not so, in Tolkien's letters, I believe. He wrote in one of them (it has been years since I read it and I don't have the book myself), he mulls over "what if", when Smeagol was tenderly reaching toward Frodo and Sam woke up and ruined the moment, thereby hardening Smeagol's heart, WHAT IF - Sam had NOT woken up and Smeagol had actually repented (I do believe that's the word Tolkien used)? There would not have been a fight at the Crack of Doom between Frodo and Gollum; no, Tolkien believed that Gollum would have willingly thrown himself and the Ring into the Crack of Doom as a last great act of redemption of his own soul and salvation to all the Free Peoples. So there WAS an alternate ending on THAT particular point, and from my own point of view as a writer, I can tell you that stories are very supple things, by which many plot points can be altered and rearranged without destroying the overall effect.