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Like so many, I began with the story - read The Hobbit in elementary school, and subsequently lost interest for a few years. When the movies were initially announced, I found the thread again, and went headlong into the trilogy; aided in no small part by the interest in Dungeons & Dragons that I had developed in between times. These days, I read the trilogy in full once or twice a year, and just odd chapters at a whim.
I suppose that makes it fairly recently that I've dug deeper into the rest of the milieu. I'd never really much paid attention to the appendices in Return of the King before, much less the other books; now that I actually have the patience to churn through the weightier volumes, so much the better! The real joy is in the details as well as the vast view, and years of tabletop roleplaying have made me very aware of both views.
In short: though the story came first, the two ideas are far too intertwined now for me to decide between them - and why would I want to?
PS: Q#5 - b) Elrond, for the prose version.
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