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My thoughts on this are not completely fleshed out, but I have to say, first of all, why ask about this section? As Legate pointed out as well, there are plenty of other passages the book could have "lived without". Have the movies become the "norm", then, from which the book deviates, rather than the other way around? If so, I find that sad.
Anyway, for me these sections of the book (and also the scouring of the shire) are part of what set it above a mere adventure story. It's here that we begin to see glimpses of a larger world - other battles, older beings, different ways of living and characters unconcerned with the quest at hand make the story richer, and link it to Tolkien's other works, as well (it is not just a story, but part of a world). The Old Forest/Tom/Barrow-Downs section also serves as a transition between the more... I don't know, childlike? homely? world of the Shire to the epic one of the elves, Gondor, etc. - a contrast which is a large part of the delight of the books, for me, and which requires some sort of transitional episode. This, of course, does not even include the value of these sections in their own right. I doubt LoTR would have the same importance to me without them.
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