The Barrow-Downs?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

But surely there are many important things in the chapters. Let me say it this way: Of course if you reduced the whole story just to the basic scheme "hero goes to a quest, goes to First Safe Haven, gets companions, proceeds to... etc", you don't need the Old Forest. But if you take LotR as LotR, and not as "a story", then the question is rather pointless. How to say it, well, the Old Forest is a part of the story, and without it, it won't be the same story. Or, let me say it this way: if you take LotR as a complex work, not as "a story about Frodo going to Mount Doom", then it is necessary - in such a view, it does not matter whether you skip the Old Forest or whether you skip the part where Gollum falls to Mount Doom. Is it understandable what I want to say? LotR as a schematic work does not need to include Tom Bombadil and the events around. But LotR as LotR needs Tom Bombadil, needs Frodo's dream in his house, needs the Barrow-Downs. Needs Gandalf's visit of Tom Bombadil at the end of the story, even though there's nothing more than Gandalf mentioning it.