The Barrow-Downs?

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Tom is important to the story because of his rescuing the hobbits twice. The Old Forest is important because of it's introducing the hobbits to danger, but not necessarily the danger of Sauron. It lets the hobbits know that there are other things that can go wrong not because Frodo posses the Ring. The Barrow-Downs and the Barrow Wight are there to know a bit about the history and having Frodo basically calling for help by himself. And then having Bombadil. Goldberry (one of my favourites) is important because she is Tom's 'Partner in Crime' and probably makes him stronger per se. The whole section of the story is important because of the mini adventure that prepares the hobbits for their bigger adventures without Tom there to help.

[MatthewM]

I didn't read the thread, but let me tell you that the Hobbit's journey from Crickhollow to the Barrow-Downs is truly one of the reasons why I love Tolkien. That is how powerful those chapters are, for me.

[alatar]

And you get that gem of an insight into the character of Frodo (and the others on the Good side). In the Barrow, Frodo could have left his friends for dead, and the Wise would (maybe) have agreed with the sacrifice, but in the end, Frodo chose to stay and fight the darkness.

[Hot, crispy nice hobbit]

Surely Ol' Merry Fello deserved better than to be written off as a writer's block?!? I, for one, loved the chapter where Ol' Tom sank the barrow outta our very own barrow wight, sending him packing outta the place. (And he had to bring a present to his missue, the rogue.)

Yep, LoTR is a combo of fairy tale and make-over history. And as with all histories, there would be some talk of developments (city building, mithril mining, wheels and chimneys, fireworks). But the light-hearted flowery side of the book prevented it from being turned into your average block-buster, but something more akin to works of art. I confess that I am no connoisseur of English literature, but take away the Old Forest, Barrows and Ol' Tom, and I'd find the book more like fantasy-science fiction.

In fact, the scientists in all of us often pop out and stare skeptically at the mention of "magical power" and "magic". (The more militant of our scientists had screamed witchcraft) The absurdity in Ol' Tom and Co. is in fact a necessity to keep us all from reading the lines too scientifically, though I must admit that the existence of bio-engineering technology remained one of the unequivocal facts of Middle-Earth...

"An orc may be educated." - except from The Island of Doctor Morgoth

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Thanks for that observation, HCNL Hobbit. I gnash my teeth every time I hear the replay of PJ claiming these chapters had to go because "they don't advance the plot." Grrrr.

[Rikae]

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.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

We weren't saying that the book doesn't need these chapters, but what would it be like to not have them or if they were different in some way. I personally think that the Old Forest and everything that happened there is a very good part of the story which takes the book out of the ordinary and makes it so great, because the hobbits are still going forward in their quest, but it takes them into a miniature adventure, which is almost my favourite part of Tolkiens works!