Giggles

[The Saucepan Man]

Taken at face value though , in an everyday situation, this abuse of the old woman is not funny.

But we are not talking about everyday situations here. Or even real life situations, necessarily. Lalwendë made a similar conflation. Few of us would find Basil Fawlty's treatment of Manuel funny were we to witness it happening in real life.

Perhaps that is the reason why you do not see the humour here. LotR (the film) is not a comedy sketch, but a serious story interspersed with moments of humour. You might find a Dwarven warrior belching in front of a King in a comedy sketch funny, but not in what should be a serious film adapted from a well-loved epic story. So it may well be that I do not take the LotR films as seriously as you do (or, at least, as you feel the story ought to have been taken).