[thekiptxt]

About a week ago, I (mid 20s) began reading LoTR for the first time, despite having seen the movies long ago. I knew books are always richer in content than movies, but Tom Bombadil was the first radical departure from the movies that I encountered, and the weird encounter was an exciting switch that made me perceive the story I’m reading as new and different from the story I’ve seen.

The group has not yet arrived to Rivendell (so no spoilers please :))

[hajile]

Given that you have seen the movies, you may wish to contemplate the prophecy about the death of the Witch-king of Angmar and it's relation to the Barrow Downs.

A "chance" meeting of the Wight and a rescue by Bombadil where they (not of the race of men) happen to get magic knives woven with the exact ancient spells capable of undoing the Witch-king.

The fate of Gondor relied on this piece of the books that is missing in the movies. Without it, the Witch-king isn't killed and they fall to Sauron's minions.

[em500]

I think the most crucial (and often overlooked) difference between the films and the books is the narrator's perspective. The films are largely shown from a neutral / omniscient narrator's perspective. The books OTOH are mostly written from the perspective of the Hobbits. (The conceit is that the books are adapted from written hobbit lore collected mostly by Bilbo and Frodo[1].) The implication is that there's much more emphasis in the books on what's important and interesting to the Hobbits, as opposed to Men or Elves. In the film, Frodo and Sam are only arguably the main characters, and only because they are the Ringbearer and those that destroy the Ring in the end. But the boook is really Frodo's Own Story.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_of_Westmarch