[ghaff]

I don't disagree with him not being in the film. (Perhaps more controversially, I think the scouring of the Shire properly appropriately didn't belong there either.) Great as The Lord of the Rings is, IMO it has structural problems as books.

But I don't really disagree with your comment in general.

[antisol]

"It is an essential part of the plot, foreseen from the outset"