The exercises and discussions this week got me considering this question, which should have an obvious answer. But what does integral really mean for a story? And it got me thinking, is there any character that The Lord of the Rings could function, as it is, without? Obviously, Tolkien didn't add any characters to his story that had no purpose, there would be no reason for that. But are they all really vital, is the question. And the short answer for this, for the primary characters at least, is yes, they're all vital. As I said, obvious answer. But again, why is this the case? The story would be vastly different if even a single one of them is omitted.
This also goes back to a previous exercise we did on Tolkien's narrative choices, where we tested out other possibilities he could have made, such as maybe not killing Gandalf off, though we all agreed this was a must, but it is a possibility. If any character was still present, Boromir, or there in a different capacity, Gandalf for example, the story would not be the same. Each narrative choice and character are vital to the flow and progress of the story. Not much could be omitted or changed without altering the story. It's like the butterfly effect, one little change could send ripples through the whole story, causing it to be an entirely different one from the one we know or even possibly cause it to unravel.
Just some things I've been pondering.
I just stopped to consider whether The Two Towers would function well without the characters it introduced, and it seems that finding a non-essential (should I even use that word now?) character is quite tricky as you noted. Secondary characters like Theoden, Eowyn, Eomer, Grima, and Faramir are all integral to the plot at large. Tolkien was a genius at making his characters, both primary and secondary, believable and broadly interconnected within the story.
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