Interesting —- personally, I love the shift in tone as the story develops, and thought it fit perfectly. A very strong recurring theme in the story is the disti

Interesting —- personally, I love the shift in tone as the story develops, and thought it fit perfectly. A very strong recurring theme in the story is the distinction between happy, carefree hobbits; comfortable in the Shire and ignorant and oblivious to the world around them; and the vastness of that world and the dangers it poses to their way of life. The tone of the story follows the hobbits’ perspective on its events, and shifts dramatically as their mindsets change: as the hobbits travel further from the Shire and get better acquainted with the world at large, we get to experience the change in perspective alongside them. We start with the cheerful birthday party in the Shire, and Frodo’s departure — written in a similar tone to The Hobbit as Frodo considers himself to be retracing Bilbo’s steps and beginning an adventure of his own. It starts to get darker and more dangerous (but still with Tom Bombadil around to save the day, at least at first); and once the hobbits leave the Shire they suddenly no longer feel safe or in control. By the time we get to Rivendell it’s clear that the hobbits are way out of their league, and that the plot is way bigger than just Frodo and his friends. And as the story develops, and the hobbits split up and become involved in the war from different areas of Middle-earth, this change in perspective continues and the tone continually gets grander and darker. It’s like a “zoom-out” effect that starts at the birthday party as a carefree fairy-tale and culminates at the destruction of the Ring as a massive, high-stakes epic fantasy. It’s interesting (and totally makes sense to me) that the story developed this way in Tolkien’s mind too; and I think it’s clever that he decided to make it a part of the story rather than rewriting everything to have a “consistent” tone. I think it makes it a lot easier to follow the story and a lot easier to get to know the characters than if it had started like RoTK from page one.