Thought provoking if nothing else

[Ancalime]

I think that each member had their own unique part to play, as several people have already pointed out. Now, this is slightly off-topic, but I wonder what would have happened if Gollum had been killed early on, say by Bilbo (in which case Sauron wouldn't have known where the ring was) or by the Fellowship in the Mines of Moria. Gollum is basically the only reason that the Ring ended up being destroyed-Frodo wasn't going to throw it in on purpose. Or would he have ended up throwing it in anyway? Sorry, I digress. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]
Back to what I was saying, even though Gollum is not a part of the Fellowship, he is still very important to the story. Without him, Frodo and Sam may not have made it through the marshes or whatever that was (I can't remember at the moment) or found that side trail through the mountains or any of that. So in Gollum's case, you could argue that without him, the quest to destroy the Ring may not have succeeded.
Food for thought. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]