IV. Characters in the Margins Extended scenes often mean the sidelines step forward. A dwarf’s private sorrow, once a glance, becomes a small speech; a conversation in a tent that explains an old grudge; a minor character’s brief laugh revealing a history. These expansions humanize an ensemble that, in the theater cut, could read as a single, blustering mass. Online, with the “top” viewing choices, these details are audible and legible. You come away with a richer mental map of loyalties and regrets, and of Bilbo: not just the burglar who grasps his courage, but a soul whose small acts of kindness and cunning accumulate into heroism.