The Lord of the Rings Without the Silmarillion

The Lord of the Rings stands on its own without the Silmarillion. Benji says he's a massive religious studies nerd so I enjoy it a lot. The themes for their own sake tend to be this way pretty often where you're just looking for something meaningful to stick in there. You can still write a great story about how friendship can impact you but if not a lot of elements that point to that theme and then you make some grand statement about it it's going to look superficial and fake.