Não consigo encontrar nada em Cartas ou HoMe sobre Pippin morrer naquele momento. Por melhor que eu saiba, Tolkien pode ter considerado brevemente matar um Hobbit e então rapidamente descartou a idéia.
No entanto, eu encontrei isso em Cartas :
Se Lewis não gostou muito de Merry e Pippin, é difícil imaginá-lo tenazmente se opondo à morte de Pippin, quando ele aparentemente sugeriu que Pippin fosse recortado.[Of C. S. Lewis's comments on The Lord of the Rings:] ‘When he would say, “You can do better than that. Better, Tolkien, please!” I would try. I'd sit down and write the section over and over. That happened with the scene I think is the best in the book, the confrontation between Gandalf and his rival wizard, Saruman, in the ravaged city of Isengard. ’
I do not think the Saruman passage ‘the best in the book’. It is much better than the first draft, that is all. I mentioned the passage because it is in fact one of the very few places where in the event I found L's detailed criticisms useful and just. I cut out some passages of light-hearted hobbit conversation which he found tiresome, thinking that if he did most other readers (if any) would feel the same. I do not think the event has proved him right. To tell the truth he never really liked hobbits very much, least of all Merry and Pippin. But a great number of readers do, and would like more than they have got. (If it is of interest, the passages that now move me most - written so long ago that I read them now as if they had been written by someone else - are the end of the chapter Lothlórien (I 365-7), and the horns of the Rohirrim at cockcrow.)
Vários rascunhos e esboços do HoME não parecem indicar que Pippin estava em apuros. Em alguns, Merry e Pippin nem estão presentes.
The chief differences from the final story were the coming of the Ents (with Elves of Lórien) to the Morannon (with an express declaration by the ambassador of Sauron that the Ents shall help to rebuild Isengard), uncertainty whether Merry and Pippin were present, and the person of the ambassador: doubtfully identified as the Wizard King (implying a different view of the outcome of his encounter with Éowyn and Merry in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields), but certainly a Nazgûl (‘flinging off his garments he vanishes').
(HoMe, IX)
É difícil refutar algo dessa natureza, mas dada a sua ausência em Cartas ou qualquer indicação de tais planos no HoME, e levando isso junto com o estilo e temas de Tolkien, parece muito improvável que foi considerado.
Eu tenho , no entanto, encontrei referências on-line sem recursos para a alegação de que Tolkien pretendia matar pelo menos um Hobbit, seja Sam ou Pippin, que remonta a agosto de 2003 - antes do lançamento do filme - isso também menciona a intervenção de Lewis. Então, se é falso, parece ser um boato bastante antigo. Isso parece derivar de HoME VII, A História Prevista de Moria:
Sally from Minas Tirith. Gandalf drives Black Riders back and takes crossing of Anduin at Osgiliath. Horsemen ride behind him to Gorgoroth. Hear a great wind and see flames out of Fire Mountain.
Somehow or other Frodo and Sam must be found in Gorgoroth. Possibly by Merry and Pippin. (If any one of the hobbits is slain it must be the cowardly Pippin doing something brave. For instance—
Mas isso parece ser um pensamento jogado fora muito cedo, já que não chegou ao nível de um pensamento completo, nem aparece em esboços ou rascunhos posteriores, e não consigo encontrar nenhuma referência a Lewis.