No one goes to Mordor in February.

The scene in Lord of the Rings where, after the Orc attack, Aragorn and company decide to rescue Merry and Pippin, leaving Frodo and Sam to their own devices, has never made sense to me.  Two of these hobbits hold the Fate of the World™ on their finger, while two are just these guys, and Our Heroes go after the wrong ones.  Tolkien doesn't show us how that decision was really made, which I think went something like this...:

"We need to protect Frodo and Sam, even if it means following them all the way to Mordor."

"Mordor?  In February? No one goes to Mordor in February.  There's the bugs."

"Yes, the bugs."

"And the orcs."

"I'm not afraid of the orcs."

"Well, the bugs, then."

"There are the bugs."

"Minas Tirith, then."

"Shouldn't we at least try to find Frodo?  He does have the thingy, you know."

"The thingy?"

"You know, the thingy."

"Oh, the thingy.  Of course he does.  He's the thingy-bearer."

"We were supposed to help protect the thingy."

"But if we go after him, we'll just bring attention to the thingy."

"Bring attention?"

"Exactly.  It's a brilliant bit of misdirection. We'll fool him"

"Fool whom?"

"You know very well whom.  Him.  He has eyes everywhere."

"I thought just the one."

"Well, eye everywhere.  But if we go after Pippin and Merry, he'll think they're the important ones."

"Then he'll kill them!"

"It's a chance we'll have to take."

If Raymond Chandler had written Lord of the Rings

The sun came up over the ridge like a fried egg on top of a burnt slice of toast. Then the trumpets sounded. Lots of them, as if Sauron had paid for a lifetime supply and wanted to get his money's worth if the world ended today. The night shift went back to the holes they had crawled out of the night before, and the day shift started to straggle in, lugging their swords, as if they didn't know which they hated more, Sauron or themselves. I didn't know any of this crew, but cops are cops, even in Bay CityMordor.

"Well, here we are!" said Sam. He liked to tell you things you already knew. I didn't mind, most of the time, but here in front of the Black Gate of Mordor, I could think of one or two or a hundred more useful topics of conversation. He talked about his father a lot too, and his garden, and he seemed to think that if he ever got back to them, everything would be like it was. I kept quiet about that. It wasn't my job to tell him that seeing the wide world changes your shape so that you don't fit in the places you used to. He was a little guy, but I liked him.