He's pretty much a complete non-sequitur to the actual plot (they meet a guy who the ring has no effect on, and indeed he exerts power over the ring by making it vanish and reappear, is known to be ancient even to the Elves, has complete control over his domain and likes to sing a lot, and then he's mentioned like one more time as a possible candidate for taking care of the ring but dismissed because he wouldn't care about the ring and would probably lose it), but he's undoubtedly an interesting piece to the world building of Middle Earth and has inspired a lot of debate and speculation over the decades.