I played through the game without getting Aragorn. If I walk right about 14 trees due east, the woman is there with her magic pot. However, she isn't able to be interacted with.

I played it through with Aragorn. A cutscene is automatically triggered at the very beginning of the end area. Directional buttons are turned off but the other buttons can be used after a few of the text boxes go by.

Bringing up the password screen shows only Aragorn, no Frodo. I believe that the hobbits are left off of the password screen as well (I only tested Sam). The area letter for the end screen is N, the same as Moria. M and N don't work for areas, I've found.

However, if I go into the end area without Aragorn, Frodo and any people he brings along are not deactivated.

I suspect what the end game area is doing is turning off every character but Aragorn, and locking Aragorn into a walk right while flashing text boxes here and there. I suspect Aragorn not being present is causing the end game cutscene script to fail, which is why not having Aragorn softlocks the end game area.

Yeah that really sucks. Though I got a kick out of it the first time cuz if you head north or south you can walk right through the rocks and hedges. Figuring out how to despawn ANY of the doors inside Moria would be the next major breakthrough. Though I need to do a run on the revised route, thanks to your research regarding the "Barrows Skip" that should save close to 10 mins.

One caveat about trying to skip the Barrow Downs are the ring wraiths in front of Bree. It's possible (but difficult) to outrun them. I believe they're triggered off by the door that exits the Downs.

They are detriggered by opening the door from Barrows to Crossroads , I've got a pretty consistent setup to get by from when I used to run past them.