Quoted from balloukevin:TABA does not have to be completed, but doing so does reward one of the requisite elf gifts, which, along with beating all the multiballs, is the requirement.
The two hardest elements to Valinor (IMO) are:* beating ROTK multiball* the fact that Valinor can only be started with a successful DTR round. You could have everything else done, but choke there, meaning that all 3 MB would have to be requalified and played out.
Fantastic effort on the firmware by Keefer, and WOZ looks to be similar.
And, it would be very rare to be able to get to DTR in order to qualify for Valinor twice in one game. That's why DTR that last time in order to reach Valinor has to be the most stressful task in pinball. If you don't do it, you feel like you've played for an hour +/- all for nothing. Voice of experience here.