The Hall of Fire

Three Rings were untouched by Sauron. But the others were. And Gandalf knew about the Nine, and what happened to dwarves. Safe to assume something "evil" would sooner or later happen to Bilbo.

Hello all! I am wondering about the precise reason why Gandalf needed to investigate Bilbo's ring. Bilbo's reactions and behavior after his party scared Gandalf so much he felt he needed to seek out answers about Bilbo's ring. But why? He knew Bilbo has a Great Ring (no lesser ring theory please), s...

So your interpretation to that, scirocco, is that Gandalf made quite a mistake not searching through archives properly. That is very possible, however, I have some other possibilities, which I am curious what you will say about. Firstly, I am not sure Tolkien made and editing mistake, because in Two...

Well, it contradicts each other. Either Gandalf went to Minas Tirith to search archives for information about The One (therefore, he should have found Isildur's scroll), or he was there to look for other stuff about Sauron, ringwraiths etc. Maybe it is an editing mistake, something Tolkien would hav...

Isildur's history would have been an exception; a kind of accidental crossing of paths of Men and the supernatural. It was good luck really that the records yielded valuable information to Gandalf, but that happened very, very late in the story. So I think Gandalf's earlier visits to Minas Tirith w...

Voronwë the Faithful wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 7:24 pm What I think is the same thing I said in your other thread.

May I ask what exactly, please? I hope I am not annoying. Just trying to figure it all out.

EDIT: Nevermind, I found it. Thanks for your insight!!

Well he knew it is a Great Ring. Possibly one of the Seven or Nine. He chose to wait and not tell anyone, since Sauron could heard that. What is weird to me - why didn't he tell something even to Elrond or Galadriel? They were members of the White Council, Gandalf could trust them, since they were d...

Revisiting this here before I turn to your new thread. The more I think about it, the more I agree that the fact that Tolkien actually changed the passage from stating that Gandalf originally thought that Bilbo's ring was one of the lesser rings to removing that suggests that it was done intentiona...

In Unfinished tales, it is said that Little is known of Gandalf's history until the end of the Watchful Peace (2460) and the formation of the White Council (2463), and his special interest in Gondor seems only to have been shown after Bilbo's finding of the Ring (2941) and Sauron's open return to Mo...

Hello! As I am reading Unfinished tales, I found this passage about Istari: Wizard is a translation of Quenya istar (Sindarin ithron): one of the members of an "order" (as they call it), claiming to possess, and exhibiting, eminent knowledge of the history and nature the World. So in my ea...

Well Gandalf remembered these words, that all Great Rings have gem, while hunting Gollum, not when Bilbo raised suspicion. I am very curious what Voronwë has to say about this whole discussion - mostly about my questions on his reply. Great discussion here.

So, at this point, he does explicitly say that he originally thought that Bilbo's ring was one of the lesser rings. But he also already alludes to the point that Jude makes above. Getting rid of the Ring was hard, and for Gandalf to "force" Bilbo to do so would arguably violate the charge...

Thanks for the answer Voronwë! It is hard to be convinced that it is some editing mistake, since Tolkien was very thorough and released revised versions of LOTR. I don’t know. I think Jude’s second option is quite satisfying, however, I have follow-up question Jude - why do you think Gandalf just le...

Hello everyone! So after rereading chapter II of book I, I stumbled upon something. Gandalf said he knew from the beginning Bilbo has a Great Ring (as plain it was). This obviously isn't corresponding with the favourite theory of lesser ring. No, Gandalf knew from the start he is dealing with Great ...