Supermallet

That's funny, a friend of mine once described the Silmarillion as "the instruction manual to the surround sound system that is The Lord of the Rings."

I don't know about a novelized version of The Silmarillion.

resinrats

So is it ever explained why Gandalf allows Bilbo to keep the ring? He knows what it is. Seems the smart thing would to take a detour after defeating Smaug over to Mt Doom & get rid of it instead of waiting for Sauron to gather power.

I know the real world explanation is it wasn't evil when Hobbit was written & became the McGuffin when LOTR was written.

Why So Blu?

Well, Gandalf can't take it away anyway. There's that scene in Fellowship where Frodo gives him the ring and he tells him why he can't take it. It would probably have turned Gandalf into a bad guy.

You're also right in that the ring wasn't even the main focus of the book until the LOTR were written.

Supermallet

Well, that's true. Tolkien did not intend the ring to be what some huge thing when he wrote the Hobbit, and in fact revised the Hobbit after the publication of LOTR to make it fit better.

The in-universe explanation is that although Gandalf suspected that the ring was more than something ordinary, he didn't know for certain, and couldn't confirm it until Bilbo uses it on his 111th birthday.

resinrats

He could have done the same with Bilbo as he did with Frodo. Have Bilbo carry it.

Why So Blu?

Exactly. Even Saruman later chastises him that it was under his very nose all those long years.

Why So Blu?

Maybe they'll do something similar with Hobbits part 2 & 3?

resinrats

Ah. I've never read the books. Just seen the cartoon Hobbit & the movies. The cartoon must have taken the LOTR into account because it sure seems Gandalf knows what it is. Even in the Hobbit movie, he does give a look when he sees it when Bilbo puts it in his pocket. Made me think he recognized it.

But this sort of makes Gandalf pretty stupid. If he is suspicious, maybe he should ask Bilbo to take it out so he can get a good look at it. Bilbo seems to think highly of Gandalf so its not like he would hide it if directly asked to show it.

RocShemp

In the book Gandalf suspected there was more to Bilbo's improved sneaking abilities than the hobbit was letting on. He eventually got Bilbo to onw up to having the ring. But Gandalf, although not thinking of it as a mere trinket, didn't suspect it was the One Ring since there were many magical rings in Middle Earth.

whoopdido

Was it ever explained what made Gandalf put two and two together after Bilbo's birthday party? He knew for 60 years that Bilbo had a ring that made him invisible so why all of a sudden did he rush off on a 17 year quest to find out more about it?

Supermallet

I think it was a combination of actually seeing Bilbo turn completely invisible and Bilbo's uncharacteristic reaction when Gandalf told him to leave the ring at Bag End.

RocShemp

Yeah. As I recall, Bilbo was never careless with displaying the ability of the ring. So his disappearing act caught Gandalf off guard. But (again, in the book) Gandalf noticed just in time what Bilbo was up to so he was able to make a fire display so the other hobbits wouldn't suspect that Bilbo was using real magic to disappear. Then, as you said, Bilbo's reaction towards leaving the ring was enough to have Gandalf suspicious.

Since Frodo's age was changed in the movie (he was supposed to be 50 when he set off on his quest to destroy the ring), I don't recall if Bilbo being 111 was also thanks to the ring. I know Gandalf states just that in the movie but I forget if hobbits can naturaly achieve such long life in the books.

It should also be remembered that ring was basically "dormant" all that time. There wasn't much for Gandalf to notice.

Josh-da-man

Since we're on the subject of The Ring...

Can Gandalf and/or the Elves see Bilbo (and, for that matter, Frodo) when they're wearing The Ring?

From what we've seen in the movies, it appears that there are two levels to reality; the "real world" and an astral plane/spirit world. All beings exist in the real world, but some of them, like the immortals -- elves, Maia, Nazgul -- seem to exist on both levels simultaneously. The Ring would seem to enable those who live in the real world, like Hobbits and Men, to slip out of the real world and into the astral plane.

In the Weathertop scene in FOTR, Frodo puts on the Ring, but the Witch King can still see him, and also appears different from his earthly self. And later, as Frodo is suffering from the stab wound, it is said that he is becoming like a wraith. And, as he watches Arwen approach him, she takes on a radiant appearance that her earthly self does not have.

So when a Hobbit or Man puts on the ring, he becomes invisible to other Hobbits, Men, Orcs, Trolls, and probably Dwarves, but would still be visible to higher beings like Elves and Istari.

It's been a while since I've read The Hobbit, and can't remember if Bilbo ever used the Ring to hide from Gandalf or Elves.

Supermallet

That's a good question, and I don't think it's ever explicitly covered in the books.

Edit, from the LOTR wiki: When a more typical person put on the ring, he would be partly "shifted" out of the physical realm into the spiritual realm, walking its threshold. A side effect (but usually the first effect noticed) of this was that it made the wearer invisible to physical beings like living men, but highly visible to spiritual beings like Ringwraiths. This "shadow world" was the world the Wraiths were forced to live in but it was also a world in which the Calaquendi (Elves of Light) held great power. It is likely that a person trying to hide from such Elves (few still dwelt in Middle-earth in the Third Age) using the ring would be easily seen.

It would appear that only certain Elves could see into the astral realm.

ben12

It's also been a while since I read the book, but from what I remember the ring was treated just as an invisibility ring in the Hobbit. Nothing more do it. Just a magical ring that turned you invisible when you wore it.

ben12

I think hobbits can get that old, but they don't look as good as Bilbo did at 111. When the ring was taken away, he started to show his true age like you saw at the end of ROTK.

RocShemp

That part with Arwen is muddled in both cuts of FOTR. What is happening is that Frodo is imagining Arwen as Luthien (the elf maiden Aragorn was singing about in the EE).

Supermallet

That IS muddled. I never got that impression from either cut of the film.

RocShemp

Ditto. But one of the audio commentaries clears it up, I believe. Of course, that's still no excuse since it doesn't come across at all.

covenant

In the book it was Glorfindel's horse who took Frodo to Rivendell. And it looks like they took Tolkien's description literally:

"To Frodo it appeared that a white light was shining through the form and raiment of the rider Glorfindel, as if through a thin veil"

Glorfindel was a Calaquendi, Arwen was not.

Why So Blu?

In Peter Jackson's live-action The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), his role is given to Arwen, who even takes Frodo to the Ford herself and summons the flood through an incantation.

Dr. DVD

Actually, she was calling out to her father who summoned the flood, and the horse waves were Gandalf's touch.

Dr. DVD

FWIW, I did like Radagast's reference to the spiders being the spawn of Ungoliant.

Why So Blu?

Yeah, that was from Wikipedia. Go ahead and update that. lol

Why So Blu?

That's Shelob's mum.