Excuse me, Divine Valar...

Excuse me, Divine Valar, but if Gandalf knew immediately that Bilbo's ring was a great ring and he could see it was unadorned, and being an ancient being as he is he would know that only the One Ring is unadorned, why did it take him years of research to determine it was the One Ring?

only a sith deals in absolutes

Because he had to be ABSOLUTELY sure it was the One Ring before sending a fucking hobbit to Mordor, and he also had to figure out how it came to Gollum's possession since most people didn't even know Isildur had taken it

IMO there are a lot of powerful rings scattered around in Middle Earth. But who would have guessed that, that was THE ONE RING. Especially in the hands of some stunty fuck.

It is kinda like expecting that a who bum who eats out of a trash has a red button in his cardboard box that can destroy the world.

>Excuse me, Divine Valar, but if Gandalf knew immediately that Bilbo's ring was a great ring and he could see it was unadorned, and being an ancient being as he is he would know that only the One Ring is unadorned, why did it take him years of research to determine it was the One Ring?

Ther was also Lesser Rings, which were basically test-Drives of the Numenoreans and the Elves, BEFORE the Rings of Power were created. These Lesser Rings had the ability to enhance certain aspects of ones personality or talents, in a significant way - but were in general much weaker than the Rings of Power.

Seeing as how Hobbits have the uncanny Talent of going unnoticed ANYWHERE, and seeing as the Hobbit Bilbo was unaffected by the Ring ( as compared to previous owners, who had been corrupted by the Ring within SHORT periods of time: Isildur basically took it up, knew better, but decided: "Eh, fuck it": He was corrupted instantly ),

Gandalf probably believed, that Bilbo had found one of the lesser rings which enhanced his natural ability to disappear and did not corrupt him.

Also, the Great Rings weren't the only rings of power, there were a lot of other ones made as practice which were harmless trinkets by comparison. So it was possible that Bilbo just happened to find one of those

"there are many magical rings in this world bilbo baggins and NONE of them are to be taken likely"

many rings meaning knowing for sure this one specifically is the Dark Lord's ring just by looking at requires a really big illogical leap of faith. He proceeded immediately upon his suspicions to find a way to PROVE this is the one ring, were he left for Gondor to read the scrolls that claim fire reviles the markings on the ring. took several months, not years.

Because he thought the One Ring had been destroyed. So by process of elimination he'd eliminated *all* the Great Rings, and something didn't add up, which meant research. When he shows up to explain to Frodo what's going on:

> "How long have you known all this?" asked Frodo.
> "Known?" said Gandalf. "I have known much that only the Wise know, Frodo. But if you mean 'known about this ring, well, I still do not know. There is a last test to make. But I no longer doubt my guess."

Yes, but Gandalf says he knew it was a great ring immediately, and there's only one unadorned great ring.

Also, an interesting but little-known fact about LotR is that the One Ring was made out of gold because Morgoth was so powerful he made the whole of Arda into his own life-preserving "ring", and corrupted substances to varying degrees. Water and silver were free of corruption, whereas gold was the most corrupted one. Magic (as opposed to actual divine power) works by using that bit of Morgoth's power contained in everything

This made it so the whole of the world bent slightly to Morgoth's will, but also weakened him as a being so much that by the time Fingolfin fought him he wasn't much stronger than Sauron at his prime

And this is why you don't listen to Saruman when he tells you not to worry about the One, kiddos.

Maybe he contemplated taking it for himself.

...

Did he know the appearance of every great ring, or is that what he was researching?

It seems to me like he had evidence for and against, which is why he looked for corroborating evidence.

>My wizard-senses tell me that's probably a great ring
>But this fucking munchkin just found it on the ground and is using it with no apparent ill effects, what the shit
>So A: I'm wrong and it's not a great ring, or B: The most powerful artifact on the planet was sitting on the ground, and midgets are immune to evil for some reason? Neither of those seems likely.
>I should check up on this

Fuck that movie.

>if Gandalf knew immediately
Didn't.

Has the three months gone by already?
Trying to force your gay shit once again?

Just fuck off and die.

On a related note, if the One Ring has a mind of its own and is capable of "losing" itself like it did with Gollum why didn't it try to find a better host than Bilbo? It might have been hard to do so once he was back in the Shire since there were only other Hobbits around, but after Bilbo won it off of Gollum he encountered the Eagles, Beorn, the Mirkwood elves, the descendent of the kings of Dale, and the last Great Dragon. Not to mention his traveling companions, a Dwarven King and a literal angel. All of them would have been much better hosts for the the One Ring and probably easier to corrupt too, so why did it stay with Bilbo?

Didn't want to risk being lost again? Figured that any better hosts would take it?

Because then Gandalf would have immediately known it was the One Ring, and even if it came to Gandalf's possession his elven ring would have protected his will enough for him not to instantly turn into the new Dark Lord

Sauron is far more cunning and patient that Morgoth, he doesn't just jump at the chance to corrupt everything he finds

You guys realize he went back and re-wrote the Hobbit so the Lord of the Ring would make more sense but ended up adding a bunch of problems and plot holes into the series. "Why didn't Gandalf act faster" is at the bottom of the list.

With Tolkien "he thought of that and explained it on a letter or some note that was only published on History of Middle-Earth decades later" is more likely than "he didn't think about it and left a plot hole"

Out of curiosity, what were those other plot holes? I never realized the Hobbit had been rewritten from its initial publication.

The original version published was explained as the fictional explanation Bilbo gave to everyone and recorded in his book, while the newer publications are the real events

Yeah, the list of things that were fairly unique to that ring are fairly specific. Unadorned, black speech if you heat it with a very specific epigram in said text, absolutely invincible.

Which is still scarily powerful.

Sauron wasn't necessarily at his best when he lost the ring either, recall.

He used to be able to turn into anything he wanted, including very deceptive forms, then when THAT happened, really only the "big scary guy/ogre" form.

>"he thought of that and explained it on a letter or some note that was only published on History of Middle-Earth decades later"
Or sometimes, in the fucking book itself. If I had a dime for every time some lazy fa/tg/uy mentions a "plot hole" is directly explained in the Council of Elrond chapter...

Shit, even by restricting it to Bombadil-related questions, I'd be set for life.

Gandalf didn't know precisely how all of the Lesser Rings looked. Even if the One Ring was notorious for being unadorned, it was still far more reasonable to assume it was some random lesser ring that nobody bothered writing about rather than the greatest of the Great Rings made by the Dark Lord to amplify his powers and subdue everyone in middle-earth to his will

Even if he suspected it was the One, which would be like suspecting every golden cup you find is the Holy Grail, just imagine this going down

>hey bilbo hand me that magic ring you just found and keep secret from the rest of the group I'm going to smash it to see if it can be broken
>also I'm going to throw it into a fire to see if it glows
>I can't tell you why because I'm a wizard
>I may not return it

Even if Gandalf thought that it was the One regardless of all that, if Bilbo knew what the ring was he would have probably ended as another Gollum upon being told it had to be destroyed. If it really was the One Ring it made sense to let the seemingly only person that was almost unaffected by its power keep it somewhere Gandalf could easily return to if needed.

>reposting this same dumb thread
>the same exact discussion

Fuck, do you ever get tired of this same shit?
Just read through the archive instead of regurgitating the same exact posts.