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DarkLord153
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on: February 18, 2017 04:31
Why did Smeagol got corrupted by the Ring so fast,even though he was one of the first races of Hobbits.Frodo was a Hobbit too,but he didnt get corrupted by it.It is strange because neither of them wanted power.
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Gandolorin
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on: February 19, 2017 04:15
I'm fairly certain that this lay in Sméagol's nature, if not directly evil then at least mean and petty. And he did get hold of the One Ring by murdering Déagol, in total contrast to Bilbo, who spared then Gollum when he could have easily killed him. A point Gandalf emphasizes very much in "Fellowship of The Ring", chapter "The Shadow of the Past", after Frodo had said that it had been a pity that Bilbo had not killed Gollum:

"Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity".

And then consider one thing: after almost five hundred years of ownership, ownership of the One Ring, Gollum had not turned into a wraith. Now this is again speculation, but I would guess that all nine of the Ring-wraiths, all formerly mighty warriors and kings of Men, became wraith in a far shorter time than five centuries - in less than a century? Some were Black Númenóreans, whose natural life-span may have exceeded a century, but some were certainly were not - Khamûl of the East - who would have to become a wraith before dying of natural causes.

And a P.S.: not a single Dwarf King or his descendants to whom the seven Rings of the Dwarves were given ever showed the slightest sign of fading - Aulë their creator had made them much too tough for this to happen to them.
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Lord_Sauron
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on: February 19, 2017 02:39
The other thing that we need to consider is how long at a time did Gollum actually wear the One Ring. As I see it he only wore it when he was either hunting, spying. The Nine men who became the Nazgul would of in my opinion have worn them more frequently perhaps never have taken them off until Sauron had recolleted them. Also remember when the rings were given out Sauron would have been at his most powerfullest.
The Seven may have not caused the Dwarves to fade but could the rings instead have intensified their greed? For example Durin VI and Thror
Gandolorin
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on: February 20, 2017 08:03
Sméagol did want a sort of power, in a small mean way, he caused quite a bit of trouble in his clan and was therefore expelled from it. Neither Bilbo nor Frodo wanted even this kind of "power", to them the Ring just came in handy when they did not want to be seen. So Sméagol was, so to speak, susceptible to the evil power of the Ring much more so than Bilbo or Frodo, because he was evil in a small way. This could be seen as a reason why the evil Men who became Ring-wraiths may have become so rather quickly.

One thing we also do not know is the specific effects that the nine rings for Men and the seven for Dwarves (or for that matter the Three for the Elves, in which Sauron had no part in the making) had. Were these sixteen rings identical, or were there differences between the nine and the seven? Certainly the bearers of the three Elven Rings did not become invisible when wearing them, which they apparently did all the time.

And yes, L_S, the effect of their rings on the Dwarves is stated as fanning the flames of greed in them. Was this a specific effect intended by Sauron for the seven rings of the Dwarves, as he knew about the limited effect they would have on them? I have some vague doubts about this, Sauron may have been surprised and infuriated by this failure of these rings from his point of view.

And at the very last, Frodo did become corrupted by the One Ring, when standing at the place it had been forged, in the sense that he was not able to throw it into the chasm. The One Ring's final destruction was effected, if involuntarily, by Gollum, when he fell into the chasm with it.

[Edited on 02/20/2017 by Gandolorin]
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DarkLord153
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on: February 20, 2017 11:32
Is it know how much time it took him to become from Smeagol to Gollum?
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Gandolorin
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on: February 21, 2017 03:57
Checking Appendix B of LoTR (all dates Third Age):
2463 About this time Sméagol <gets the One Ring>
2470 About this time Sméagol-Gollum hides in the Misty Mountains
2941 Bilbo <gets the One Ring>
3001 Frodo <gets the One Ring>
3018 23 September Frodo leaves Bag End
3019 25 March the One Ring is destroyed.

This would seem to indicate it took only seven years for the One Ring to turn Sméagol into Gollum. Compared to the sixty years Bilbo had it, and the over seventeen Frodo did, this seems a short period.
Guess 1: Sméagol used the Ring far more often than either Bilbo or Frodo, perhaps even more often than Bilbo and Frodo in total over the combined 77 years they possessed it, to get his mean little pleasure out of annoying his clan by using it. When between 2463 and 2470 was he expelled from his clan? Probably closer to 2470 than to 2463.
Guess 2: as above, Sméagol was simply more susceptible to becoming corrupted, the Ring was able to corrupt him much more easily than Bilbo or Frodo, who had by comparison a certain natural resistance to its evil influence.

And then, it does say "Sméagol-Gollum hides in the Misty Mountains", not simply Gollum does so. He spent 471 years under the Misty Mountains, so even if he had far less need per day/week/month/year to use the Ring, he was now in a cave, or rather huge system of caves, which were the total opposite of a Hobbit-hole. No light, bare rocks, Orcs a neighbors - by 2941 Sméagol-Gollum had turned into 99.99% Gollum, so to speak.

Speculation on my part, without a doubt. But where gaps exist, speculation thrives!
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Lord_Sauron
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on: February 21, 2017 03:18
There is nothing wrong with speculation Gando, had Bilbo not named Frodo his heir perhaps Otho Sackville Baggins may have inherited the Ring
Gandolorin
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on: February 21, 2017 10:53
I don't think that would ever have happened, as Gandalf was very much involved in Bilbo's handing over the Ring, and I very much doubt he would have allowed Otho to come to posses it. Anyway, I'm guessing that Bilbo's adoption of Frodo, besides sympathies he had for Frodo, may also have been thumbing his nose at the S-Bs, who were very annoyed at Bilbo's reappearance in 2942 at the auction in Bag End. So keeping the S-Bs from gaining control of Bag End a second time would certainly have appealed to Bilbo, given the strained relations he had with these relatives.
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DarkLord153
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on: February 22, 2017 01:12
Another off topic question,do we know how much time it took Bilbo to go from Erebor to his house? Because with the dwarves it took quite a bit of time.
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DarkLord153
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on: February 24, 2017 04:19
And about the S-Bs,I don't think they would get the Ring.Maybe because Bilbo would continue to live and he would not allow such a thing to go to the S-Bs.Also,we know that the Ring is trying to go back to Sauron,why didn't it force Gollum to go to Sauron?
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Gandolorin
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on: February 26, 2017 02:36
My guess is that the One Ring could only work on weaknesses it found in its holder (other than Sauron). It couldn't totally change someone, and its effect on Gollum was to increase his petty meanness and then make him shun the light. Also, while Sauron had just a short time before returned to Dol Guldur (TA 2460, with renewed strength, but nowhere near full recovery) Gollum finds the One Ring TA 2463, but the White Council to oppose Sauron is also formed in this year - certainly something to distract Sauron's attention! And Gollum disappears under the White Mountains in 2470. Don't forget, in 2941, when Bilbo finds the One Ring that Gollum had lost, the White Council finally attacked Dol Guldur. While his "retreat" was to a degree tactical, and anyway Barad-dûr had been sufficiently rebuilt, still he was probably not able to resist the full attack of Saruman, Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel (the last three wielding the three Elven Rings), probably Celeborn and Glorfindel, possibly Cirdan (though I consider this less likely). The One Ring does not turn you into a zombie without own will, to put it drastically.
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DarkLord153
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on: February 26, 2017 05:33
I love the fact that Gollum lost the Ring the exact day Bilbo arrived after carrying it for nearly 500 years. Also,he was staying in the caves below a Goblin Town and he wasn't found? I mean,why don't the Goblins search their own cave?
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Gandolorin
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on: March 04, 2017 03:38
Ah, well, Gollum had the Ring. And Orcs going missing - they probably had much higher losses from their own infighting!
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DarkLord153
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on: March 07, 2017 10:44
Now we can tell the Orcs were born to be stupid hah.Let's be real,expanding their place a little bit wouldn't because we can clearly see that not all Orcs could fit in that place lol.
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Lord_Sauron
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on: March 08, 2017 06:01
Peter Jackson may have portrayed the Orcs in his movies as stupid. Though I think Tolkien considered atleast some of them to be quite intelligent in their own right I think Tolkien mentions it in either one of his books or one of his letters.
tarcolan
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on: March 17, 2017 06:46
The real question is why Tolkien portrayed all his lowly villains as East End Cockneys.
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