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tarcolan
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on: December 07, 2018 03:05
So it is now: the Nine he has gathered to himself; the Seven also, or else they are destroyed.
- Gandalf to Frodo, LOTR 1.2


Blimey! I missed that. So Gandalf still doesn't really know what's happened to the Seven, even after his years of research. But he does say they are destroyed, not just clogging up the guts of dragons. And if Gandalf said it it must be true, right? Right? I suppose we can excuse Galadriel. Anyway I thought Smaug was the last dragon, or firedrake at least. Other worms are available.

As to the inadequacy of those chosen to deal with Smaug, it is most likely for this reason; "Even the dumbest person can change the course of history."

I haven't got much further in LOTR yet what with one thing and a host of others. Meanwhile I might recommend the Tolkien related Bodleian Libraries Bodcasts
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Lord_Sauron
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on: December 07, 2018 04:59
Though didn't Galadriel say that she could perceive Sauron's mind so wouldn't she have known that Sauron only had recovered three of the seven.

Maybe Gandalf wrote letter to Sauron asking him for a status report on the whereabouts of the seven dwarven rings
Gandolorin
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on: December 07, 2018 06:42
Lord_Sauron said:Though didn't Galadriel say that she could perceive Sauron's mind so wouldn't she have known that Sauron only had recovered three of the seven.

Yes, in "Fellowship" book two chapter VII "The Mirror of Galadriel" she says: "I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But stll the door is closed." The Seven Great Rings given to the Dwarf-lords had also been crafted by Celebrimbor's Elves (or even himself), so I would count that as "concerning the Elves".

It's a switch from when Sauron had finished the One Ring and put it on: immediately the three Great Elven Rings, their bearers and their thoughts were revealed to him. The bearers immediately took them off, which broke off the link, and The Three could be hidden. Now, the situation is reversed: Sauron is missing his ring, the beareres of The Three are wearing theirs again.

Strictly speaking, Galdriel's being able to read Sauron's mind could be considered a slip considering the effect their taking off their rings had as described above. But I would argue that there is a special link between Sauron and the One Ring, as he had poured the greater part of his native power into it to make it supremely powerful and able to control specifically The Three. The bearers of The Three used them to enhance their native powers (or in Gandalf's case the very limited amount of his truly native powers that he was allowed to display in Middle-earth). I would hypothesize that even when Sauron first put on the One Ring the first time as described above, he was revealed to the beareres of The Three as much as they were revealed to him - it just wasn't any use to them due to his superior power. With the bearers having put their rings on again, the link is restored - but now, the much weakened Sauron is no longer the one to able to manipulate it to his own ends. As Galadriel states above, he gropes - because he knows the link is restored, but the door is closed for him, because the bearers of The Three now have sufficient power to close it on him.
Oh dear, there I went again! Image

[Edited on 12/07/2018 by Gandolorin]
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tarcolan
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on: December 07, 2018 11:42
Gandolorin the Wenting! But did Gandalf write to Sauron?

So we assume that Galadriel knew which rings Sauron had, but not where the others were. Does a Great Ring give the wearer knowledge of the other rings? This question will become pertinent later in this thread.
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Lord_Sauron
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on: December 07, 2018 10:53
Could Gandalf have learnt about the fate of the dwarven rings from Thrain while he met him in Dol Guldur? Could the knowledge of the fate of each 7 dwarf houses ring of power be passed down from father to son?

[Edited on 12/08/2018 by Lord_Sauron]
Gandolorin
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on: December 08, 2018 01:59
Gandalf write to Sauron: hard to imagine. For such things I would imagine it would have needed a neutral agency along the lines of the Red Cross / Red Crescent of our days. I don't see Sauron accepting the concept of neutrality. It's either you're with us (or hin his case me) or against.

But if we accept my hypothesis above that with Sauron lacking his One Ring, while the bearers of The Three are again wearing theirs and are thus at an advantage (reversing the earlier situation), even the Middle-earth-handicapped Gandalf should have been able to duplicate Galadriel's feat of reading Sauron's mind while "keeping the door closed" the other way around. There is the battle of the voices (in Frodo's head?) at Amon Hen near the end of "Fellowship" the book.

"So we assume that Galadriel knew which rings Sauron had, but not where the others were."
Not quite. I'm assuming that Sauron knew very well what had happened to the other four Great Rings of the Dwarf-lords, and Galadriel thus knew this by being able to read his mind. And knowledge of other rings may be gained by more prosaic methods (like plain old spying, to put it bluntly, nowadays niceified to "intelligence gathering" when "we" do it).

By the description of Thrain in Dol Guldur, I would doubt that Thrain in his last throes could have been able to give Gandalf any such information. I mean, wasn't Thrain even unable to give Gandalf his own name by that time, and Gandalf surmised who this dying Dwarf was from other evidence?

As to every Dwarven tribe, more likely a tiny coterie tightly centered around the ruling royalty, decended from one of the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves knowing about the fate of a Great Ring held by the other six tribes - meh! As far as I remember, all Dwarves we ever meet in JRRT's writing, with the notable exception of the Battle of Azanulbizar, are of Durin's Folk. Where the Dickens did the other six tribes settle? And how could they have exchanged information kept as a tight secret within a miniscule portion of each tribe, perhaps going so far as being limited to a ruling king and his heir, perhaps at most the heir's heir?
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Lord_Sauron
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on: December 08, 2018 08:54
Gandolorin said:By the description of Thrain in Dol Guldur, I would doubt that Thrain in his last throes could have been able to give Gandalf any such information. I mean, wasn't Thrain even unable to give Gandalf his own name by that time, and Gandalf surmised who this dying Dwarf was from other evidence

Point made Gando

Of course I don't really think Gandalf wrote to Sauron and asked about the dwarven rings.



[Edited on 12/09/2018 by Lord_Sauron]
Gandolorin
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on: December 09, 2018 03:57
Lord_Sauron said: Of course I don't really think Gandalf wrote to Sauron and asked about the dwarven rings.

I didn't assume so. But it's just too much fun testing far-out ideas for shreds of plausibility.

I just thought of a plausibility test: non-canon places where even PJ wouldn't go are definitely out of the question. I specifically say non-canon, because he refused things canon for whatever reasons in each case. And as per the LoTR EEs, he had some close scrapes with hair-raising non-canon ideas: like sending Arwen as a combatant to Helm's deep (besides the practically invisible main baddie Sauron, having the central lovers of LoTR, Aragorn and Arwen, basically not together 99% of the time also had the suits squealing - makes one think of three-year-olds who don't get their lollipops; these people are so rigid in their thinking!); or having Sauron appear in the guise of Annatar to confront the combined forces of Gondor and Rohan before the Black Gate just before his final downfall (I forget if they remembered to make him nine-fingered).

What I mean here is whenever we have room for speculating about blanks in the canon or even HoMe in the widest sense, the first question would be "would this idea appeal to PJ?" If the answer is yes, that would qualify as a serious warning sign. If even PJ might find it too far out - no way!

[Edited on 12/09/2018 by Gandolorin]
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tarcolan
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on: December 09, 2018 06:57
At least Sauron had an understanding of diplomacy enough to send ambassadors. Why not letters?
Dear Aragorn, it has come to our attention.....

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Gandolorin
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on: December 10, 2018 03:45
tarcolan said:At least Sauron had an understanding of diplomacy enough to send ambassadors. Why not letters?
Dear Aragorn, it has come to our attention.....

tarcolan, tarcolan, tarcolan ... *sigh*

The first time Aragorn "came to the attention" of the renegade Aulë Maia was when the former kicked the latter in the teeth by wresting the Orthanc Palantir from his control. Probably the biggest attention-getting occurrence for Sauron in the Third Age until Frodo put on the One Ring at the Cracks of Doom. Shortly thereafter, Aragorn and his companions disappear into the Paths of the Dead below the White Mountains. Even in today's digital era, how good would connectivity of any kind be there? My money is on WLAN being nonexistent there. And anyway, Aragorn basically shut down his "smart phone" after his kick to Sauron's teeth. Could this be a traumatic passage for current-day teens? Image
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tarcolan
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on: December 10, 2018 07:51
The Paths of the Dead would of course have WLAN repeaters. They may be dead but they're not Luddites.
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Lord_Sauron
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on: December 11, 2018 12:40
If Aule the Smith only created seven dwarves and that they were males how did they populate? Is there any mention that Aule or Eru created the female dwarves
tarcolan
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on: December 11, 2018 05:26
It says he made the Seven Fathers first, but then doesn't mention any others. He laid those seven to rest in far flung places, maybe the others nearby? Oh I don't know. Blame the scribes.
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Gandolorin
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on: December 11, 2018 11:06
This is serious trivia territory that probably only Elthir among us can solve. Somewhere, JRRT may have written that six of the fathers had a female companion - except for Durin I, the eldest of the Fathers of the Dwarves, who founded Moria. My only (for me) sensible guess is that after Eru had sanctioned Aulë's seondary creation, Aulë then continued and created a whole lot of other Dwarves - perhaps at a much later date, but soon enough?
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tarcolan
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on: December 11, 2018 11:25
The next pen slip is when Frodo is leaving Bag End. He hears a muffled voice and irate replies from the Gaffer. Frodo thinks better of going to take a look and slips away. Why did he not feel any compunction to use the Ring, as he did on the later occassions?
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Gandolorin
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on: December 13, 2018 05:39
The "poor" Nazgûl is talking to the Gaffer. The Gaffer! That would rattle anyone's concentration. That Nazgûl is incapable of concentrating on his main chore under these circumstances. Later, he is on a trail, so can focus on his task ...
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Elthir
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on: December 14, 2018 01:32
Tolkien's tentative, rough-passage musings, edited for brevity by me, hopefully correctly.

A) Eru added a mate for each of the seven, but would not amend the work of Aule, thus the females looked like males.

[Elthir's comment: although I assume Eru changed certain, necessary things!]

B) Aule himself makes six female Dwarves.

C) Aule again makes six. Thus he buried six pairs, but Durin he laid alone.

d) Aule laid the Seven Dwarves to rest under stone, and beside each he laid a mate "as the Voice bade him"

e) Aule laid the Seven Dwarves to rest under stone, and beside each he laid his mate "save only beside the Eldest, and he lay alone."


Also see letter 212.

"In the final text, as printed in The Silmarillion, my father evidently abandoned the question of the origin of the female Dwarves, finding it intractable and the solutions unsatisfactory. Moreover in the finished form the element of the Eldest (Durin) being distinct from the others, and without mate, finds no place."


Christopher Tolkien commentary, WJ.
Gandolorin
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on: December 15, 2018 08:53
tarcolan said:The next pen slip is when Frodo is leaving Bag End. He hears a muffled voice and irate replies from the Gaffer. Frodo thinks better of going to take a look and slips away. Why did he not feel any compunction to use the Ring, as he did on the later occassions?

Actually, the whole business of how the Nazgûl acted - or more precisely failed to act - has been noted by, I believe, Tom Shippey, among others.

The external reason is that JRRT was still in transit from Hobbit to Silmarillion, so to speak. Reading the HoMe part about LoTR, and especially "Return of The Shadow", I get the feeling that JRRT was truly at work for a sequel to The Hobbit - which then got criticized by C.S. Lewis and even the still-young Rayner Unwin after they read early drafts. After having finished, he found it impossible to unify the tone of the beginning with later parts without resorting to a massive re-writing. And I would say this progression in tone from still-like-The-Hobbit to very much darker moments is what also makes LoTR unique. Not that JRRT planned it this way, but spending well over a decade in the writing (with spells of no writing) led to the effect.

My own musings for this hesitant mode of operation of the Nazgûl center on a statement of Sam's when the Fellowship are in Lothlórien: "Now these {Elves} aren't wanderers or homeless, and seem a bit nearer to the likes of us: they seem to belong here, more even than Hobbits do in the Shire. Whether they've made the land, or the land's made them, it's hard to say, if you take my meaning."

Now Lothlórien an the Shire are magnitudes apart as far as presenting an obstacle to enemies to enter. But the Shire is also a good deal farther away from Mordor than is Lothlórien (Dol Guldur was right "next door", but I'm not sure that was overly relevant ...). So the Nazgûl were very "far from home". The Miisty Mountains were also in between, and the large rivers Gwathló and Baranduin also had to be crossed - and except for the W-k, all of the Nazgûl seem to have been confused by water. So their power was at a low ebb, and the Shire was deeply hostile territory to them. The W-k had been driven from Angmar over a thousand years ago (when the Hobbits had already settled in the Shire for almost 400 years - and supposedly had sent some archers to help the King at Fornost against the W-k at some time). They are confounded by the Hobbits they meet (besides my tongue-in-cheek comment about the Gaffer above, Farmer Maggot also managed to put up a bold face), and more so by their inability to meet the ones they want to meet (and Elves in the Shire! Gah!). They are spread out instead of consolidating their forces, Tom Bombadil's area is a total no-go to them, and Aragorn is also a good deal more than he seems to be. Then they attack Gandalf at Weathertop, which ends up as a draw (and can't have soothed their nerves), are spread out again and again unable to meet their intended targets. And at the Ford of Bruinen, they suddenly have a reincarnated Elf behind them who has alrady notched a Balrog aiding Aragorn, and that sudden flood. I would imagine them grumbling while on the way back to Mordor on foot that the intelligence provided to them was very deficient!

[Edited on 12/15/2018 by Gandolorin]
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tarcolan
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on: December 29, 2018 02:51
In version B in UT the WK is camped out east of the Barrow Downs, maybe when Frodo was at Tom's? I like to think that even if he had ridden straight for Tom's house he would've ended up the other side. No way in.

Now then, Gandalf's letter. What's the problem with it?
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Gandolorin
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on: December 29, 2018 02:47
Umm, that Gandalf should have known ol' Barliman well enough by then to know that entrusting him with getting the letter to Hobbiton was risky? Dunno, nothing else comes to mind ...
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tarcolan
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on: January 05, 2019 05:10
PS. Do NOT use It again, not for any reason whatever!
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Gandolorin
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on: January 05, 2019 06:28
Righto! This is not Frodo at the end of the book, this is undamaged Frodo. This is Frodo before Weathertop, Cirith Ungol and Sammath Naur. For all his almost purely Hobbit wisdom, he is, compared to the Frodo at the end of the book, indistinguishable from Pippin at this stage in his Hobbit carelessness.

External: JRRT only "really" managed the switch from "Hobbit" to "Silmarillion" with the Council of Elrond (duh).
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tarcolan
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on: January 05, 2019 08:02
A curiously cryptic response. I am trying to figure out what the Prof. had in mind. Did he have Frodo using the Ring in the Shire but didn't mention it, or was he switching between two versions in the process of writing? Or perhaps it was a mistake and he was referring to the incident at Tom's house. There are arguments for and against any of these.
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Lord_Sauron
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on: January 05, 2019 08:44
Did Frodo put the Ring on while he was in the Barrow Downs?
Also if Gandalf could feel or sense that Frodo was wearing the ring surely Galadriel and Elrond could as well.
If that’s the case then wouldn’t Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel have felt Bilbo wearing the ring all those years ago?
tarcolan
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on: January 05, 2019 09:17
The letter was written before Frodo left the Shire.

Whether Ringbearers could sense when the other Rings were being used is a moot point.
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Gandolorin
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on: January 06, 2019 06:52
One point which is driven home at Weathertop is that, naturally, Frodo becomes invisble to his companions (and had he not managed to get the Ring off just before he fell unconscious that would have made it quite a task for his companions to find him). The other point is that he is, with the Ring, in the otherworld with the Ringwraiths, and can see them clearly (and they're not a pretty sight), and more importantly, they can now see him clearly; their vision in the real world (apparently most affected by daylight) appears suboptimal. And as Gandalf is at this point - the letter is dated Midyear's Day, so about three months before Frodo gets it from the too easily distracted Butterbur - probably mainly concerned with getting Frodo and the One Ring to Rivendell, without specific plans for what follows. That his warning had its reason is amply demonstrated at Weathertop. How free Frodo's will was about putting it on goes into the rather large and involved discussion of the Boethian or Manichaean nature of evil (discussed at length by Shippey), which I won't get into here.
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Gandolorin
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on: January 06, 2019 07:26
Lord_Sauron said:... wouldn’t Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel have felt Bilbo wearing the ring all those years ago?

tarcolan said: Whether Ringbearers could sense when the other Rings were being used is a moot point.

I mentioned it once above: there is definitely a very strong link between The Three and The One - because Sauron created the latter with practically only this purpose. The other sixteen are very much to the side in this context.

Actually, L_S, Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel should have been able to pick up Gollum's use of the One Ring long before Bilbo ever got it. We can speculate (as I did a bit above) of "barriers to signals" like the mountains etc., which would start sounding too much like a discussion of the electromagnetic spectrum. I'll only go so far as to remind us that Sauron wore his Ring for over 1800 years in the Second Age after creating it, and by his native power - a massive part of which he had transferred to the One Ring - would have been a massivly powerful "transmitter". Sméagol / Gollum held the One Ring for 478 years, but must have made relatively little use of it at least after hiding in the Misty Mountains. Bilbo in the 59 years he held it, and Frodo in his 17 years, probably used it even less, proportionally. So we're talking about very few, weak blips caused by these three Hobbits, probably like comparing a AAA battery to a 1500 megawatt nuclear power plant. Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel would probably have to have been looking for such "signals" with a high level of concentration to notice them. And as they were all three very busy people, under normal circumstances these signals would hardly have registered as more that a tiny, short case of tinnitus.
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tarcolan
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on: January 07, 2019 06:53
Oh dear! Methinks you have run past the stick and fetched the whole tree, Gando. I was not questioning Gandalf's constant nagging not to use the Ring, if this is what you meant. By now Gandalf knew more than anyone about the Ring, even Saruman, but he could have no idea of the effect the proximity of Ringwraiths would have on the Ring, and it's effect on the bearer to put it on. There were no precedents. He had issued a number of warnings before and had no reason to assume that Frodo could not exercise his free will in the matter.

However you seem not to be bothered whether Frodo had used the Ring in the Shire or not. There is reason to believe it is very important, not least this line from Gandalf;
As long as you never used it, I did not think that the Ring would have any lasting effect on you, not for evil, not at any rate for a very long time.

Frodo doesn't say yea or nay. In fact Gandalf never asks and Frodo never says. What did Tolkien think in the end? Are we deliberately left in the dark?

Just as I have read LOTR from the point of view of the Ring I'm doing the same with the relevant HoME books.

[Edited on 01/07/2019 by tarcolan]
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tarcolan
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on: January 07, 2019 07:24
There is a distinct lack of evidence that Ringbearers are aware of other Rings being used. In 'The Hobbit' Ch.6 only this line gives a clue;
“What did I tell you?” said Gandalf laughing. “Mr. Baggins has more about him than you guess.” He gave Bilbo a queer look from under his bushy eyebrows, as he said this, and the hobbit wondered if he guessed at the part of his tale that he had left out.
Gandalf is just sniffing a bit of duplicity here, it's not really about the Ring. But in LOTR 1.2 Gandalf says that when Bilbo found the Ring
A shadow fell on my heart then, though I did not know yet what I feared.

I would agree that Gollum hadn't used the Ring for a long time, not much point in the dark. The other Ringbearers may also have felt a foreboding but not connected it to a silly hobbit. Galadriel knows how many times Frodo had used the Ring after Gandalf told Frodo what it was, but perhaps she had heard from Elrond. I can't remember any other examples from my Ring reading of LOTR. I can't accept the square law dissipation idea, whether EM or any other quantum field.

Yet we know that the Elves were aware of Sauron as soon as he put on the One Ring for the first time. We assume this means the Ringbearers because they then took them off. We also know that Galadriel was aware of Sauron's thoughts even when he didn't have the Ring, so did the Elves just sense Sauron and not the Ring?
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Gandolorin
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on: January 08, 2019 01:02
tarcolan said: Oh dear! Methinks you have run past the stick and fetched the whole tree, Gando ...

Um, yes ... but you should have gotten used to that bit with me in the last five years ...

Frodo's use of the Ring in the 17 years he held it ... or Bilbo's in his 59 between returning to Hobbiton and the long-expected party ... or Sméagol / Gollum's during his 478 years ... very little to be gleaned in the books published by JRRT during his lifetime.

(Then still) Sméagol might have used it fairly often while still living with his clan, for the pleasure it gave him in being able to play petty, nasty little pranks on the others. They seem to have figured out that he was behind these, even though it's unlikely they figured out anything about the Ring. Under the Misty Mountains, there would have been less need to use it, but still situations where it came in handy.

Bilbo: I believe the only known use of the Ring in the Shire before he left is told in chapter V of Book One in "Fellowship", "A Conspiracy Unmasked". Merry tells how a year before the l-e party, he witnessed Bilbo using the Ring to avoid meeting the Sackville-Bagginses. The really big event was of course Bilbo's disappearance at the party. But unlike Sméagol's petty nastiness (and the frequent need to use the Ring during the Erebor quest), Bilbo would have probably had very little reason to use the Ring, this side of the S-Bs.

Frodo: same as Bilbo. Little reason to use the Ring. And after Bilbo's spectacular disappearance at the party, good reasons to be even more careful about using it.

Again, externally, there is the high probablity that JRRT's concept of the Ring was still moving towards the One Ring ominousness in the early chapters, and had not quite shaken free of Bilbo's "magic ring". Similar to the development of the Ringwraiths.

tarcolan said: We assume this means the Ringbearers because they then took them off. We also know that Galadriel was aware of Sauron's thoughts even when he didn't have the Ring, so did the Elves just sense Sauron and not the Ring?

Elves generally having premonitions when near or nearing evil - not entirely implausible, but I'd be extremely hard-put to find quotes to support this. Too speculative, then.

Ringbearers = Three Great Elven Rings, and the One Ring and Sauron: as I have mentioned previously, there is an extremely strong link between The Three and The One, and between Sauron and The One even when he does not have it in his possession. Galadriel had had her Great Ring for 4870 years by TA 3019, and had ten years to use it before Sauron finished the One RIng, then 3019 years after Sauron's SA downfall. Elrond received his Great Ring from Gil-galad just before Sauron's SA downfall, so he has had 3019 years to learn its use. Gandalf received his Great Ring from Cirdan just over 2000 years before the War of The RIng, also a long time. All three Great Ringbearers were very wise and - this side of Sauron - among the mightiest beings in Middle-earth. Contrary to PJ's The Hobbit film fanfic, I would see the descending order as Gandalf - Galadriel - Elrond.

And all three were intended bearers of the Three Rings. Galadriel seems to have gotten hers directly from Celebrimbor, Gil-galad yielded his of free will to Elrond, dito Cirdan to Gandalf. Think of Aragorn and Denethor using their respective Palantiri vs. Saruman and Sauron using theirs. Any "accidental" holders of such Great Rings, starting with Isildur and followed by the Hobbit chain Déagol - Sméagol - Bilbo - Frodo - Sam - Frodo - Gollum only for the One Ring, would have been much less capable of harnessing the forces inherent in the Ring.

I was almost going to say that Isildur was at least one level above the Hobbits, but then Gandalf states to Frodo (though suprsingly I have been unable to find it in LoTR) that the latter had the shard of the Morgul knife in him since Weathertop for 17 days until Elrond removed it, and that many a mighty warrior of Men would have succumbed to its effect much sooner. That ultimate indomitabilty of Hobbits that even Sauron vaguely detected in Gollum, and which even he would be unable to break.
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tarcolan
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on: January 08, 2019 07:08
Early drafts do have Frodo/Bingo using the Ring, but rarely. I have learned something so far; in (I think) the first typed draft Gandalf advised that it was fine to use the Ring 'in jest', which explains Frodo's jolly wheeze at Tom's house.

You can add a few others to your list of those who gave up the Ring freely: Frodo, to Gandalf and Tom; Gandalf, back to Frodo; Sam, back to Frodo. It's odd that Gandalf was quite able to resist the lure of the Ring when he was the one asking for it but not when it was offered. Ah yes, ring-lure. That was dropped early on along with dragon-curse, the desire to go off into the Wild and find some gold. Presumably in the Klondike?

[Edited on 01/08/2019 by tarcolan]
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tarcolan
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on: January 08, 2019 07:56
Oh I forgot a couple of things
I have known strong warriors of the Big People who would quickly have been overcome by that splinter, which you bore for seventeen days.
I didn't even need to use my database of all the numbers in LOTR what I made (yes, I really do have an awful lot of time on my hands).

And another unnamed name on that list, whoever took the Ring from Frodo and hung it on a chain about his neck.
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Gandolorin
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on: January 08, 2019 11:54
tarcolan said: And another unnamed name on that list, whoever took the Ring from Frodo and hung it on a chain about his neck.

Now that's one that probably almost everyone misses - but it is "off-stage", so to speak. Probably Elrond, as the only one to be trusted to do so?

But that one, and the very short occasions with Gandalf and Tom Bombadil, almost don't seem to count. And Sam taking the Ring from Frodo was a situation in which Frodo had no say in the matter, being unconscious. But it was, feared by Sam, a permanent transfer.

As for Frodo handing over the Ring temporarily to Gandalf and Tom Bombadil, I seem to remeber it wasn't all that freely. Didn't he hesitate in each case?
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Lord_Sauron
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on: January 08, 2019 09:46
Gando, Gandalf tells Frodo about the splinter from the Morgul blade in the chapter Many Meetings

[Edited on 01/09/2019 by Lord_Sauron]
Gandolorin
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on: January 09, 2019 06:26
Thanks, L_S, I've found it now. That's where I figured it would be, but I must have skipped over the paragraph by "hasty" reading. Image
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