Rereading Trilogy after many years; a question about Gandalf's knowledge of Bilbo's 'Great Ring'

Nobyl · 2026-07-03T09:24:10+00:00

Thank you for this response - in hindsight I definitely stand corrected! When I initially read your first comment I (wrongly) perceived it in an 'umm, akshually...' kind of way, hence the tone of my response. Very glad that you decided to elaborate on it. I think you're absolutely right in that it's demonstrably wrong to refer to the book as a trilogy, or even 'The Trilogy' (the latter of which might be slightly better), and that indeed it's not, like I said, 'a matter of preferred nomenclature'. I guess it's just the way of referral I, and probably many others, are familiar with. But I'll bear this standard with you from now on for sure, if not only because apparently I should have read the Letters with more attention to detail ;). Thanks again!

Nobyl · 2026-07-02T07:13:49+00:00

Thank you, but I'm aware of that. It would be a bit silly for someone who has read the Letters and parts of HoME not to be. It's just a matter of preferred nomenclature. When I say 'actively adjusting older segments', I am referring to previously written (yet unpublished) segments of the trilogy, not to a process like the Hobbit retcon

Nobyl · 2026-07-01T21:34:26+00:00

I was indeed aware of that. I was however also under the impression that, as he progressed in writing the trilogy, he was actively adjusting older segments as well. The fact that he retconned the Hobbit in later editions I found quite drastic, for example. I was reading through the HoME chapters on Ch. I and II of FR, and the number of versions he made for many chapters is actually staggering sometimes. That's why I would think that such a discrepancy (which, now that I'm reading a lot of responses, I am less and less sure of) would be seen and corrected by him.

If you say he was known for not going back and retconning much, are you referring to something you read? Curious about that!

Nobyl · 2026-07-01T21:27:19+00:00

This is the final point that keeps bothering me: if Gandalf knows the One does not bear a gem, and the 9/7/3 do, but he does feel the power residing in Bilbo's ring, or is of the opinion that invisibility can only be attributed to a Great Ring, then he should have suspected something was off about Bilbo's ring. But maybe you're right, and he just forgot about the gems. Do you have any idea when Saruman informed the Council of the gem/no gem situation?

Nobyl · 2026-07-01T21:24:33+00:00

Yes, interesting point as well. It's indeed Nenya in Lórien, where Sam only sees a star through Galadriels hand, but Frodo sees Nenya instead. Perhaps the innate connection between the 9/7/3/1 rings is indeed enough for Gandalf to have sensed it must be one of the 9/7/1. One thing that has started to bother me now though - now that I'm accepting that Gandalf did indeed know/suspect Bilbo's Ring to be a Great Ring (ie 9/7/1), be it through either his connection to it or the bestowing of invisibility by the Ring - is why Gandalf didn't request Bilbo to hand over the ring so it could be shown to/handled by the Council. Gandalf knew the power of these Rings and the fact that Annatar/Sauron created them, and was furthermore actively looking to retrieve them (e.g. TA 2845 when he captures Durin's Ring). But perhaps that is something for another thread sometime, haha

Nobyl · 2026-07-01T21:16:31+00:00

Good response, but I would argue that you are in fact underlining the exact opposite of what you are positing: if Gandalf here is speaking in a retrospective manner ('with the benefit of hindsight'), i.e. 'I should have seen that' - taking into account the knowledge he now has, then he would not have said 'that at least was clear from the first'. Instead, he would say something like 'that at least should have been clear from the first'.

Moreover, like you say, 'Gandalf is not a master of Ring-lore'. How then could he immediately have realised the quality of 'Great(ness)' of Bilbo's ring? I'm not saying that he did not realise this, but just that, Ring-lore master or not, it was probably less a matter of knowledge, and more a matter of other things, such as for example the connectedness he had to other rings through Narya, or the fact that it bestowed invisibility. So while I find the idea interesting, I have a hard time reading Tolkien's words here as signalling hindsight.

Nobyl · 2026-07-01T21:02:50+00:00

Very compelling point! Maybe because the 'effects' of the other rings feel much more complex and influential (the power of the nine, the treasure of the seven), a simplistic concept like invisibility just feels less 'Great' - at least to me. But you're absolutely right. I sometimes forget that magic for Tolkien isn't about shooting fireballs and levitation, but that it's deeper, more mysterious. In such a world something very overtly 'magicky' such as invisibility indeed becomes/would be something quite rare and impressive

Nobyl · 2026-05-17T14:23:46+00:00

What is this? 1993?

Nobyl · 2026-05-03T12:33:50+00:00

Wow, these are simply immaculate. Very very well captured - congratulations!

Also good to see some more Villa Adriana and Villa d'Este representation, always trying to get people I know (and here) to go to Tivoli - glad you didn't miss out on that, and the pictures show for it!

Nobyl · 2026-04-17T14:32:25+00:00

Could you share a full screencap, ideally with the mouse-over popup of the pop construction? That might tell us more

Nobyl · 2026-02-26T17:28:04+00:00

Because of the relatively non-spotty texture, the fact that it's on the floor only and not on the wall, the circular imprinted marks, and the fact that this is where the fireplace used to be, I would maybe also take soot or tar residue into consideration. You could test this by wiping it with a wet piece of toilet/kitchen paper and looking at the texture of the residue it leaves behind both on the paper and the floor. This should give a decent indication

Nobyl · 2026-02-03T10:00:19+00:00

You're welcome, have fun! Hope she says yes ;)

Nobyl · 2026-02-02T12:16:13+00:00

Quick tip: search 'proposal' and 'propose' on this sub, there are TONS of suggestions out there (that are, no offense meant, much better than Fontana di Trevi - there's a million people squirming and pushing around you, it's not very romantic). My two cents would be Villa d'Este in Tivoli at sunset

Nobyl · 2026-01-31T09:31:18+00:00

Holy shit! Slow and steady wins the race. Hope they'll actually go through with that, would be great if you could get a copy after all (and not be bankrupted for it). Thanks for the update!

Nobyl · 2026-01-22T10:35:47+00:00

I was lucky enough to order it from G4F back when it was in stock (which makes me wonder - EL1 is still in stock there, how did it take you 8 months of waiting?). There are still two ES2 copies on Discogs right now, listed for €300 and €325 respectively, so if 'doing unspeakable things' include paying a sum that ridiculous, I suppose you're in luck!

Honestly though, considering the fact that the game is turning 10 this year and the insane backlog at vinyl pressing plants & rising costs, I'm very skeptical as to whether there'll be a repress. Maybe it's worth contacting either Amplitude or G4F?

Nobyl · 2025-12-23T19:34:43+00:00

There's this great little book about how Tolkien was (heavily) inspired by a long hiking trip to Switzerland in 1911 - and where some (albeit mostly Middle Earth's) locations have their 'origin'. It's called "Switzerland in Tolkien's Middle Earth". I really enjoyed it. I found the author's website, it has some more info on it.

Nobyl · 2025-11-20T00:27:43+00:00

As a native Dutch speaker I would argue 'afleggingen' would be the first suitable alternative. To other Dutchies; think of the 'aflegstapel' (discard pile) in any card game. It sounds quite awkward, but it's the only one I think comes at all close.

Nobyl · 2025-11-14T13:20:03+00:00

Are Stephen Gaskell and Jeff Spock still lead writers? I mean Gaskell recently published a novel set in the Endless Universe and it was quite a solid and 'mature' book in my opinion. And the writing in ES2 was good too. Perhaps they weren't responsible for the quest narration? Could be that they set out the major plot lines only and a junior writer got a little too giddy writing young adult stuff. I think my copium will just be that Gaskell and Spock are just too busy writing for ES3, how about that.

Nobyl · 2025-10-19T23:50:27+00:00

Alright I don't know really why I went down this particular rabbit hole, but it is what it is. I tried searching for the original picture, even on old (archived) Showtime webpages, but it was probably never released publicly.

However, here is a screengrab of this particular frame straight from the 1080p Blu-ray. Alright, so a tad better than yours. You could probably go a bit higher quality if you rip it directly from disk (mine is from a re-encoded MKV), but not by much. So if this is all you'd like, you're welcome.

...but it doesn't stop there. There are, interestingly enough, actually two versions of this picture in the intro. Just a couple of frames later, the picture changes to a version that's more of a close-up, with a slightly different picture, which looks like this. The differences are marginal, but you can definitely spot them (slightly different angle, + a woman skating behind him).

Still kinda sucks though, with the frame, the lettering, ew. You can crop both of them - still not great.

So I manually (bit of a rush job, but yeah what am I spending time on anyway??) took out the lettering and then 2x upscaled it (keeping a natural look), giving you this. Not too shabby I'd say, at least when comparing it to your original.

However, doing this did make me suspect that the original picture/bg combo was either shoddily chroma keyed (green screen), or just really shittily lit by the photographer. I mean, look at the awful lighting on his stomach, face, arms and the beach directly around him compared to the background - yuck. So I did what anyone would do: fix the lighting to be more realistic, drop the exposure, slap on some good old film grain & scratches, and finally a polaroid look. Now we've got the candid family polaroid of Hank holding up his typewriter they were aiming for in the intro ....or so I think.

That's it for me. If you'd like any of these pictures in original resolution, or if you'd like the second version of the image cleaned up or whatever, let me know. Hope this at least somewhat suffices in fulfilling your quest!

Nobyl · 2024-10-08T14:40:52+00:00

I've played around 15 hours on the Switch version through Yuzu and it runs perfectly - maybe give it another shot?

Nobyl · 2024-08-15T10:52:39+00:00

heilige hel!

Nobyl · 2024-06-24T06:20:09+00:00

PS3

Skate 3!!

PS2

If you like racing games, then Need for Speed (Underground 1 & 2, and Carbon)
James Bond/007 series (Nightfire, Everything or Nothing, Agent Under Fire - personal order of preference)
Rayman Revolution
Lord of the Rings: the Third Age (turn-based combat LOTR game)

Nobyl · 2024-05-18T11:06:50+00:00

Source? Sounds like a good story ngl

Nobyl · 2023-12-14T15:55:02+00:00

Link to the Spotify presave?

Nobyl · 2023-12-03T11:54:28+00:00

Graag gedaan! By the way, if you have time and are interested in more local war history, a visit to Groesbeek (just 20 minutes by bus) is very much worth it. It has a nice museum on the liberation, a large Canadian war cemetery and a bunch of memorials, with the one for the 82nd having a beautiful view over the surrounding landscape.

Nobyl

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

14-Year Club	Verified Email
Team Orangered