Hobbit Tolkien Talk

So, Frodo puts on the ring while at Amon Hen and within moments, Sauron starts looking toward him. If not for Gandalf's interference, he'd have been seen.

But, mere seconds later, Frodo puts the ring right back on again and heads to the boats and is apparently not seen.

Much later, Sam puts on the ring in Mordor to chase after Frodo, but he's not seen by Sauron. Then, at the last moment, when Frodo puts on the ring in Mt Doom, Sauron is instantly aware.

Putting on the ring in the Shire appears to never alert Sauron, but does alert the black riders when they're close.

I have no doubt that there are rules being applied here. Tolkien never does anything randomly. So, what are the rules? Is there something magical about Amon Hen that made it especially dangerous? Is it simply being on top of a hill so that there's a clear line of sight between Barad-dûr and wherever the ring is?

I'm sure I read somewhere that there was a prophecy that Isengard would stand until the forest moved against it, or something to that effect. However, I cannot figure out where I got that from.

I thought it was actually the reason why he intentionally destroyed the forest. He was trying to prevent the prophecy while actually causing it.

Yet, I cannot find any proof of this. Did I just imagine this?

The image came from here.

The image is by Luca Bonatti.

I think the mystery of the entwives is such a poignant thing. The idea that every ent's death means the entire species is one step closer to oblivion. The idea that the ents are just lonely all the time because they're missing their loved ones.

It is pretty funny the way Treebeard just says they lost them and cannot find them. One theory is that the moving elm tree that Sam heard about in The Shire could have been an entwife. But, it seems more likely to me that it's an Ent that was looking for the entwives. Who knows, there's always hope.

One great thing about Tolkien is that he just doesn't answer questions like this. I think he always talked about them like he had theories about them, but he didn't really know. So, there's no "word of god" about what happened to them.

The poem goes:

One ring to rule them all. One ring to find them. One ring to bring them all. And in the darkness bind them.

In what way does the one ring find anything? Do we have some reference, besides this poem, that Sauron could use the ring to know where all other ring wearers were?

The other 3 lines seem true. The one ring was about control and certainly had the ability to rule and control other ring wearers. But, not sure about finding them.

One of the great things about The Lord of the Rings is that the actual Lord of the Ring has, like, two lines in the entire series. He's talked about quite a lot, but he literally only speaks that one time when Pippin grabs the Palantir.

He's even mentioned in The Hobbit as the necromancer. And for anyone who thinks that's a retcon, there are earlier sources where we find that the name of the necromancer was always Sauron, even prior to the LOTR being written.

[SPOILER ALERT FOR Rings of Power]

To anyone who has watched Rings of Power and read The Silmarillion, how accurate was that portrayal? He is actually portrayed as a rather nice guy, although as I write this I recall something about how Sauron was very charasmatic before some event that ruined his ability to transform and appear nice. Cannot recall what that was. Maybe the downfall of Morgoth or something?

I just barely remember listening to this record as a young child on one of those children's briefcase style record players. I still have my original one, although at some point I actually bought another off eBay because the original one has a scratch.

I'm betting there are a lot of Bombadil #1 fans out there and I can see why. He's just living a happy free relaxed life unbeholden to anyone.

However, I think Bilbo is very similar in many ways and he's also an excellent writer.

Also, Bilbo isn't as silly as Bombadil, but he's not as serious as Frodo. He's the proper temperature porridge for me.

In my Lord of the Rings journey video I plotted Boromir's journey as best I could. However, there are a lot of constraints on his journey and it's kind of a puzzle to find the exact path.

We know all of the following things:

• When the journey started and ended.
• He got a horse at Edoras, likely spent some time there, and then lost his horse at Tharbad. Not sure if he definitely had a horse from Minas Tirith, but I assume he did.
• He hadn't seen Hobbits before when he met Frodo, so he may or may not have gone to Bree on his journey, depending on how many Hobbits hang out there. I assumed he didn't make it to Bree.
• He didn't start out knowing where Rivendell was. He wandered somewhere, but there are actually not that many places he could have wandered to while still keeping to his known schedule.

Any other details we know that tell us precisely where his journey took him?