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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 3362018" data-attributes="member: 151">I thought this was intrinsically obvious: I'm a better DM on the fly than Tolkien was. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  Tolkien was great a pre-game prep, but I totally have him beat on reacting to unexpected player choices.  The dude was a total railroader.If I were to posit why the ring didn't do it at some other time, for the sake of the mental exercise this thread is, I'd suggest that it had lots to do with the ring perceiving an opportunity and it's relative value to that action.  To wit: when it slipped Isildur's finger, it was near the presence of an orc ambush and had the chance to stay off of Isildur's finger for good.  Isildur was a threat, because he might actually be able to use the ring and bend it to his will, even as it twisted him.  He was of the blood of Numenor, after all, and much stronger in power than his distant heir, Aragorn.  On the Stairs, Samwise was there...the chance of it disappearing so easily was not there, especially since it had worked it's compulsion too well with the ring-bearer....and as long as the ring-bearer kept going towards Mordor and it's master, it's all to the good.  We don't know, of course, how powerful the rings compulsion could be or how quickly it might work on someone.  Their personal spirit and susceptibility seemed to increase at a similar rate.  Aragorn, Elrond and Gandalf all chose to forgo the ring, fearing how quickly they might succumb.  Boromir fell under it's spell quickly, and he never even touched it....for all we know, it summoned him through his dreams.  The ring has far more than an hour to work on poor Frodo.  It's been working on him since he left the Shire, after all (technically well before that...for 17 years or so, however weakly).  Even after the Council, it's still a ways to travel on foot with the Fellowship to a place where the eagles will bear him swiftly.  This begs the question, if the ring is so weak, why doesn't Gandalf just grab it from Frodo at the last part of the trip and take it with him?  Obviously, that's not Gandalf's job, for one...he's there to AID the men and elves, not do their work for them.  But it's also because he fears how quickly the ring might corrupt him...stronger beings are corrupted more easily.  This is one of the reasons that Frodo is given the ring, that and the purity of his heart, which makes it much harder for the ring to manipulate him the way it did Smeagol.  But if the ring was powerful enough to compel Smeagol after a few minutes and constantly temp Frodo after a couple of weeks of wearing, it's not hard to believe it could push events slightly, given the chance.In the case of Bilbo and the Hobbit, there are plenty of reasons why it might not have done so.  One of which is that when the Hobbit was written, it was just a ring, not The Ring.  I'm sure I could think of some reason, again for the sake of mental exercise.I'm certainly not going to try and argue that the 'eagle' idea doesn't have merit, either.  It's a fun exercise, but frankly any story that stands for over fifty years as the pinnacle of Fantasy is going to show cracks, due to the massive scrutiny Tolkien's work gets.  I mean, if his son can compile a series of letters, criticisms, edit and scholarly examinations of his fathers work that is easily five times larger than the actual work...well, you know. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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