When Gandalf "figured out" The Ring?

[Lefty Scaevola]

As I recall, key to Gandalf growing recognition that Bilbo's ring was a that it retarded aging of the bearer. That of course would meant that the recognition would begin to dawn Bilbo was old and not showing appropriates sings of his age.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Lefty Scaevola

As I recall, key to Gandalf growing recognition that Bilbo's ring was a that it retarded aging of the bearer. That of course would meant that the recognition would begin to dawn Bilbo was old and not showing appropriates sings of his age.

I agree. The ring made Bilbo invisible, so Gandalf thought it a Great Ring. The key, though, as Lefty says, was that it gave its wearer long life. Only then did Gandalf count again (I assume he counted as soon as he learned Bilbo had a magic ring) and see that, however remote the possibility, Bilbo must have the One Ring. But then he had to prove it.

Originally Posted by Eärniel

[W]e don't know how many rings were made in total. There were 20 rings of great power, with one to top it all, we know that. But if I'm not mistaken the Elves spent years and years making the rings. Maybe they made countless 'try-outs'. Who's to say that there hadn't been a large number of lesser magical rings? Maybe there were also other rings that gave their bearer invisibility…

Invisibility was probably a necromantic feature of the rings, a bug to the Elves but a feature to Sauron the Necromancer. The intention of the Elves was to stop change, and particularly to halt the fading of their physical bodies in Middle-earth. For Mortals – Men and Hobbits – they also conferred long life – another necromantic feature. I suspect that, at least at first, it is possible that none of them conferred invisibility [edit: for Elves], because invisibility was something the Noldorin smiths were especially trying to avoid. Their effects on Men might be something else entirely, however; and Sauron might well have altered their effects once he seized them from the smiths. We can only be sure that the Three continued with the same intentions the Elves had through the end of the Third Age, and possibly Thráin’s Ring. Still, Gandalf did say he realized it was a Great Ring from the beginning.

Originally Posted by Valandil

Gandalf says that the Elves made many other, lesser rings, but seems to limit talk about the 'Great Rings' to these 20... and says from the start it was obvious that Bilbo had found a 'Great Ring'.

The Three and the Nine were accounted for. He also knew the fate of Thráin’s Ring. (We might call its Durin’s Ring, since one of the Durins was its first non-Elven keeper.) All he had to do was eliminate the possibility that it was another of the Seven, but that might not be straightforward.

Originally Posted by Artanis

…Gandalf at first didn't trust Saruman enough to seek advice from him regarding Bilbo's Ring. As he said to Frodo: "I might perhaps have consulted Saruman the White, but something always held me back." … Gandalf had no real reason to not trust Saruman at that time.

In the context of the story, it’s reasonable to suppose that, when Bilbo found Gollum’s ring, only Saruman knew for certain the fates of the Seven, sans Thráin’s Ring. Gandalf had not studied the Rings of Power. He could surmise that they were all either taken or destroyed, but Saruman was the White Council’s expert on Sauron and his devices. As for something always held him back from consulting with Saruman, intuition, we would say; Tolkien might say, the quiet urging of Eru, whose servant Gandalf ultimately was.

Originally Posted by Artanis

[T]here were more than 20 rings, but the other rings were lesser ones. … [Leaving the matter of determining the identity of Bilbo’s ring] was a mistake, though an understandable mistake, because wanting to push away unpleasant possibilities is a quite normal reaction.

Yes, it is, and Gandalf could excuse himself because he was busy with other pressing matters: Saruman increasingly retreated to Orthanc, and I think we can assume Radagast was distracted and partly disengaged from the mission set forth by the Valar. As Eärniel put it,

Originally Posted by Eärniel

…Gandalf had many other worries besides the Hobbits, he didn't visit them so regularly, often at years interval. Nor do I deem it likely that he was reminded of the Ring every time he visited the Shire. I believe the riddle of Bilbo's ring had been for many long periods of time only in the back of his mind, to be dealt with when other important things had been handled.

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

...Gandalf was assured by Saruman who was head of the order and whose speciality was the Rings of Power that the One had perished and was no more. How could Gandalf, in spite of a few clues, go not only against Saruman's word on the subject, a subject Gandalf was ignorant of by his own words… I don't know that we can say that Gandalf erred in anything save perhaps in not ignoring Saruman (and why would he at that stage?) and beginning to look into it that very day at the bottom of the pass through Mirkwood…

I return to the idea of the false notion, or better, false information – propaganda, if you will, misdirection – set forward by Saruman to deceive the White Council. Aragorn and Gandalf both indicated Saruman could deceive people using his voice, and this was more than his merely lying to them: they were induced to believe his statements reasonable and true. In such an important matter to Saruman – remember, he was diligently searching for the One Ring, even finding the bones of Isildur and the silver casket on a chain in which the son of Elendil kept the Ring – we should consider whether Saruman used this ability to dissuade the Council from looking any further into the matter, “Until that night when [Bilbo] left [Bag End]. He said and did things then that filled [Gandalf] with a fear that no words of Saruman could allay.� Then Gandalf added, “I knew at last that something dark and deadly was at work. And I have spent most of the years since then in finding out the truth of it.�

Originally Posted by Radagast The Brown

Only in 3017, after Gandalf goes to Minas Tirith and reads the scroll of Isildor, hje realizes that it's the One Ring.

It took him sixteen years and a great deal of travelling to discover the scroll of Isildur. And we should presume he did this without telling anyone, with the possible exceptions of Elrond and Galadriel, the other two Keepers of the Three, what he was doing.

Originally Posted by CAB

I just can’t see Gandalf honestly missing this…...so I just accept this as an author’s error.

I don’t think that Gandalf’s failure to recognize the One Ring is a plot hole or author’s error. It might be a weakness in the tale, but it doesn’t require any extreme exercise in suspension of disbelief. It is the fabric Tolkien uses to stitch Lord of the Rings into The Hobbit, and the The Hobbit into the much greater tale, the full Silmarillion and Akallabêth of the First and Second Ages.

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Olmer, I'm glad you came to the Entmoot, you start very interesting discussions.

Ach! Where are ye hidin’, Olmer?

[Attalus]

I think the point about Gandalf not worrying overmuch about Bilbo's Ring despite its powers of invisibility is well-reasoned. The Gwaith-i-MÃ*rdain would regard a ring that conferred invisibility and nothing else as gravely defective, since they wanted to preserve "all things unstained" and invisibility would fall under the rubric of "deceits" so scorned by Galadriel. Conceivably, such a ring might be offered to a mortal for services rendered. It was indeed when he saw that Bilbo was not aging according to the nature of Hobbits that his deeper fears would be aroused.