White Council inconsistency?
 

Hello! So I stumbled upon this topic while reading about Gandalf seeking the truth about Bilbo's ring.

Someone said how could Gandalf forgot about Saruman's words about Great Rings having a gem. Then I started to search what the White Council talked about in their meetings. And I think I ran into some continuity error.

In 2941 they attacked Dol Guldur. In Silmarillion it is said they talked about Rings of Power and that Saruman said The One is lost to the sea. However since the text about Third Age in Silmarillion feels so strange and is probably heavily edited by Christopher, I am not sure how can I take this as a source.

In 2953 they talked again about Rings of Power. In Appendix B, it is said Saruman talked about the One being lost at the sea for the first time.

However in Council of Elrond, Gandalf said Saruman assured them The One is lost repeatedly.

Is is possible there is an error in Appendix B?

Also -- Gandalf said he half-heeded Saruman's word about gems. Which seems strange, since he (probably) knew about Bilbo's ring and was worried about it. Is there some summary about White Council and what exactly they talked about? To create some timeline.

Thanks!

I don't know of a collection of all sources on the White Council (other than the Tolkien Gateway article), but I think I can help with this one. The two texts don't quite contradict each other:

In the earlier (Silm) conversation, Saruman says he is sure the Ring fell into Anduin, and he thinks ("deems") that it went out to the Sea. In the later conversation, he says he has confirmed ("discovered") that he was right.

Which is another reason Gandalf didn't immediately go "spooky invisibility Ring must be the One" - the head of his order had claimed there was proof the One was gone, and how could a Ring in the deep ocean somehow wind up under the Misty Mountains? Clearly ridiculous, it must be something else.

I think the simple answer is that the conversation about gems must have happened at an earlier Council meeting. In the meeting of 2851 they seem to have talked about Rings a lot; it would make sense that when talking about the idea that the One had rolled out to the Sea, Saruman would have mentioned their appearance in passing (possibly just to show off!).

Looking at Gandalf's account, that memory sent him off to Minas Tirith to find the source Saruman used. Which seems odd, actually, because a) Isildur didn't know anything about the other Rings, so couldn't have written that they had gems, and b) both Elrond and Cirdan were present when Isildur slew Sauron. Surely they were a more likely source for "the One had no gem but looked like there was glowing writing at first" than some hypothetical document? Maybe it was just the fact that Gandalf was already close to Minas Tirith that sent him there first.

hS

I think Tolkien here got a little muddled. I've always been bothered by Gandalf's assertion the he knew Bilbo's ring was "clearly" a Great Ring from the moment he got it- because Gandalf could have easily done the math (three hidden, seven and nine accounted for). It would have been better IMO if he had assumed it was a Lesser Ring- until Bilbo's unnatural eternal youth began to show.