Fair point. Which interacts with the where- the option to destroy was only available at the Sammath Naur, which Tolkien tells us is where the Ring was at the absolute maximum of its power, and where nobody could have resisted it. Sam I suppose gets more props here than Bilbo, because he was actually in Mordor (or on its fringe), and Tolkien spend a great deal of Book IV telling us how the Ring ever waxed as Frodo got closer- but then Sam hadn't had it for sixty years either.
__________________
The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it.
|