Quote:
Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc
I guess we really have to put Gollum's crossing BEFORE the Fellowship, but sometime AFTER the Orc attack, I guess really after the visit of the Chamber of Mazarbul, imagining Gollum being basically pushed by a horde of Orcs to the East with no other choice but to go to the Bridge and across it, owing the luck and confusion of the Orc guards by the sudden disruption of the quiet routine for safe escape.
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Gollum certainly knew Orcs guarded the East-gate: indeed they were inhabiting the eastern side of Moria, and had been when he first entered Moria. He knew they would attempt to stop the Fellowship, and was probably tormented with the thought the Fellowship might be killed, and the Ring lost. If that was to be their fate though, what could he reasonably have done to prevent it, had he stayed behind the Company? He had no weapons, no armour, and most importantly, no Ring to give him invisibility.
I think he took a gamble that at least some of the Company would escape, and that one of them would save the Ring if at all possible. If the likes of Aragorn or Gandalf could not do so, what chance had he? So, as they lay in the large hall before finding Balin's tomb, he knew they were very near the East-gate and made his move to get there ahead of them. Certainly passing the guards was risky, but he had done it before when he had entered, and this
was Gollum, after all, the creature who escaped from wood-crafty Silvan Elves of Mirkwood and a band of Orcs who were hunting him simultaneously.