Quote:
Originally Posted by Findegil
About Gandalf confusing the 3 with the other great Rings in his explanation to Frodo: Is it at this point necessary for Gandalf to be absolutely precise about this feature? I don't think so. He is to explain Frodo which of the great rings the one Fordo has is. The 3 are accounted for, but he is not permitted to speak about them. And Gandalf and Frod do know that Frodos ring did make the wearer (at least a mortal) invisible. The important point is to warn Frodo about the 'side'-effect of using the ring often (fading to permanent invisibility). It would be completely useless to tell Frodo that he would not be in that danger would his ring be one of the 3.
Since the 3 are accounted for, the effect that the ring did confer invisibility to Fordo and Bilbo is an evidence that it is one of the great and that is a farther point why Gandalf does mention it here. After giving farther evidence Gandalf doe then make the final test and proves the identity of Fordos ring. So it is at this point (and also later at the council of Elrond) unnecessary to explicit explain the whereabouts and exact properties of all the other 18 great rings. (BTW this is a petty, as I would have like a full account of where and when the 4 dwarven rings that Sauron had not collected were destroyed and how the Wise did know.)
Findegil
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It is genrally accepted that the 4 other dwarven rings were melted by Dragon fire (usually when the dwarf wearing them was eaten by said dragon) As for how the Wise might know, Gandalf isn't exactly on bad terms with the Dwarves (he's not exactly on good terms either, but they certainly don't hate him. Since each dwarf who posessed a ring wound up becoming very rich and powerful, accounts of thier passing would presumably have been kept by the dwarves (not to mentioned that "so-and-so was devoured by a dragon" is certianly the kind of story that would be passed on. The Dwarves may have kept records of who recived the rings (given how resistant they were to the corrupting influences of the rings, I do not know if dwaves who had one would have made a point of hiding the fact). If nothing else, whatever descendenct each of those dwarves had would presumably know thier family had one, and that after the dragon had done what it did, the ring was not there (given how valuable they are, I would not put it past a decendent to attempt to dig the ring out of the stomach (if the dragon in question was slain after eating the given relative, or checking it's "leavings" (if it left any))
What I find odd about Gandalf's speech is that it seems to contain information he probably
couldn't know. Gandalf mentions that starting from good intentions delays the effect of the rings corruption. How does he know that? The Dwarves are practically uncorrupted anyway, so not from them, The One has been lost for ages, and Bilbo/Frodo quite simply havent had the ring long enough for the full effect to have take hold (unless in the hands of someone evil the transformation is truly rapid, to the point where they in fact reach this weary of life at a time that would in fact fall within thier normal lifespan (i.e. they do not in fact gain ANYTHING from the ring) so he must be referring to the Nazgul, and insinuating that some of them were not "evil" people before they took the ring. How has he found that out? By the time the Ishtari arrive, all of the Nazgul have become thoroughly "wraith-ified" so it's not like Gandalf could have ever known any of them before. How could any of them. The elves did not have all that much contact with men (with a few notable exceptions) and men seem to have been far more secretive about thier ring posession. About the only method I can think of is that someone from Numenor (where Sauron handed out the last 3 rings knew someone who took one, and chronicled what happened to him (or I suppose, even a record from one of the holders themselves, when they were young and stll not taken over) and that those records made it to either the Gondor Archives (where Saruman or Gandalf could have read them) or to an elf ear (given that it was sort of his brother's kingdom, I can imagine Elrond would at least listen to the goings on of Numenor when someone had a tale to tell, estrangement or no.)