# Lingering Effects of the One Ring



## baragund (Aug 24, 2005)

Last weekend I was watching FOTR with my 11 year old for the umpteenth time and I got to wondering about something...

When Bilbo gave up the Ring, he started to age quickly. So much so that when Frodo and the other Hobbits caught up with him at Rivendell, he looked, acted and felt like a _very_ old Hobbit. I know a number of years passed since Bilbo dropped out of the story, so to speak, after The Long Expected Party. But the aging process seemed to accelerate after he gave up the Ring.

Now consider Gollum. He lost the Ring (or had it stolen, depending on your point of view) and was without it for decades. But there did not seem to be any acceleration of his aging. In fact, he seems to me no different in LOTR from what he was like in The Hobbit. Throughout LOTR, he was just as wiring and strong as he ever was.

Why did the Ring's effect of giving long life continue with Gollum but not Bilbo? Was it because Gollum had it for such a long time as to make the Ring's effects permanent? Was it because Bilbo gave up the Ring willingly and Gollum did not? Or is this one of those fun little inconsistencies that are sprinkled here and there throughout the story?


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## Greenwood (Aug 24, 2005)

You are correct that the movies telescoped the time scale from the books so they are not a good guide to the original story. I don't think there is much evidence in the books for a rapid aging of Bilbo after he gives up the Ring. I always saw it more as normal aging started again, but I could be wrong. However, I think you are correct that Gollum is somewhat of an inconsistency. By the time of the events of LOTR, Gollum has been without the Ring for 76 years. If normal aging started when he lost it, he should be fairly elderly by then. But perhaps Tolkien meant for the Rings effects to linger longer, the longer one possessed the Ring


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## baragund (Aug 24, 2005)

My interpretation of a rapid aging on Bilbo's part is based on how he's described in The Long Expected Party compared to how he's described in Rivendell.

During the time of Bilbo's famous birthday party, he's described as being so well preserved that he did not appear to be much different from the time of his adventure to The Lonely Mountain. Compare that to the description in Many Meetings, with his tendency to nod off, his slowing down, his white hair, a feeling of overall feebleness.

If "normal" aging resumed when Bilbo gave up the Ring, his body would have a physical age of 70 something (if I correctly recall how many years passed between The Long Expected Party and Frodo's arrival at Rivendell). Certainly no longer a young Hobbit but not as old as Bilbo was described in Many Meetings.


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## Greenwood (Aug 24, 2005)

Yes, at the time of "Many Meetings" in Rivendell, one might expect Bilbo should be physically about 70 (maybe only 68 or 69), but in looking at the chapter I find very little in the way of a physical description of him. When everyone comes out of the feast Bilbo is merely described as "a small, dark figure". When Elrond leads Frodo over to Bilbo and calls on Bilbo to wake-up, Bilbo protests that he was not asleep, but working on a poem. He also tells Frodo that he had sat beside Frodo every day with Sam while Frodo was unconscious and recovering from his wounds. 

The closest we get to a physical description of Bilbo is when he asks Frodo if he can see the Ring:


> To his distress and amazement he found that he was no longer looking at Bilbo; a shadow seemed to have fallen betwen them, and through it he found himself eyeing a little wrinkled creature with a hungry face and bony groping hands. He felt a desire to strike him.


But, we cannot take this as an actual description of Bilbo since clearly Frodo's view of Bilbo is distorted by the Ring. Afterwards it is Frodo who nods off while Bilbo recites his verses. And later when Sam comes to Bilbo's room to hint Frodo should go to bed, Bilbo says he is getting old (certainly true, he is chronologically 128), but he is off for a stroll in the garden. In the "Council of Elrond" chapter there are certainly references to Bilbo as an "old hobbit", and that he certainly is, but I don't think there are any physical descriptions. It is not until they all return to Rivendell after the destruction of the Ring that Bilbo is described as looking "very old".

The only thing I have been able to find in LOTR that seems to be relevant is in "The Shadow of the Past" in FOTR when Gandalf is first telling Frodo about the Ring. Frodo is concerned that Bilbo might have been permanently harmed by the Ring. Gandalf assures Frodo that Bilbo "felt better at once" after leaving the Ring behind with Frodo. Gandalf also says:


> "Of course, he possessed the ring for many years, and used it, so it might take a long while for the influence to wear off -- before it was safe for him to see it again, for instance. Otherwise, he might live on for years, quite happily: just stop as he was when he parted with it. For he gave it up in the end of his own accord: an important point. ..."


Taken literally, that passage would argue against both our views of Bilbo ageing, either rapidly or at a normal rate, after he passed on the Ring. It would, however, deal with the problem of Gollum, if we take it to mean that having possessed the Ring, neither Gollum nor Bilbo age, even when they no longer possess the Ring. It is an interesting question.


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## Barliman Butterbur (Aug 24, 2005)

baragund said:


> Why did the Ring's effect of giving long life continue with Gollum but not Bilbo?



In addition to Greenwood's eloquent thinking:

Gollum had the ring for _500 years,_ and it turned him into a hideous-looking creature. So it _really_ had an effect on him.

Bilbo only had the ring for about 75 years — far too short a time to be turned into another Gollum.

Barley


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## Inderjit S (Aug 25, 2005)

Also-Gollum would have worn the ring a lot more than Bilbo, and it also had a different affect on him-the ring came to Gollum via murder and to Bilbo via pity.


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## Ingwë (Aug 25, 2005)

Barley said:


> Gollum had the ring for _500 years,_ and it turned him into a hideous-looking creature. So it _really_ had an effect on him.
> Bilbo only had the ring for about 75 years — far too short a time to be turned into another Gollum.


So I can say that Bilbo started to age quickly and quicker than Gollum because Smeagol wore the Ring longer; so the Ring had effect on Gollum and also had effect on Bilbo. _But _the effect on bilbo wasn't like the effect on Gollum as Barley already mentioned. The Ring's effect on Gollum was much more worse than it on Bilbo  .
But I have always thought that they <edit: not _they_, only Bilbo because GOllum died when he fell in the lava  > aged quickly when the Ring was destroyed and not when the lost/gave it. However, maybe I'm wrong...


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## Greenwood (Aug 25, 2005)

Ingwë said:


> But I have always thought that they <edit: not _they_, only Bilbo because GOllum died when he fell in the lava  > aged quickly when the Ring was destroyed and not when the lost/gave it.


That would seem to be a reasonable interpretation.


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## Barliman Butterbur (Aug 25, 2005)

There is this also: Gollum had such an acute case of _porphyria_ (sunlight allergy) that he couldn't bear even moonlight, and this must have had a significant effect during those 500 years as well...

I WANT MY *ORANGE TTF SKIN!*

Barley


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## Greenwood (Aug 25, 2005)

Barliman Butterbur said:


> I WANT MY *ORANGE TTF SKIN!*


Barley,

I think the green skin only is temporary while the site is updated to a new version of vBulletin.


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## baragund (Aug 26, 2005)

Um, what's an "orange TTF skin"? *Looks confused*. It sounds like a fancy cocktail one would order at a nightclub...

Getting back on topic, I actually dug out my copy of LOTR and scanned through the various descriptions of Bilbo. 

At the beginning of "A Long Expected Party", Bilbo is described as "well preserved" or even "unchanged" after the 60 some years he had the Ring. I would consider that to mean not only in appearance but in vigor as well.

In "Many Meetings" and "The Ring Goes South", Greenwood is right that there is no explicit description of Bilbo as being particularly elderly. (Once again my recollection has been contaminated by the films.  ) But there are references to his sleepiness and his preference for pursuing quiet activities, like writing his book, writing songs and poems, and just sitting and thinking. Even though these references are quite subtle, they have given me the impression that Bilbo aged significantly after he gave up the Ring.

In "The Gray Havens" there is a very brief description of Bilbo riding on a small pony and tending to nod off to sleep. It was a single passage but it was enough to give me the impression that he aged noticably compared to what he was like in "Many Meetings".

Gandalf's quote of the Ring's lingering effect that Greenwood provided makes the best explanation, however. It explains how Gollum could continue in a vigorous state for so long and it explains how it affected a fundamentally evil creature like him differently than Bilbo.

Here's a hypothetical question: If Gollum had not fallen into the Cracks of Doom, would he have instantly aged the 500 some years, and thus died, when the One Ring was destroyed? I think he would have. His fate would have been the same as the remaining Nazgul.


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## Inderjit S (Aug 27, 2005)

> Um, what's an "orange TTF skin"? *Looks confused*. It sounds like a fancy cocktail one would order at a nightclub...



I think it is a reference to the skin-color of the TTF pages-at the moment most people have it at green, and I think the WM set it like that for a short time for some reason or another.



> But there are references to his sleepiness and his preference for pursuing quiet activities, like writing his book, writing songs and poems, and just sitting and thinking. Even though these references are quite subtle, they have given me the impression that Bilbo aged significantly after he gave up the Ring.



I think the reason for this may be twofold-it may be partly because he lost his ring, and started to age "normally" or quicker than normal, or it may have been because after revisiting Erebor he felt he didn't need any more 'adventures' and wanted to dedicate his life to more scholarly or leisurely pursuits until he passed away. It was, I think, a phase of life which matched his age and desires (some latent), rather than something which matched his loss of the ring.


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## Aglarband (Aug 27, 2005)

I think the referances to nodding off as it were showed a good deal of his age. How many 40 year olds (which is what Bilbo was if we put him in a human context), do you see falling asleep in the middle of somebodies story? However, Frodo should also have aged a good 28 years after he got rid of the ring, but you never know...


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## Barliman Butterbur (Aug 27, 2005)

baragund said:


> Um, what's an "orange TTF skin"?



Scroll down to the very bottom of this page, and look in the lower left corner. There you'll find a pop-up menu which used to list the different colors you could choose for your TTF pages: green (of course), but there were also blue, red, orange (my favorite, full of cheery autumn colors as well as different colors for the text and the links) and there may have been others as well. These color choices are called "skins". When the colors were all there, you could open the pop-up menu and choose whichever color you like. 

However Dave Pence has put up a post explaining that he has temporarily cut down on a lot of the usual bells and whistles while getting ready to upgrade the browser software to the next build. And, evidently, once the upgrade is installed there will be even more goodies! But he didn't give any clues as to what they might be.

Barley


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