Yes, I think so.
Yep, and he didnt like it or want it.
But Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. Eru doing a little light meddling.
Apparently rings that turned one invisible was not uncommon. “lesser” rings.
I thought Gandalf (or someone credible) indicated this was surely a great ring because of its power of invisibility. “Lesser,” certainly, than the One Ring, but so was every other ring.
Do I misremember that this was not considered a somewhat common magical ring, even before there was an inkling that it was Sauron’s masterwork?
A common misconception is that only 20 magical Rings got crafted because the poem “One Ring to Rule Them All” claims that much. However, this only refers to the Rings of Power, which were stronger than most spell-bound items in Middle-earth. When it came to regular magical rings, these were far more common, with even Gandalf telling Bilbo, “There are many magic rings in the world, Bilbo Baggins, and none of them should be used lightly.”
What made Gandalf suspicious was Bilbo growing older in a weird way, “like too little butter stretched over toast” and such. Apparently quite a few lesser rings were churned out as prototypes.
"The lesser rings were only essays of the craft before it was full-grown, and to the Elven-smiths they were but trifles… "
Magic items are a lot more common in Middle Earth than we think. Remember for Bilbos big birthday party, Gandalf showed up with toys for all the hobbit children “many of them were obviously magical”. Think about that- magic toys handed out to random kids Gandalf had never even met.
So I did misremember. Thanks for the thorough response.
No problem, the films and the books get conflated a bit. I extensively researched other magic items In Middle Earth after some D&D people claimed MIddle earth was “low magic” (note- it aint).
What does “low magic” mean? A lack of fireball spells?
I genuinely thought Sam was going to have to push Frodo in when they got there. I’m glad Tolkinen didn’t go as dark as I did in my head, but I did not realize Gollum was going to show at Mount Doom.
In the video linked in the OP wondering why Elrond didn’t push Isildur in suggests that even Elrond could not manage to do that in that place (apart from them never being there in the books…it was a movie thing). The Ring is at max power there and simply will not let anyone destroy it.
It only happened because Gollum goofed and fell in without trying to.
Someone earlier in this thread suggested that this is where Eru stepped in and nudged things a bit because no mortal could manage to destroy the Ring on their own. Which circles back to the OP that Gandalf shows Frodo from the get-go that he can’t bring himself to hurt the Ring.
Lots of different definitions, but low magic games generally have magic items and casters of actual magic spells to be legendary, or at a minimum, extremely rare.
In terms of magic casters LoTR is low magic, but it is lousy with low level “magic” items, although they’re not normally explicitly described as such. But the daggers from the barrow wights, the lesser rings, the elven cloaks and many other elven forged items would all be magical in the RPG sense.
As opposed to various DnD flavors which mostly start at medium low magic (such as Ravenloft), move to medium high (Dragonlance) and all the way up to things like Grayhawk where you can buy magic items from vendors. 
Just for the record though, every gamer draws their lines a bit differently, so I’ve played in “low magic” campaigns where there were a ton of “magic” races, but the PCs didn’t have access to actual spellcasting outside of Prestige classes (generally level 8 plus at earliest).
I think one good illustration of the Ring’s volition but lack of sapience is the fact that it, literally, forced its own destruction. Remember on the slopes of Mount Doom, when Gollum attacked Frodo for the penultimate time, and Frodo told him “If you lay hands on me again, you will be cast into the Fires of Doom”. That was Frodo using the Ring’s power, possibly for the very first time. The Ring’s power wasn’t invisibility; that was a mere quirk of a side-effect. The Ring’s power was in command. In the hands of someone like Aragorn, it’d be command over vast armies. Frodo is a humble hobbit; he can’t do that. But he can command a wretched creature like Gollum, who’s already almost completely subjugated himself to the Ring’s power.
And so, Frodo’s command stuck. Gollum did lay hands on him again, and when he did, he was cast into the Fires of Doom. He was so compelled by the power of the Ring, because the ring was Evil, and totally into things like compelling a dude into a fiery death. A dude who happened to be… holding the ring at the time. Oops.
I had thought to do this as it’s own thread, yet since this one’s active, here goes:
Those who might wield The One against Sauron and have a chance at victory (and those who would not)
Those who could (in relative order of chance at victory from most to least)
- Aragorn as he has the ability and charisma to raise a powerful standing army to overwhelm Mordor and their allies plus Sauron would really be afraid of the heir of Elendil and that sword. The danger would be that he just replaces Sauron as a Dark Lord.
- Gandalf, Wizard, slayer of dragons and Balrogs who already has Narya, the most powerful of the Elven Rings and likely has the Valar at his back. He might actually go ahead and destroy The One so that would be good.
- Galadriel, because of her lineage and also an Elven Ring holder - IF she can raise a standing army big enough and of course she’s already said she’d just become a Dark Lord herself.
- Glorfindel, if he really is the slayer of a Balrog yet he’d have some competition with the candidates above. A big IF that he would consider destroying The One.
- Gwaihir, Lord of Eagles who certainly has Manwe at his back and also would just drop the Ring into Mount Doom.
Of course Sauron himself, because he really, really wanted it back and had a huge standing army of Orcs, Haradrim and Easterling allies. He didn’t even need it back, just didn’t want to have to fight any of the above for it. Just so long as it existed and to him it’d be crazy to consider destroying it.
Those who could NOT wield The One with any chance at victory (in descending order of chance)
- Saruman. Even if he suddenly could shoot laser beams Sauron and his army would quickly crush Gondor, Rohan and all the Uruk-hai and then thank Saruman for returning his Ring.
- Boromir/Faramir/Denethor. Even with Gondor, Rohan and Dain Ironfoot and every willing Elf and whomever else they could raise as an army, Sauron and his armies would crush them quickly.
- Frodo, only included as at least he possessed the Ring. The Nazgul would have scooped that right up if Gollum wasn’t around.
It probably doesn’t matter if Aragorn or anyone else also gains control of the Nine as the Nazgul would at least be neutralised. Unsure if any of them could wield The One, and again, just a new Dark Lord.
IMHO…what you’re describing is more of a curse or prophecy and that ultimately ERU gave Gollum the slightest of shoves.
Note, I think both of our theories are true…i just don’t think the Ring actually made Gollum hurl himself.
Re: Both being true, let me give an example, but its kind of a deep cut.
(Spoilers for a 30+ year old comic book series). In SANDMAN, Morpheus allows himself to perish because he “Needed to change his ways but was unable to change enough”. However there are other forces at play. Lucifer said he would destroy him. And did not do so directly, but I’m sure an argument could be made about setting forces in motion. More importantly…his brother sister Desire "wanted’ his destruction. That was her desire. And it happened.
So because of the power of all these forces they can all be true is what I’m saying. Don’t break vows given to a holder of the One Ring.
IIRC, one of the hobbits asks in Lothlorien if the cloaks and things they’re being given are magic, and the elf responds something like “They’re elvish if that’s what you mean”, the implication being that anything of elven craft would inherently seem magical to the younger Children of Iluvatar.
heh.
So while carrying +1 daggers and Cloaks of Camouflage (Add 1 to Hobbits natural+2)…they also carried the most powerful artifact in the world and a VERY powerful Phial of Galadriel.
Along with Frodos +4 to armor mail.
Its a very interesting RPG in that Sam defeats a named Boss but has to hide from level 3 goblins at first.
He rolled a natural 20 twice in a row.
Yes, whether intrinsic magic from the materials they’re crafted from, or if you’ll pardon the paraphrase, “any sufficiently carefully crafted item is indistinguishable from magic” as it were.
But how they’d be described in “game terms” or genre terms, yeah, we’re looking at the sort of things @Pavelb1 mentioned.
Not to mention the gently meddling hands of Eru, or, the nature of any other plot armor.
Seriously, all due respect to JRRT, and I feel the foreshadowing was sufficient for it not to feel like a cheat, but since DnD and most other derivative Fantasy RPGs borrowed greatly from Lord of the Rings, of course our definitions of magic for such settlings are going to be nigh-inseparable from his works.
I think it is established that, while someone might use the Ring to defeat Sauron they, themselves, would inevitably become a tyrant every bit as bad as Sauron. Maybe worse. That includes everyone on your list. Everyone in Middle Earth (I wonder if the Valar would succumb?)
Probably not, since Sauron was only a Maia and his power would have been a shadow of their own, but if they’d gotten involved there’s a good chance that none of the mortals would have survived.
He slayed a dragon?
+1 Bane daggers, very important- So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dúnedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his .. No orc-tools these!’ he said. 'They were borne by the hobbits. Doubtless the Orcs despoiled them, but feared to keep the knives, knowing them for what they are: work of Westernesse, wound about with spells for the bane of Mordor