# Watching LOTR again, couple questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** middle-earth\ **Created:** [December 10, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616 "2012-12-10T16:51:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/61 "2012-12-11T17:14:36Z")
How the hell did I get 60 years??! :😕: ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/62 "2012-12-11T17:18:47Z")
Between Bilbo’s adventure when he was 50/51 and his departure when he was 111. ---
**Author:** ![Barking\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Barking\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barking_Dog)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/63 "2012-12-11T18:17:02Z")
IIRC the span of time in the LOTR is around 30 years, from birthday party to the last ships sailing for Valinor. Maybe that’s what you were thinking of? ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/64 "2012-12-11T18:55:58Z")
Must have been the Bilbo thing, I remember reading it somewhere. I don’t remember reading about the LOTR timeline until after the books and movies and doing some digging online. My impression of the actual Fellowship though, from when Frodo and Sam first set out for Rivendell to the destruction of the Ring at Mount Doom, is about a year. Is that correct? I think the Razing of the Shire stuff happened in the months as they journeyed back from Rivendell to Hobbiton, right? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/65 "2012-12-11T19:02:29Z")
Heres a question for you. Why did Gimli not seem to know jack-shit about Moria getting ransacked? ---
**Author:** ![Stormcrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@Stormcrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stormcrow)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/66 "2012-12-11T19:11:35Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Heres a question for you. Why did Gimli not seem to know jack-shit about Moria getting ransacked? Technically Moria was ransacked ages ago. A group of dwarves tried to resettle it (after the events of the Hobbit, I believe, so within the past 50 years), and were doing fine for a while but then no word came after a certain point. Gimli was hoping that he’d find his people there, and was hopeful to go into Moria as a result, but no one knew for certain what had happened to the dwarves that had settled there. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/67 "2012-12-11T19:35:13Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > My impression of the actual Fellowship though, from when Frodo and Sam first set out for Rivendell to the destruction of the Ring at Mount Doom, is about a year. Is that correct? I think the Razing of the Shire stuff happened in the months as they journeyed back from Rivendell to Hobbiton, right? Frodo’s departure from Hobbiton: 9/23/3018 Frodo’s arrival in Rivendell: 10/20/3018 Council of Elrond: 10/25/3018 Fellowship departs Rivendell: 12/25/3018 Fellowship enters Moria: 1/13/3019 Breaking of the Fellowship: 2/26/3019 Battle of the Hornburg / Helm’s Deep: 3/3-3/4/3019 Battle of the Pelennor Fields: 3/15/3019 Destruction of the Ring: 3/25/3019 Scouring of the Shire: 11/2 - 11/3/3019 (Source: [The Encyclopedia of Arda - The Chronicle of Arda](http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/chronicle.html?startyear=3019&startage=3)) So, Frodo’s journey out is almost exactly six months, and he returns to Hobbiton a little more than 13 months after he’d left. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/68 "2012-12-11T19:37:19Z")
> [@Stormcrow](#): > > A group of dwarves tried to resettle it (after the events of the Hobbit, I believe, so within the past 50 years), and were doing fine for a while but then no word came after a certain point. Yes, it’s after _The Hobbit_, as the expedition to retake Moria was led by Balin, one of Thorin’s company (it’s his tomb which the Fellowship finds in both the book and the movie). ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/69 "2012-12-11T20:00:09Z")
> [@Stormcrow](#): > > Technically Moria was ransacked ages ago. A group of dwarves tried to resettle it (after the events of the Hobbit, I believe, so within the past 50 years), and were doing fine for a while but then no word came after a certain point. Gimli was hoping that he’d find his people there, and was hopeful to go into Moria as a result, but no one knew for certain what had happened to the dwarves that had settled there. To add to this, this is another spot that, frankly, the movie screwed up. In the book, Gimli was much more aware that “Hey, we haven’t heard from those guys in like 25 years, they probably didn’t just run out of stamps.” but he was still very curious to find out what had happened, and, really, to just look on the ancestral home of his people. None of this “Yeah, we should go through Moria, Balin is sure to throw a feast for us.” crap from the film. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/70 "2012-12-11T21:08:39Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > To add to this, this is another spot that, frankly, the movie screwed up. In the book, Gimli was much more aware that “Hey, we haven’t heard from those guys in like 25 years, they probably didn’t just run out of stamps.” but he was still very curious to find out what had happened, and, really, to just look on the ancestral home of his people. None of this “Yeah, we should go through Moria, Balin is sure to throw a feast for us.” crap from the film. While that’s definitely correct, I thought they had actually been in contact for some time and the silence was more recent. I’ll have to dig out my copy of FotR to be sure. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/71 "2012-12-11T21:10:34Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Anyway, my question is with the scene right after the birthday party. Bilbo was going to go off to an adventure and Gandalf says he should keep the ring here and pass it to Frodo. Why? At the point, Gandalf doesn’t know it was the One Ring. At the most, he seems to think it was messing with Bilbo’s mind, but he wasn’t afraid of it. He knew about Gollum, but I don’t think he knew Gollum had it for 500 years and was a hobbit yet. So why the big push for Bilbo to leave the ring behind? Bilbo ends up in Rivendell anyway, so it doesn’t seem like Gandalf really was worried that Bilbo was going to get into trouble by letting him go off alone. “There are many rings of Power, and none of them are to be treated lightly.” He didn’t know what it was, but having it carried blithely off into almost certain peril on the way to Rivendell didn’t seem like a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/72 "2012-12-11T21:11:01Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > While that’s definitely correct, I thought they had actually been in contact for some time and the silence was more recent. I’ll have to dig out my copy of FotR to be sure. I was relying, humorously, on this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline\_of\_Arda](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Arda) Which seems to indicate that Balin died and the colony in Moria collapsed in 2994, and, as pointed out, the Quest of the Ring didn’t even kick off until 3018. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/73 "2012-12-11T21:12:26Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > “There are many rings of Power, and none of them are to be treated lightly.” > > He didn’t know what it was, but having it carried blithely off into almost certain peril on the way to Rivendell didn’t seem like a good idea. I was never really left with the idea that Gandalf thought it was a bad idea for Bilbo to run off into the woods with the Ring, per se, just that he didn’t feel that Bilbo should POSSESS it any longer. Any concern, at this point, would have been for Bilbo, rather than the Ring, though he does select an approach which conveniently allows him to keep an eye on the latter as well, that’s just prudence. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/74 "2012-12-11T21:22:05Z")
Incidentally, with reference to chucking fireballs around, Gandalf actually does throw some fire (not huge massive stonking explosive fireballs, but some) in _The Hobbit_. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/75 "2012-12-11T21:49:32Z")
Something just occurred to me. At the end of the movies, and the books, Bilbo and Frodo go off with the elves to Valinor. Why? I seem to recall some stuff said at some point in the book about how Frodo’s wound from the Witch King’s dagger would never heal, but I didn’t get the impression that they were taking him to Valinor to get patched up. If it was a reward, it was a very odd one. Sure, it may be like going to heaven, but the hobbits were happy in their little corner of the world. It seems more of a punishment to pluck them from their homes to join a bunch of immortals on the other side of the world. Was it just because they were both ringbearers? Frodo didn’t even have it for that long and I would imagine that had Gollum survived, they weren’t gonna reward him for anything by bringing him across the ocean. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/76 "2012-12-11T21:58:36Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Was it just because they were both ringbearers? Frodo didn’t even have it for that long and I would imagine that had Gollum survived, they weren’t gonna reward him for anything by bringing him across the ocean. Yes, it was the ringbearer status. It should be noted that Valinor doesn’t confer immortality. Bilbo and Frodo would die there, but Frodo would live the rest of his life and die free of the pain that the Morgul-blade caused him. Bilbo, I’m not sure of, other than his desire to…he played the role of Gentleman Historian for many years, remember. Maybe his Ringbearer status made his request seem reasonable. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/77 "2012-12-11T22:00:53Z")
Frodo wasn’t just physically scarred by what had happened to him, but mentally and emotionally. Sam, Merry, and Pippin all settled down quite happily in the Shire afterwards (though Merry and Pippin continued their adventurous ways to an extent), but Frodo was never really content or at peace after his travels. So, at least in his case, it was somewhere between being a reward and a way to, I dunno, compensate him for the pain he had endured. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/78 "2012-12-11T22:03:37Z")
Wasn’t Sam a ringbearer for an hour or so? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/79 "2012-12-11T22:06:18Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > Wasn’t Sam a ringbearer for an hour or so? Yup, in Cirith Ungol, when he thought Frodo had been killed by Shelob’s poison. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/80 "2012-12-11T22:08:08Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > At the end of the movies, and the books, Bilbo and Frodo go off with the elves to Valinor. Why? I seem to recall some stuff said at some point in the book about how Frodo’s wound from the Witch King’s dagger would never heal, but I didn’t get the impression that they were taking him to Valinor to get patched up. Tolkien addresses this in one of his letters. Frodo was physically wounded, but more importantly suffered a sense of guilt. Remember, Frodo claimed the Ring himself. > [@](#): > > Frodo was sent or allowed to pass over Sea to > heal him - if that could be done, before he died. He would have eventually > to ‘pass away’: no mortal could, or can, abide for ever on earth, or within > Time. So he went both to a purgatory and to a reward, for a while: a period > of reflection and peace and a gaining of a truer understanding of his > position in littleness and in greatness, spent still in Time amid the > natural beauty of ‘Arda Unmarred’, the Earth unspoiled by evil. > > Bilbo went too. No doubt as a completion of the plan due to Gandalf himself. > Gandalf had a very great affection for Bilbo, from the hobbit’s childhood > onwards. His companionship was really necessary for Frodo’s sake - it is > difficult to imagine a hobbit, even one who had been through Frodo’s > experiences, being really happy even in an earthly paradise without a > companion of his own kind, and Bilbo was the person that Frodo most loved. > (Cf III 252 lines 12 to 21 and 263 lines 1-2.) But he also needed and > deserved the favour on his own account. He bore still the mark of the Ring > that needed to be finally erased : a trace of pride and personal > possessiveness. Of course he was old and confused in mind, but it was still > a revelation of the ‘black mark’ when he said in Rivendell (III 265) ‘What’s > become of my ring, Frodo, that you took away?’; and when he was reminded of > what had happened, his immediate reply was: ‘What a pity! I should have > liked to see it again’. As for reward for his pan, it is difficult to feel > that his life would be complete without an experience of ‘pure Elvishness’, > and the opportunity of hearing the legends and histories in full the > fragments of which had so delighted him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616.md?page=5)