a8528ecd   
   From: mr@sandman.net   
      
   In article <2014092018405536103-omeallymdatgeemaildotcom@news.giganews.com>,   
   Bill O'Meally  wrote:   
      
   > > Sandman:   
   > > So Gollum hides in a dark pool under the lonely mountain for about   
   > > five hundred years, killing off goblins and eating fish.   
   >   
   > > After this time period, Sauron starts to return to Middle Earth   
   > > and calls for the ring, which "decides" to leave Gollum. Gollum   
   > > loses the ring in one of the tunnels, with the only concievable   
   > > reason for being picked up by a goblin, the only other creatures   
   > > around.   
   >   
   > > The reason I'm thinking about this is because Gandalf says that   
   > > Bilbo was meant to find the ring. While there is no way to know if   
   > > Gandlaf could even know this to be true, it seems far more likely   
   > > that Bilbo was NOT meant to find the ring.   
   >   
   > This is exactly the scenario Gandalf is talking about in 'The Shadow   
   > of the Past'. Frodo suggests that an Orc would have suited the Ring   
   > better, and I suspect that would be true had the Ring (Sauron) had   
   > its way. Read a bit further:   
      
   > "I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was *meant* to   
   > find the Ring, and *not* by its maker". (Tolkien's emphasis)   
      
   Yes, this is what I was in reference to above, and I find it to be a bit of   
   a disrepancy between the idea of the will of the ring and the idea of a   
   divine power.   
      
   > > Sandman:   
   > > Indeed, Bilbo finding the ring worked against the ring's "wishes"   
   > > in that it was unable to subvert Bilbo to any greater degree and   
   > > Bilbo took the ring further away from Mordor.   
   >   
   > Tokien is not referring to the "wishes" or will of the Ring   
   > (Sauron), but to God or Providence, if you will.   
      
   And that's the problem. If there is a divinie power that "choose" for Bilbo   
   to have the ring instead of a goblin, then the reason for that choice must   
   have been to reach the end goal we see in the story - the destruction of   
   the ring. I.e. had it been found by a goblin, like the ring wanted, it   
   would soon be back into Sauron's hands. This divine power intervened and   
   made it so that Bilbo found it instead.   
      
   But Bilbo was a rather poor choice to meet this end goal. Sure, better than   
   a goblin, but he takes the ring back to the Shire and sits on it for 60   
   years, during which time Saurons forces grows tremendously in Mordor.   
   Surely this divine power would have had the ring leave Bilbo and find a   
   more suitable wearer that would bring it to mount doom? I have a hard time   
   imagining that Hobbits, or even just Frodo, being the only ones in Middle   
   Earth that could have destroyed the ring.   
      
      
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