You are the big cool powerful god. One of your servants, a minor much less powerful god does bad things to the world. So you send five your other servants just as powerful as the bad one to deal with him.

A lot of time passes. Three of those spend their time chilling. One joins the bad one. The last one turns out too weak. Who solves the problem? Four hobbits.

You really should reconsider your politics after that.

[–] root_beer@midwest.social 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Isn’t much of the power of the Maiar in diplomacy and setting events in motion? Gandalf was as much of an interloper and manipulator as he was anything else, and his hiring Bilbo as a thief was the penultimate piece of his mission, as inadvertent as I’m not entirely sure it was. Right? No, really, I’m kinda asking, I don’t know for sure.

[–] WillBalls@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

As stated in unfinished tales, Gandalf didn't know that Bilbo would find the ring on the adventure. He originally wanted to help Thorin since having dwarves in the lonely mountain would prevent Sauron from attacking Gondor and Lothlórien from the north. The ring finding it's way to Gollum and then Bilbo was almost definitely due to slight meddling from Eru (just as Gollum's death was due to Eru loosening the rocks under his feet) so Gandalf could orchestrate the fellowship's journey.

load more comments (12 replies)