Why Gollum Never Took One Ring To Sauron in Lord of the Rings

Anybody who tries to tell me that The Lord of the Rings is anything other than the greatest fantasy series of all time is in for one hell of an argument, and I mean that for both the books and the film trilogy in their own individual mediums.

The work of author J.R.R Tolkien is known for the exceptional depth of its lore and the movies do a pretty impressive job of translating that across, but the restricted runtime does leave some questions open, when they may not have been in the books.

This has led to countless discussions amongst fans about why things are the way that they are, with the most famous example probably being why the Fellowship didn't take the Eagles to Mordor (if anyone asks me that again I'm going to explode).

Over on Reddit, one user who has currently only consumed The Lord of the Rings via the films, took to the site to ask "book nerds" why Gollum didn't succumb to the ring's desires during the time he owned it and simply take it to Sauron himself.

An Answer in Two Layers

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As the top comment explains, the answer is twofold. The first relates to the fact that Tolkien hadn't really decided what the ring was going to be when he introduced it and Gollum in the Hobbit (which he wrote long before The Lord of the Rings). Since then, he also came up with an acceptable reason for the lore, as the top comment explains, "Out of context answer: Tolkien hadn't decided on the Ring being anything more than an invisibility ring when he introduced it and Gollum in The Hobbit."

"Lore answer: To my knowledge, it was partially because Sauron's forces were still being built up. He didn't want the Ring back until he had the strength to crush the West with relative ease."

So whilst Tolkien did have to come up with something that made sense after the shiny trinket he wrote about in The Hobbit became the most important thing in the entirety of Middle-earth, it does at least make a lot of sense.

Why would Sauron want to come into possession of the ring when he's too weak to defend it, particularly with the attention of the White Council drawn towards his efforts in Dol Guldur.

No, it's much better that it remains lost in relative safety, returning to him when the moment is just right.