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Frodo should have kept that envelope from the beginning of the movie, that thin slice of paper alone let Gandalf handle the ring when otherwise he wouldn't dare even touch it
I always assume there was a proximity to Mordor thing. So out at the Shire, it was pretty weak and Gandalf could get away with the envelope trick, but when they get into Mordor, an envelope or chain wouldn’t have worked.
They bring this up in the movies.
The closer to Mordor the ring got the more powerful its pull becomes. To the point that realistically no one would be able to willingly throw the ring into the lava. The ring simply would not let them. It's how Isildur failed. He was met with maximum temptation from the beginning.
Tolkien corroborated this in one of his letters by saying that in mount doom, where the ring's power is at its highest, even Souron himself would not be able to throw it in (not that he'd want to anyway of course).
Which is why Frodo cursed Gollum, so that if Gollum ever took the ring back, he would immediately fall into the lava. And the ring held him to his word.
Okay, glad I didn’t make that up. But it’s been a while since I’ve read the book. Guess it’s time to rewatch the movies though.
That's true, but even in Shire Gandalf wouldn't even touch the ring. When he merely reached for it he got Sauron PTSD flashbacks and he physically stepped away in fear when Frodo tried to give the ring to him later. He uses Frodo to test whether it's cool after being heated in fire and I imagine this is for the same reason, not because he considers Frodo a good guinea pig for experimenting with metal heat dissipation.
Has 0 issues handling it in an envelope tho lol