A flaw in Lord of The Rings?

Gandalf has indeed known of the ring long before Bilbo had ever acquired it, and in fact, most of his reason for his coming to the Shire was to send Frodo (The inheritor of said ring.) on a quest to destroy this dangerous ring.

READ THE BOOKS! (and don’t forget The Hobbit either, and the Silmarillion isn’t a bad idea either.)

If you read the Hobbit you will know that yes, Gandalf did indeed encounter the Ring before, when Bilbo first found it, and he knew that Gollum/Smeagol referred to it as his “precious”

Also: He’s a freaking wizard. They just know stuff.

@incendiary_dan Lol that’s the only answer this question needs. :)

He’s only pretending not to know about it, in order to draw Bilbo out on the matter. Sneaky wizard, he is.

Takes itself way too seriously. A flaw which is also evident in the utterly overrated Harry Potter franchise. Let your hair down a tad, works for me :¬)

Welcome to Fluther. Gandalf is one of the Maiar who are sort of demigods, who are sort of demigods who were sent to Middle Earth to deal with threat of Sauron (who is, himself, a Maia). All the Maiar knew about the Rings of Power and they all know the story of how the One Ring was lost. When Bilbo found the ring and took it from Gollum, he showed it to Gandalf. Gandalf, at the time, was a little suspicious of the ring, but didn’t say anything to Bilbo except to say, more or less, “Don’t use it very much.” And when Frodo took it over, he told him not to use it at all, and to “Keep it secret, keep it safe.”

Gandalf then went on a fact finding mission and went to research the Rings of Power. All the Rings of Power were lost except for the 3 Elven rings. Elrond, Galadrial, and Celeborn all had a ring, although Celeborn gave his to Gandalf. Everybody knew the One Ring was lost when Isildur was killed, but nobody knew it was found.

When Gandalf came back the first thing he did was toss the Ring into the fire, and it was only then, when the ancient Mordor poem (written in Elvish script) was revealed, and only then that he knew it was the One Ring.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for all the answers. But then it leaves one odd fact behind us. If Gandalf indeed knew about the ring. And knew it was The Ring of Power. Then why did he went out on a big journey and read up on all these dusty old books to figure out it was that ring? He already knew it was that ring? He said

“keep it hidden! Keep it safe”

and went away. because he needed to figure out what this ring was…... AHA!!...yes….yes….misstake? :)

@Starchild_Ice He didn’t know it was the One Ring until he came back after his research and threw it into the fire. That same day, he sends Frodo away with Sam and he goes to consult Saruman. All he knew when he told Frodo to keep it secret and safe was that it was a ring of power and that it had affected Bilbo deeply.

Okay okay he knew it when he said “keep it secret. keep it safe”...but he did say “it has been called that before but not by you”..and THEN he went away to do research on what ring it was….... sorry for being annoying. But why go research about the ring if he know what it was?......... :)

Saying “it has been called that..” wasn’t a recognition of him knowing exactly what the ring was, just that he knew that Gollum had called it that. He still needed to go figure out which ring of power it was.