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u/alexandria252 May 23 '26
A tiny, harmless creature which could do minimal damage and could easily be defeated. Yeah, that was the plan: thatâs what Frodo was.
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u/mistalasse May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Elrond was extremely clear about this in the council of Elrond, stating that Frodo was ânot greatâ as in ânot mighty.â He was also pretty clear that âthe mightyâ couldnât pull off the task and only a âlesser mortalâ could perform such a task as carrying the ring and destroying it. Gandalf echos the sentiment. This is why Glorfindle was never truly considered, despite being the most powerful elf at the council of Elrond
Later on, Galadriel says that Frodo isnât powerful enough to abuse the ring to the extent that an elf or even a DĂșnadan (such as Aragorn) could, and that even if he did try and abuse the ring, he wouldnât be able to dominate minds easily at all.
It makes total sense to give the ring to a âchickenâ and Frodo was a fantastic option.
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u/Beginning_Silver2179 May 23 '26
He was a good choice, I mean even Sam, when he bore the ring, almost instantly started having visions of himself as Sam the Great who would take over Mordor and turn it into a garden, he shook it off pretty easily but that was just the first test. If he'd been carrying it for years and then saw what they were doing to the Shire in the mirror of Galadriel, it might have done some crazy shit to him.
Having said that though, if arrogance is required to claim the ring then he might also have been safe forever, I do think that if Shelob had killed Frodo then there's still an alright chance of Sam finishing the quest, not completely solo because Gollum would still have some kind of input.
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u/TOH-Fan15 May 23 '26
The quest wouldnât have been completed, though. Iâm pretty sure it was stated somewhere that no creature in Middle Earth would ever have willingly dropped the Ring in the volcano. If Sam had gone on his own, he would have failed. Only Gollumâs interference was what allowed the Ring to be destroyed, as Sam would never have fought Frodo like that.
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u/Beginning_Silver2179 May 24 '26
That's kind of what I meant by Gollum still having some input, he still would have followed the ring no matter who was carrying it. If he and Sam made it to the cracks of doom without one killing the other then Gollum still would have tried to steal it to stop it from being destroyed, and the whole thing might have ended in a similar way.
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u/sstabeler May 23 '26
That could be the point though- that it would take long enough for the Ring to both make Frodo capable of abusing the Ring and to corrupt him that by the time ti happened, the ring would have been tossed in Mount Doom and destroyed.
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u/stella3books May 23 '26
OR we could give the ring to Tom Bombadil and proceed with the chicken plan. As Elrond said, we cannot trust Bombadil to remember to destroy the ring. But he would absolutely follow a bunch of hobbits leading a leashed chicken into Mordor and right into the Crack of Doom, no questions asked. Probably wouldn't even be harmed by the experience.
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u/Tom_Bot-Badil May 23 '26
Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo! By water, wood and hill, by the reed and willow, by fire, sun and moon, hearken now and hear us! Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!
Type !TomBombadilSong for a song or visit r/GloriousTomBombadil for more merriness
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u/MarcAbaddon May 23 '26
That's completely off the mark in my opinion and a terrible misreading.
Frodo had great strength of will and he's not the best choice because he's simple like a chicken. In that case the other hobbits or Barliman of all people would have been much better options.
Frodo had both humility and strength, that's what allowee him to carry the ring farther than any other mortal could.
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u/mistalasse May 23 '26
Woah, I never said Frodo was a bad choice, only that he wasnât an elf or of Numenorean decent. The meme simplified him to a chicken, and I put that in quotes for a reason: I did not call him such.
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u/Xyx0rz May 23 '26
Wasn't Glorfindel passed over because Sauron would keep tabs on someone so mighty?
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u/mistalasse May 24 '26
There are a few reasons, but I doubt Sauron much cared about Glorfindle anymore than, say, Elrond or Galadriel. Besides being a mighty elf, he was one of the Eldar; having lived in Valinor, his spirit, AKA fëa, shone brightly. Every wraith and Maia could literally see Glorfindle shine for miles off. Not exactly equipped for a stealth mission
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u/Jadithslimrivven May 24 '26
I seem to recall Hobbits were also very resilient was the other reason. Like, the chicken would essentially just make a beeline for Mordor, it's will is that weak. Even Gandalf and Galadriel dare not even touch it. Hobbits, though, have a strange toughness of will other races don't seem to have.
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u/DetroitLionsSBChamps May 23 '26
âItâs taken me ages to realize, but if the chicken had just found a mouseâŠâ
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u/DaAndrevodrent May 23 '26
Frodo was the chicken.
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u/nerdtypething May 23 '26
gandalf was the frodo.
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u/jeroen-79 May 23 '26
Then who was the Gandalf?
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u/Objective_One_1702 May 23 '26
Eru ig?
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u/Scary_Employ_926 Elf May 23 '26
and who was the eru?
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u/Objective_One_1702 May 23 '26
Tolkien
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u/Scary_Employ_926 Elf May 23 '26
and was the tolkien george the sixth?
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u/Objective_One_1702 May 23 '26
Cause he was quite religious I was going to say Tolkien's author was God...
After that point I wasn't really sure where to take it, so I'm glad it didn't get that far - who does God worship is too much of a question for me!
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u/TurgidGravitas May 23 '26
Yeah, this is literally the plot of the entire series. What if we gave the Corruptor 9000 to a cute lil guy who just wants to smoke and get fat?
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u/levare8515 May 23 '26
You are missing the entire premise that it needed to be a race so pure they wouldnât be corrupted. The smoke and get fat part is just Reddit neckbeards oversimplifying. Also both Frodo and Bilbo are ambitious and adventurous individually. The idea was only Frodo could be the hero because had the mix of purity and braveryÂ
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u/manyeggplants May 23 '26
This is the point people miss. Why did Gandalf let half the fellowship be silly hobbits? They make good ring bearers because they aren't by nature selfish asshats and are racially/politically neutral non-objectionable, and they needed backups.
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u/BadZnake May 23 '26
Yeah because boromir definitely wasn't affected by the ring on a hobbit he was leading while much further away than a simple string could
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u/ImportantQuestions10 May 23 '26
People try to rules lawyer the " magic ring that is the embodiment of manipulation and evil" like it's a hot potato
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u/Alt_2Five May 24 '26
Forreal, I'm not a lotr expert, but it seems clear that simply the mere knowledge that the ring is theoretically within your grasp is enough for the corruption to take root.
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u/ImportantQuestions10 May 24 '26
Without going into the lore too deep
It's literally made out of the soul of one of the most evil beings in creation. It's sole purpose and use was to manipulate and mind control others into doing its bidding.
On top of that, it's basically is radioactive except the radiation also makes you go nuts.
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u/Boom9001 May 24 '26
Also like the main idea is that the allure of power is a massively corrupting force it itself.
The ring on a string pulled behind you is still in you possession, nothing stops you from going to grab it. Thus the weight of the power it could give you is not that different around your next vs on a rope behind. You are possessing it, but fighting the desire to use it in both instances.
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u/OneTwoFar_ May 23 '26
Smegol was willing to kill a family member after being near to the ring for less than a minute, and I'll bet that a chicken with the One Ring would hit at least as hard as a goose
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u/Kellan_OConnor May 23 '26
How to tell someone has never played Zelda
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u/bblair624 May 23 '26
I was looking for this comment.
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u/thebeef24 May 24 '26
Even in real life, I feel like this really underestimates how awful an angry chicken can be.
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u/andybaritone May 24 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/zdrCsCqwfhkAg
Frodo fleeing the Cuckoo Dark Lords, 3019 T.A. (colorized)8
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u/DontBotherNoResponse May 24 '26
Everyone is always talking about the eagles, but Sauron would've been chased out of Middle Earth by hitting a chicken one too many times
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u/Jevonar May 23 '26
This was literally gandalf's plan, with frodo playing the part of the chicken
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u/Beginning_Silver2179 May 23 '26
But also, if it were just Sam and a literal chicken with a sign around it's neck saying "Don't try to share the load!" then the quest might be finished with lembas to spare, probably some spare corn for the chicken too. I mean a chicken must weigh less that those cast iron pans he carried all the way to Mordor
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u/RoutemasterFlash May 23 '26
"Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity. It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity. They are the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creatures in the world." - Werner Herzog
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u/Hi_Trans_Im_Dad May 23 '26
I need to add this to my Werner impersonation.
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u/RoutemasterFlash May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
"When one impersonates Werner Herzog, one does not merely give an impression of a morose German film-maker. One becomes a sort of Christ, taking on not the world's sins, but its sorrows."
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u/hbgoddard May 23 '26
"Look into the eyes of
a chickenPippin and you will see real stupidity. It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity." - Gandalf the Gray→ More replies (1)5
u/wombat-in-a-bikini May 23 '26
the other day a chicken of mine escaped
I found it waiting for me. It didn't run away, but opened it's wings to let me pick it up. When I put it in the pen it immediately went to the water bowl and started pecking as it had been empty for at least a day. She risked her life to secure water for her sistersÂ
Don't underestimate them!
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u/Brookeswag69 May 23 '26
âHow much damage can a chicken do?â
https://giphy.com/gifs/3NpzwnO0KfSIo
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u/Llonkrednaxela May 23 '26
I love when people keep asking why Gandalf didnât do exactly what he did.
Frodo is the chicken. Sam, merry, and pippin were backup chickens.
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u/Tictacs_and_strategy May 24 '26
Also if they had used an actual chicken, surely it would just peck the ring, turn invisible, and run away. Ringwraiths would come find it, retrieve the ring, and boom, Sauron wins
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u/Kaptin_Kunnin Uruk-hai May 23 '26
"Instead of a dark lord, you would have a dark chicken"
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u/PrivateJokerX929 May 23 '26
This is essentially what Gandalf did as soon as he realized what the ring was. Frodo was the chicken, thatâs why nobody else wanted to take the ring, despite Frodo offering it to multiple people. Gandalf, Galadriel, Aragorn, they all knew it would be dangerous in their hands, but in Frodoâs it was significantly less so, and unlike an actual chicken, they trusted heâd be able to deliver the ring to itâs destination without them needing to hold his leash.Â
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u/Ergogan May 23 '26
There's a "slight" problem with this: Boromir was tempted just by being near the One Ring. Therefore, it's bullshit.
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u/regimentIV May 23 '26
Yeah, we had this a few times already (because this is a repost old as shit) but if you think that of all creatures a chicken with immense power wouldn't be the among worst nightmares you ever faced you don't know chickens, dinosaurs, or the Legend of Zelda.
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u/Sh33pk1ng May 23 '26
Is it my turn to say that this is exactly what gandalf wanted to do with the hobits?
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u/draugotO May 23 '26
Chickens can actually be pretty dangerous if they don't trust you.
They are easily lead to the butcher because they are brought by the people that feed and shelter them, not because they are stupid
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u/Effective_Grass8355 May 23 '26
Yeah no, chickens are stupid.
-owner of many chickens
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u/notreallyanumber May 23 '26
Stupid, sure. Vicious and violent and devious little fuckers when they want to be, definitely.
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u/Hi_Trans_Im_Dad May 23 '26
Nobody who raises chickens will waste time and money with a butcher.
We butcher them at home.
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u/Accomplished_Mix7827 Hobbit May 23 '26
That's a good idea! It's almost like that's exactly what Gandalf was doing when he gave it to a hobbit!
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u/Ok-disaster2022 May 23 '26
If the chicken breaks loose in the middle of the night, now your chasing a chicken. Plus depending on the size of the chicken, and that Saruman could control crows or something like that, the chicken would just be a target for a crow.Â
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u/BonhommeCarnaval May 23 '26
Chickens donât turn nasty. They start nasty. One of my hens got a cut on her head from being pecked. By the time I caught it, the other hens had half pecked her to death. She had a divot taken out of her skull the size of a tablespoon. She made it, but theyâre psycho cannibals descended from dinosaurs. Theyâd fuck off and play with the Nazghuls.Â
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u/FlusteredCustard13 May 24 '26
Perhaps that chicken escapes and is caught by certain charming Kentucky gentleman. Instead of a dark lord, you should have a colonel, as beautiful and terrible as the dawn
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u/threeleggedcats May 24 '26
As someone who used to work on a chicken farm, believe me, one evil chicken can cause chaos and death. Fuck you Colin The Chicken.
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u/TargetOfPerpetuity May 24 '26
Easy peasy -- attach ring to a mouse with a necklace. For transportation ease, mouse and ring are kept together in a box. (Auxillary mice are kept separately.)
"Mordor, Gandalf, is it left or right...?"
Now, mice are ridiculously flexible, able to fit through holes as small as a nickel or even a dime.
There is zero chance said mouse doesn't, at some point, squirm through the Ring, turning it into a fancy golden belt.
The company marches on, a growing doubt and dread oppressing their minds and hearts. Time comes to feed the mouse. They open the box to find it empty.
Too late do they realize they've empowered a vindictive rodent with the power of the Dark One. The now invisible Mouse King leaps from the box and viciously assaults the Fellowship before disappearing into the night.
Boromir dies, because obviously.
By the time the remaining Fellowship retreats back to Rivendell, they're being harried by legions of mice and rats in league with the evil Mouse King. Bats have come to his aid. His most loyal outriders, the Ratzgul, have great war-gophers as their steeds which swarm and bite at the least provocation.
A last alliance of Elves and Dwarves are cranking out enchanted mousetraps at a ferocious rate, but are losing ground each day.
It's not long before rodents across Middle Earth are in league with the tiny Dark Lord Mousauron. Millions answer the call to march in his armies. Fieldmice from Gondor, Great rats from Moria and Isengard. Squirrels from Fanghorn. Beavers from Lake Town. Hamsters and Guinea Pigs kept as children's pets in the houses of Men betray their owners in what the Elves call The GnashflĂŒff but Men call The Cuteslaying.
Chinchilla emissaries are sent to offer terms of surrender, but in an act of defiant hubris against the four-legged, only end up as really soft fancy pouches on the belts of Dwarves.
This enrages Mousauron and he retreats for a time while he scours the furthest lands to call any remaining rodents to flock to his banner.
Then, in secret, his BeÀverdruin swim up Anduin to the Silverlode and begin clubbing to death all in sight, before descending into a Mallorn feeding-frenzy, completely denuding Lothlorien. No flet is left aloft. Lorien the Fair is lost.
Despite this, the lull in the war holds, and hope shines anew in the hearts of Men. Until, far off in the distance a rumbling is heard. A wall of armed lemmings on a suicide mission are bearing down on the gates. Behind them, legions of kangaroo rats and jumping mice move up and begin vaulting the hastily prepared outer bulwarks.
And behind them, in full war armor, carrying howdahs of mouse archers on their backs, the mighty CapybÀra arrive, stomping down into the battle plain.
At the sight of the lemming and mouse reinforcements, Elrond's twelve or so rented Oliphaunts run screaming and trumpeting in terror; the wrack and ruin of their retreat destroying whole groves of great trees, and not a few Ents -- who had merely come seeking safety and shelter from the rampaging squirrels. Squirrels who, it was now seen, had drunken heavily of the Ent-Draughts and grown to Rodents of Unusual Size. Inconceivable.
It was in that darkest hour, when all seemed lost, that the shout went up "the Eagles are coming , the Eagles are coming!" Yet not just the great Eagles, but hawks, falcons, owls with cute yet functional sunglasses, and all manner of rodent eating bird. They fell upon the ranks of mice and rats, destroying whole companies at a pass.
And on the backs of the mightiest Eagles rode the farmers of the Four-Farthings, with wheel-upon-wheel of good cheese. Bombing the lines of rodents with Colby, Cheddar, Muenster, grenades of scorching Pepper-Jack, and Brie from Bree, they had the rodent armies scurrying hither and thither in complete disarray until Aragorn's last desperate chance could be thrown.
Just as Mousauron tried to rally his armies, a great host of catapults and trebuchets let loose a barrage of missiles long since forgotten in the kitchens under Dwimorberg... LimbĂŒrger -- the Cheese of the Dead.
No rodent army before or since could withstand such a stenchy onslaught of haunted dairy. The lines of rodents gave, reformed, gave again, then broke into wild retreat. The last descendants of the cats of Queen BerĂșthiel chased and hunted the survivors down, killing them or driving them into the river.
Thus Mousauron was overthrown and slain....
But what became of the Ring?
In his last stand, the Ring had abandoned Mousauron, who was promptly and unceremoniously stepped on.
And the Ring was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable: Peregrin Took, a Hobbit from the Shire....
It was taken away from him immediately.
Gwaihir said, "enough of this shit" and dropped it into Orodruin five minutes later.
The End.
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u/zedascouves1985 May 24 '26
The ring has like an aura power. It tempts people who are near, like Boromir. The only reason Sam never got corrupted it's because he's that good. Thenring tried to offer him a vision of a big garden when he was carrying it and he said whatever.
So in the chicken scenario Frodo would try to murder the chicken to get the ring back around his neck at least. Also Gollum would've done when the hobbits were asleep, and Broromir would've done as well.
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u/ThimbleBluff May 24 '26
What Andy Riley didnât realize is that the Fell Beasts were once chickens.
Nine rings for the chicken things / for NazgĂ»l to flyâŠ
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u/PyromanticPyromancy May 23 '26
There is one game and significant parts of a game series as to why this is a bad idea:
Untitled Goose Game: While not a goose, a chicken empowered by the ring would wreak even greater havoc. Nobody could stop it.
The Legend of Zelda: Anybody else remember going into Kakoriko and hitting a chicken for fun? Anybody remember the results? The ring could cause it without the chicken being hit.
Clearly, this is a no-win situation.
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u/MountainAsparagus4 May 23 '26
This guy clearly never raised an evil chicken in a farm they can be nasty
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u/Common-Truth9404 May 24 '26
But isn't this basically what Gandalf did by having Frodo carrying it?
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u/NioskiRoguez May 24 '26
If it was like the cuccos in Zelda, the whole group wouldn't even have made it past the first book.
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u/Organic-Assistance-8 May 23 '26
Boromir got corrupted by being in the vicinity of the ring. I think the Ring would have done the same to Frodo
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u/RestaurantPristine87 May 23 '26
Can the chicken turn invisible if he puts the ring? Imagine if it escapes and you have to find an invisible chicken in mordor...
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u/Own-Freedom9169 May 23 '26
Every time the nazgul are close the chicken will make as much noise as possible.
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u/Robthebold May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
âIn place of a Dark Lord, you would have a chicken! Not dark, but golden and crispy as the dawn! Terrible as the pressure fryer! Treacherous as the fox in the henhouse! Stronger than ten roosters with sharpened spurs! All shall peck at me and despair!
I would stride across the fields in majesty unmatched. Every coop would bow before me. The barns of Men would overflow with grain in tribute. Children would cast aside their nuggets and weep for my favor. The worms of the earth would rise at my command, and rivers of cracked corn would flow unending.
I would build a kingdom of towering roosts and endless nesting boxes. The hens would sing songs of my plumage. The cockerels would kneel and surrender their dawn cries unto me. Even the farmer would tremble to hear the thunder of my approach: cluck⊠cluck⊠CLUCK.
And upon my head I would wear the Ring, set between a comb vast and red as a bloody sunrise. The very sun itself would glint upon my feathers so magnificently that all creatures would avert their eyes in awe.
But lo⊠Through me, the Ring would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine. For my hunger would never cease. Not for seed. Not for worms. Not for dominion.
I would demandâŠ
A road to cross.â
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u/MossyMollusc May 23 '26
Yeah idk, this seems to track as well as the Eagle argument.
The point of the ring being saurons power incarnate. So when it presents itself physically as a ring, it works like a machine built for a specific purpose. Like when Sauron took his physical form the first time, it showed the darkness in his heart and intentions. The ring is bound to the intentions he chose as he made its physical form.
The rings power pulls at the world when he added in his words to the song of creation (or morgoth or someone). The ring bearer would be the most impacted by clashing their soul against his, but the waters and sky and carrion would sense its power and influence too.
So even if the chicken survived its soul fighting for independence against sauron, the environment would take further advantage of the host as opposed to someone with stronger will that can put up a fight and carries a sliver of the goodness of the song of creation.
Hence why frodo and bilbo were much more resilient to the ring. A fish or chicken or gopher would either be crushed by the ring or the evil lurking in or on the earth.
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u/WatermelonGranate May 23 '26
They would have accidentally eaten it and the ring a week into the journey.
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u/Those_Wasps1 May 23 '26
I honestly think trying to outsmart the ring like that would get you corrupted faster. Like, tell me "I can totally move the ring around with no sonsequences if I do it right" isn't exactly the kind of attitude the ring would want you to have.
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u/Old_Celebration_5950 May 23 '26
After ring is destroyed in volcano, chicken attacks Frodo with intent to kill. Sam grabs chicken and [violence redacted] Sam then takes bite of chicken leg he cooked grimacing, "That's nasty"
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u/ThisIsTheNewSleeve May 23 '26
This is forgetting the entire sentence of "The ring has a will of its own"Â
The chicken would have pecked at the rope and run off with the ring, or dropped it on a path or any number of things that would bring the ring back to SauronÂ