Alice Mead
Member
First, regarding the discrepancy between the main body of the text and Appendix B, Gandalf says Frodo bore the splinter for 17 days, while the journey from Weathertop seems to have taken one day less than that. Could it be possible that his treatment lasted long enough to cross a date boundary? If so, a similar circumstance could explain the discrepancy in the length of Gandalf's journey. Perhaps he arrived "only two days before the Ring" because he arrived at 12:01 AM on Ring Day -2.
Now, on to the thornier issue of Gandalf's ill-conceived decoy plan. I say ill-conceived not merely because it (mostly) failed, but because it seems likely that Gandalf, fleeing for his life from all 9 Nazgul, might have made a dumb decision in his haste. That's not to say that the only reason he makes that decision is fear of facing the Nazgul again, as was suggested in class. I agree with Corey's assessment there, but he still had to make a decision quickly and he was certainly stressed out (even if more for Frodo and the ring than for himself). Now, with the preliminaries out of the way, what could his thought process have been? The most plausible answer, to me, is that he wanted to draw the Nazgul off, but knew that they would not enter the valley. Given that, it would be reasonable to suspect that, if they followed him down the road, but halted at the ford, they would probably set up shop just in front of the ford to wait for Frodo to show up, and Gandalf must know that Aragorn would eventually lead the hobbits to the ford. Thus, if he, Gandalf, lead the Nazgul to the ford by way of the road, he would only be leading them to the perfect spot from which to bushwhack Frodo and company when they showed up. One potential counterargument is that he could have sent a force out from Rivendell to drive the Nazgul back from the river. I think this may be overestimating the power of Rivendell, however. After all, if they had enough armed might to reliably drive back the Nine, why didn't they send out a force to guard the ford until Frodo showed up (the inverse of the Nazgul plan listed above)? Instead they waited until the Nazgul stepped onto Elrond's territory to retaliate, and the Nazgul were only desperate enough to do that because Frodo was right in front of them. We know that the powers of the Three are very geographically limited. I don't think Elrond could extend sufficient power to drive the Nazgul from the general area anymore than Galadriel can keep orcs out of the wilderness between Moria and Lorien.
Therefore, if Gandalf wants to be a useful decoy, he has to lead the Nazgul away from the road, but on a path that he knows Aragorn is unlikely to choose, lest he accidentally lead them closer to the Ring. The northern path fits these criteria. Plus, while the Witch King knows the general location of Rivendell, he might not know it precisely enough to be sure that it isn't somewhere in or past the Ettinmoors. Finally, even if the Witch King does know that, and even though Gandalf must expect that the Nazgul would be loath to leave their horses, The Witch King, and Gandalf, both know that the hobbits are on foot. While Gandalf probably knows Aragorn well enough to guess that he still wouldn't take the northern route, the Witch King might suspect, and Gandalf might suspect that he would suspect, that Frodo & Company might deliberately choose a route which is impassable to horses in order to rob the Nazgul of their primary advantage.
Now, on to the thornier issue of Gandalf's ill-conceived decoy plan. I say ill-conceived not merely because it (mostly) failed, but because it seems likely that Gandalf, fleeing for his life from all 9 Nazgul, might have made a dumb decision in his haste. That's not to say that the only reason he makes that decision is fear of facing the Nazgul again, as was suggested in class. I agree with Corey's assessment there, but he still had to make a decision quickly and he was certainly stressed out (even if more for Frodo and the ring than for himself). Now, with the preliminaries out of the way, what could his thought process have been? The most plausible answer, to me, is that he wanted to draw the Nazgul off, but knew that they would not enter the valley. Given that, it would be reasonable to suspect that, if they followed him down the road, but halted at the ford, they would probably set up shop just in front of the ford to wait for Frodo to show up, and Gandalf must know that Aragorn would eventually lead the hobbits to the ford. Thus, if he, Gandalf, lead the Nazgul to the ford by way of the road, he would only be leading them to the perfect spot from which to bushwhack Frodo and company when they showed up. One potential counterargument is that he could have sent a force out from Rivendell to drive the Nazgul back from the river. I think this may be overestimating the power of Rivendell, however. After all, if they had enough armed might to reliably drive back the Nine, why didn't they send out a force to guard the ford until Frodo showed up (the inverse of the Nazgul plan listed above)? Instead they waited until the Nazgul stepped onto Elrond's territory to retaliate, and the Nazgul were only desperate enough to do that because Frodo was right in front of them. We know that the powers of the Three are very geographically limited. I don't think Elrond could extend sufficient power to drive the Nazgul from the general area anymore than Galadriel can keep orcs out of the wilderness between Moria and Lorien.
Therefore, if Gandalf wants to be a useful decoy, he has to lead the Nazgul away from the road, but on a path that he knows Aragorn is unlikely to choose, lest he accidentally lead them closer to the Ring. The northern path fits these criteria. Plus, while the Witch King knows the general location of Rivendell, he might not know it precisely enough to be sure that it isn't somewhere in or past the Ettinmoors. Finally, even if the Witch King does know that, and even though Gandalf must expect that the Nazgul would be loath to leave their horses, The Witch King, and Gandalf, both know that the hobbits are on foot. While Gandalf probably knows Aragorn well enough to guess that he still wouldn't take the northern route, the Witch King might suspect, and Gandalf might suspect that he would suspect, that Frodo & Company might deliberately choose a route which is impassable to horses in order to rob the Nazgul of their primary advantage.