Don Marshall

Yeah.

Back before Bilbo even knew that the ring made him invisible, back when he's running from Gollum, we read, he struck his toe on a snag in the floor and fell flat with his little sword under him.

So I think Tolkien put that there because we know that the sword glowed with the blue light and it needed to be hidden under something in order to be invisible, even though Bilbo was wearing the ring.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And then there's the footnotes of this passage.

Tries to explain it.

I'm not entirely sure it explains everything, but let's look at the passage.

It says, the meaning, sufficiently remarkable of this passage, and this is Christopher talking, not Professor Tolkien, appears to be that the light of the Elendil mirror was proof against the invisibility conferred by the one ring when worn.

If its light would be visible, were the ring not worn?

But when Isildur covered his head with a hood, its light was extinguished.

So what Christopher Tolkien is saying here is like the Elendil mirror is not susceptible to the invisibility.

And the reason why is because if he were not invisible, it would have its own light.

If the object...

creates its own light.

So Sting, the Elendil mirror, one imagines the file of Galadriel.

Yeah, I can see that.

Any other object, Silmaril, but that's not really a question here.

Anything that gives off its own light, even a flashlight.

I'm imagining, I mean, you know, a torch.

Let's say Bilbo's holding a torch or Frodo's holding a torch while wearing the one ring.