Everybody is down on Saruman for breeding orcs and goblin men to make an army of Uruk’hai super-orcs, but Gandalf may just be the absolute worst.
Why?
It’s obvious: Gandalf secretly directed Hobbit development to breed a ring-resistant strain of halflings.
First, don’t trouble yourself with the hilariously non-canon time-slipping in Amazon’s gorgeous but slipshod The Rings of Power.
Just sticking to the original material, we know that Gandalf was interested in Hobbits for generations, before they were even called Hobbits. A little too interested for my liking. He knows his Tooks from his Sackville-Bagginses and Proudfoots/feet, doesn’t he?
Why was a high-ranking immortal from another world so concerned with arguably the least interesting and least powerful humanoid race in Middle Earth?
Because no one else cared, and he could direct their development unhindered.
For the good of everyone in Middle Earth, of course.
Even the too-wise in the story don’t see it. The wizard Saruman is blinded by his own ambitions and jealous of ol’ Mithrandir’s involvement in the Shire, even accusing him of clouding his mind with the halflings’ pipe-weed. But the White Wizard doesn’t see his subordinate’s long game, even though he, Gandalf, the Balrogs, and Sauron were once of the same “rank” in another world. Gandalf hoodwinks them all.
Not believing that Gandalf has spent centuries intentionally breeding a ring-resistant strain of halflings? Funny, it has certainly worked out that way, whether you want to believe it or not.
There are no halflings in the creation myths of Middle Earth. They are offshoots of another race. Just as the Orcs are twisted Elves, so halflings are offshoots of some other species. Halflings aren’t small to squeeze into tight places or avoid predators. Gandalf bred them down so squads would fit on eagles in a pinch.
That’s right. It was all about the eagles.
See, Gandalf didn’t fail to think of sending the ring to Mount Doom by eagle. That isn’t a plot flaw. Flying the One Ring to Mount Doom was simply impractical by the time of RotK, as ring wraiths on flying mounts would have been drawn like flies, not to mention the ground forces in Mordor ready to shoot them down.
But the possibility of an air drop is why Gandalf was interested in Hobbits to start with, even though that part of the plan didn’t work out. All to reduce procedural risk and keep down the number of favors he has to ask from magical giant eagles.
Here’s the scenario:
Before LotR, Gandalf ran a prototype (Smeagol/Gollum) to acquire the ring without touching it himself, which went Very Badly, but by the beginning of FotR, he’s ready to send the full release version (Frodo) into the belly of the beast.
Anyway, the beta version, Smeagol, bred along the river where the ring was last seen, was a complete disaster, ring-receptive but not ring-resistant, but there’s no use crying over every mistake (we just keep on trying till we run out of cake).
Generations later, Gandalf used Bilbo like a magnet on a string – a ring-magnet, that is. He must have thought it was worth checking Smaug’s hoard because a dragon full of primordial chaotic evil would be immune to the ring, just using it to keep his scaly belly warm, so Gandalf sent his alpha-release prototype ring-sniffing.
He had no idea that the Smeagol-beta had hidden the ring for so long. His beta- (Gollum/Smeagol), alpha- (Bilbo), and full-release (Frodo) versions, in combination, were successful beyond his imagining, and their resistance lasted just long enough to get it to Mount Doom.
Gandalf’s insane experiment paid off, and he walked away with the white robes, leaving a trail of broken halflings.
And Sam, the post-release short-round/squib redundancy failsafe unit.
Prove me wrong.