What if Treebeard got The One Ring?

what if tree beard got the one ring would he have been a dark tree Lord or would he have resisted its power it's a bit nerdy and speculative but that's what we do on this channel so let's take a look hi everyone this is Robert welcome to inde deep geek on this channel we dive deep into tolkien's legendarium as well as other great fantasy worlds like George ARA Martins A Song of Ice and Fire and Andre sov is The Witcher so what if tree beard got the one ring I know it's a a bit far-fetched

though fangorn isn't that far from the anduin river valley where the ring was lost for so long so perhaps it could have washed Downstream and someone could have picked it up and taken it into the forest rather than the mountains as smeagle did maybe it requires a bit of a suspension of disbelief but we leave no geeky Stone Unturned on this channel so what if he did unexpectedly find the One Ring well to get a few Logistics out of the way first yes tree beard has hands and fingers so he could theore Ally wear a

ring and one of the Lesser but still important powers of the one ring was to expand or contract to the size of the bearer's fingers so if we assume that for whatever reason the one ring was okay with tree beard having it and didn't try and slip off his finger for instance tree beard could definitely hold and wear the one ring in principle what would happen then well let's start by saying that although tree beard May occasionally be granted the honorific eldest because he may be the oldest created being in Middle Earth he's still very

much a created being not one of the occasional exceptions in to's legendarium like Tom madil immune to the power of the Ring no tree beard is as potentially susceptible to its corruption as anyone else how powerful or old or wise he was doesn't matter Gandalf and Galadriel could both be tempted for example and how innocent or pure also doesn't really matter other than in how long the corruption may take Sam is a pretty classically good character and he was tempted right away he resisted but he was tempted actually let's take a look at what happened

when Sam briefly had the ring because that's probably the best firsthand account of the Ring's immediate temptations that we have wild fantasies arose in his mind and he saw Sam wiise the strong hero of the age striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of [Music] and then all the clouds rolled away and the white sun Shone and at his command the veil of garoth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit he had only to put on the ring

and claim it for his own and all this could be so Sam was tempted first with Conquest seemingly the one Ring's default setting then what appears to be an attempt to plug into his deeper desires to be a gardener and create Beauty around himself I think we can expect the same kind of thing to happen to tree beid like Sam he's never really been one for Conquest as Gandalf acknowledges to him at Eisen guard saying you have not plotted to cover all the world with your trees and choke all living things no tree beid wouldn't

be tempted by World Conquest not initially at least instead we're probably looking at something akin to how Gandalf imagined the one ring would affect him as he said to Frodo he would use it out of a desire to do good so in the short term we probably wouldn't see much difference in tree beard indeed with him being so long lived we wouldn't even see the life stretching powers of the Ring who would even notice if tree beard got a bit older and didn't age so quickly and when the ring did start impacting on him it

would probably be quite a slow process tree beard didn't do anything quickly and if he did ever decide to actually do something and get the other ants on board they wouldn't be Hasty either not that he ever wanted to be a conqueror as we've already noted but he might be stirred into action by the acts of others like when Mary and Pippen pointed out what Saran is doing in The Lord of the Rings we'll come back to that point in just a second because I do wonder whether tree beard like the dwarves say may have

had a particular resistance to the dominating power of the One Ring we read that with respect of the Rings of power that the dwarves were given they proved tough and hard to tame they ill endure the domination of others and the thoughts of their hearts are hard to Fathom nor can they be turned to Shadows but tempt him it would and I think it would eventually get through to him probably by tapping into his best instincts remember Saran managed to use his powers of persuasion to get tree beard to release him from his imprisonment in

orank he did that not by winning Tre beard over to his side but by appealing to his better instincts as tree beard explains later to Gandalf you should know that above all I hate the caging of live things and I will not keep even such creatures as these caged Beyond Great need a snake without fangs May crawl where he will you may be right said kandal but this snake had still one tooth left I think he had the poison of his voice and I guess that he persuaded you even you tree beard knowing the soft

spot in your heart so tree beard is definitely not immune to temptation to do perhaps unwise things because he is convinced he is in the right in that instance it was his sense that all living creatures should be free Mary and Pippen raised him to anger and action over sarahan cutting down trees and the like a wizard should know better yes it seems that if you point tree beard in the right direction he can definitely be liable to a bit of righteous anger the fact that the moral imperatives behind that a desire for all to

be free and to protect the natural environment not exactly in line with the one Rings or sauron's priorities suggest that this wouldn't be a perfect match for the ring so perhaps at some point the ring would try to escape and find a new owner yes it does do that kind of thing I did a whole other video on it if you're interested but the main point is that the one ring wouldn't just settle with tree beard it would still want to get back to Sauron so if tree beard got the ring there probably wouldn't be

much of an obvious impact in the short term nothing Hasty of course but eventually something would prompt tree Beard's ey perhaps San cutting down trees or maybe some humans or elves or dwarves they all cut down trees too and tree beard would respond fiercely perhaps everyone even remotely responsible would need to be killed to be absolutely sure it didn't happen again and the land would be forcibly returned to a more natural state with other threats kept out and perhaps it would happen again and again Fang gorn's borders would grow and all threats removed however I

suspect that this state of affairs wouldn't last long the ends going on the offensive would be so odd after after them staying in their forest for so long that people would notice Sauron in particular and San if he were still around and although the ants when launching surprise attacks like at Eisen guard or Helms Deep could be very effective trees are also relatively easily attacked from afar with fire say an Army Of Orcs with fire arrows would be very effective at deforestation if they tried hard enough tree beard doesn't have any natural magic per se

and his own army of ants would only get smaller there are no an wives or Tings so no new ants and with Sauron now actively suspecting that the one ring is in fangor the One Ring itself will try to escape as fun as it is to imagine tree beard as a tyrant tree running a fully forested Middle Earth with a rod of iron or a branch of Ironwood perhaps I don't think it's very likely sure there would be some bad results of him getting the ring but they would happen very slowly and he would be

much more likely to be an aggressive libertarian than a Hardline dictator and the ring would always still be trying to escape him and get back to its true Master Sauron if you'd like to see more videos digging deep into the lore of tolken legendarium there's a link now on the left of your screen or to support this channel thank you there's a link now to my patreon page on the right of your screen that's all for this time thanks for watching I'll see you again soon