Bilbo's proposal at the Council of 🧝Elrond

[gate7ole]

From the Council of Elrond
'Very well, very well, Master Elrond!' said Bilbo suddenly. 'Say no more! It is plain enough what you are pointing at. Bilbo the silly hobbit started this affair, and Bilbo had better finish it, or himself. I was very comfortable here, and getting on with my book. If you want to know, I am just writing an ending for it. I had thought of putting: _and he lived happily ever afterwards to the end of his days_. It is a good ending, and none the worse for having been used before. Now I shall have to alter that: it does not look like coming true; and anyway there will evidently have to be several more chapters, if I live to write them. It is a frightful nuisance. When ought I to start? '

Was this offer by Bilbo only an action of willingness to "save" the world, a duty to finish what had started by him? Or did Bilbo also find an opportunity to get back the Ring?

 

[Goldberry]

I think he thought it was his duty.

 

[BlackCaptain]

A lil bit of both in my eyes. I always thought that he thought it was his duty, but you bring up a good point about him wanting to get the ring back.

 

[Wynston]

I'd say both. Consciously, Bilbo probably thought it was his duty. But since he had the ring for 60 years, I think on some level it would have became about getting the ring back and keeping it.

 

[Beleg]

A bit of the Both.

 

[Aulë]

As Wynston has already pointed out,
Bilbo still lusted the ring, and he would do anything to hold it again, as it was shown when he almost attacked Frodo to get the ring off him.

 

[Lantarion]

Yes; but it was completely unconscious, we must remember.
And perhaps it was actually just something he felt he should do; I don't think he actually had an intention to seriously set out to go to Mordor.

 

[Ithrynluin]

Yes it was just an impulse, a spur of the moment kinda thing.
Even if he wanted to, Bilbo didn't have the strength to go on such a quest.