O One Ring teria ficado escondido se Bilbo não tivesse aparecido?

O Anel estava ativamente tentando voltar ao seu verdadeiro mestre, Sauron. Abandonou Gollum na esperança de ser pego por alguém mais propenso a devolvê-lo a Sauron, provavelmente um duende ou um orc.

SDA, Livro I, cap. 2 A Sombra do Passado :

‘A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo.It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it. At most he plays with the idea of handing it on to someone else’s care – and that only at an early stage, when it first begins to grip. But as far as I know Bilbo alone in history has ever gone beyond playing, and really done it. He needed all my help, too. And even so he would never have just forsaken it, or cast it aside. It was not Gollum, Frodo, but the Ring itself that decided things. The Ring left him.’

‘What, just in time to meet Bilbo?’ said Frodo. ‘Wouldn’t an Orc have suited it better?’

‘It is no laughing matter,’ said Gandalf. ‘Not for you. It was the strangest event in the whole history of the Ring so far: Bilbo’s arrival just at that time, and putting his hand on it, blindly, in the dark.

‘There was more than one power at work, Frodo. The Ring was trying to get back to its master. It had slipped from Isildur’s hand and betrayed him; then when a chance came it caught poor Déagol, and he was murdered; and after that Gollum, and it had devoured him. It could make no further use of him: he was too small and mean; and as long as it stayed with him he would never leave his deep pool again. So now, when its master was awake once more and sending out his dark thought from Mirkwood, it abandoned Gollum. Only to be picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable: Bilbo from the Shire!

‘Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.’

A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings. Yes, sooner or later—later, if he is strong or well-meaning to begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last—sooner or later the dark power will devour him.

( Senhor dos Anéis , Livro I, Capítulo 2, "A Sombra do Passado")

Isso ainda não havia acontecido com Gollum principalmente porque (estando no escuro o tempo todo) ele não tinha uma strong necessidade de usar o Anel para se tornar invisível; mas parece que Gandalf diz que isso inevitavelmente o teria afetado dessa maneira. Ele não teria morrido em si, mas ele teria sido consumido pelo poder de Sauron. Os hobbits são extraordinariamente resistentes aos efeitos do anel, mas não totalmente resistentes.

Eventualmente, então, Gollum teria sido totalmente superado pelo Anel - isso pode ter levado centenas de anos a mais, mas sem dúvida teria acontecido se Gollum não tivesse perdido o anel. Quando isso acontecesse, Gollum, estando inteiramente sob o controle de Sauron, teria trazido o anel para ele.

Dado que Gollum perdeu o Anel, no entanto, o que aconteceria?

Na verdade, houve goblins que foram até o lago de Gollum:

[Gollum] just throttled [goblins] from behind, if they ever came down alone anywhere near the edge of the water, while he was prowling about. They very seldom did, for they had a feeling that something unpleasant was lurking down there, down at the very roots of the mountain. They had come on the lake, when they were tunnelling down long ago, and they found they could go no further; so there their road ended in that direction, and there was no reason to go that way—unless the Great Goblin sent them. Sometimes he took a fancy for fish from the lake, and sometimes neither goblin nor fish came back.

( O Hobbit , Capítulo 5, "Enigmas no Escuro")

Assim é inteiramente possível - mesmo provável, dada a atividade do Anel - que eventualmente, um deles teria chegado ao ringue. Nesse momento, já que os goblins já estão efetivamente sob o controle de Sauron, o Anel iria para Sauron com relativa rapidez.

Em algum lugar no começo da The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf explica a Frodo que ele procurou por Gollum, mas os Orcs o encontraram primeiro, eles o torturaram até ele dizer "Shire. Baggins", levando os Nazgull ao Condado. Então, se Bilbo não tomasse o Anel, ele seria levado pelo inimigo.

Gollum já foi o Hobbit do condado, ele então encontrou este anel no fundo de uma lagoa e desde então tem envenenado sua mente. Ele então procedeu para as montanhas onde ele teria o anel por mais de 600 anos. Sua caverna está bem escondida dos goblins e não havia ninguém lá embaixo, exceto Bilbo. Deixa-se jut colocar desta forma, se Bilbo nunca encontrou o anel provavelmente teria ficado nas cavernas por centenas de anos mais.