Gandalf: Why couldn't he connect Thrain to Thorin?

[Tinman]

I have been reading a bit into gandalf's involvement in middle earth, and have come across a subject I feel is not well explained. Gandalf located Thrain in Dol Guldur, retrieving a map and key from him, but did not know who the dwarf was, or what to do with the items once he received them. He kept them on his person until, by luck or fate, he met thorin oakenshield in bree, sparking the events that would lead to The Hobbit.

I have a few problems with this. For one, Gandalf had been actively searching for Thrain prior. Acording to FOTR:


"Good Gimli!" said Gandalf. "You encourage me. We will seek the hidden doors together. And we will come through. In the ruins of the Dwarves, a dwarf's head will be less easy to bewuilder than Elves or Men or Hobbits. Yet it will not be the first time that I have been to Moria. I sought there long for Thrain son of Thror after he was lost. I passed through, and I came out again alive!"~A Journey in the Dark

Thrain was captured in 2845... and Gandalf located Thrain (though he claims unknowingly) five years later in 2850.

I find it hard to believe that he could find a Tortured, tormented dwarf in the bowels of the Dark Lord, complete with a map of the lost kingdom of the very Dwarven king he had been searching for within the last five years, and never drawn a connections.

Certainly, if he showed the map and key to any dwarf of Blue mountains or the Iron hills... and told of the tortured prisoner, they would have told him who he had been dealing with. Even if they couldn't draw the conclusion, wouldnt they say "Well... i dont know who he is, but those items looks to be significant... maybe you should try asking thorin, the heir to that palace whose map you have (complete with instructions on a secret door that could very well help him reclaim it)... he lives over yonder."

Is it possible that gandalf is not being quite truthful? That he wanted to wait to handle smaug until he felt the time was right? Perhaps he did know it was thrain he had spoken with, and that he was just to busy to make the trip until he realized the significance of the dwarves handling smaug?

[Earniel]

I never considered this much of a problem.

Gandalf may have been looking for Thrain before, but that doesn't mean he would know or recognise him when they met. Besides, it would seem that in those days Gandalf had been handling a number of different quests at once.

Going on a vague recollection, I think I remember Gandalf wasn't even in Dol Guldur to find Thrain specifically, but on some other errand, possibly trying to find out whether the Necromancer was actually Sauron. So there was no reason for Gandalf to suspect that a tortured, emprisoned dwarf he finds in the dungeons is that very same dwarf he has been looking in his spare time so to speak. It's quite a coincedence that it happened to be so.

I also doubt that having a map and a key would signal to any Dwarf whom it belongs to. Why would it? They are not particularly rare items. If I go by Tolkien's drawing of the map, there isn't much of interest on it, apart from the cryptic mention of a hidden door. But knowing of a once hidden door somewhere on a mountain flank that leads to the lair of a big honkin' dragon doesn't exactly get one far. If the door even still exists after all that time, that isn't certain at all.

Thorin himself didn't think the map very special when Gandalf showed it to him in The Hobbit, even when Gandalf mentioned who had made it.

The key may have been more interesting, being silver, and perhaps an odd shape. But I doubt it read 'Thror's secret door to Erebor' so it could have been any key. There's no reason why it could not be from some random dwarf's money box or safe.

So I can't see any good reason why Gandalf would have to lie about it either.

[The Gaffer]

Either that or it's a plot hole.

EDIT: Sorry for being a facetious twat.

But seriously, I think you have put your finger on one of the logical weaknesses in the whole saga. It seems that JRRT didn't figure out the Ring's significance until well after the Hobbit was written. This makes Gandalf etc look a bit negligent at a number of stages. Sending Thorin & Co. to take down a dragon, for example. We should probably make a list.

However, I tend to file these things in the same drawer as the whole "why didn't they send the Eagles to Mount Doom" thing.