Bilbo Baggins' Entire Story Explained

While Bilbo continued to try and live a quiet life in Bag End again, things were changing out in Middle-earth. Dark forces massed in the East, and Gandalf the wizard began to grow suspicious of Bilbo's little trinket. Meanwhile, Bilbo himself was preparing to head off on one final adventure before his death, and planned to end his time in the Shire with his eleventy-first (111) birthday party. The celebration was massive, and Bilbo ended it by putting on the Ring and disappearing.

After the party, Bilbo prepared to set out for Rivendell, and Gandalf confronted him about the Ring. Aware of the effect it was having on his old friend, the wizard urged the Hobbit to leave the Ring, along with Bag End, to his nephew Frodo. Bilbo was hostile, and even accused Gandalf of scheming to take the ring for himself, but after he calmed down he realized his protectiveness over the Ring had grown even deeper than he'd realized. He gave the Ring up and left the Shire.

Unbeknownst to Bilbo, Gandalf's research would soon confirm that his little invisibility trinket was in fact the One Ring, forged by the Dark Lord Sauron in a bid to control all of Middle-earth. By letting it go and leaving it to Frodo, Bilbo became the first being in the Ring's history to relinquish it voluntarily.