How would the story of Lord of the Rings turn out differently if Gandalf was replaced by Magneto?
How would the story of Lord of the Rings turn out differently if Gandalf was replaced by Magneto?
Assuming Mags has the same goal as Gandalf, you've got pretty much a better, faster eagles situation. Mags wraps Frodo in a bubble at a distance to avoid the ring's influence, flies him over to mount doom, ZOOP, and drops him in the lava.
If Mags carried the Ring with magnetic power would he avoid the influence?
“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.”
-Stephen McCranie
There does seem to be an implied range limit on the ring's influence, with touch being strongest, carrying next, then having it stored in your house, and so forth. Mags can carry Frodo from quite a far distance with a bubble.
Mago would take the ring of power for himself and F everything up.
For all intents and purposes, this would mean Magneto is effectively touching the Ring, and then...
This happens. If he knows about the Ring, and also knows he can seize it at any time, and that nothing can stop him from doing so, Sauron doesn't win, but neither does anyone else.
Additionally, just to nip this in the bud, the "classic" Eagles Solution is an unviable one for three reasons. One, the Nazgul have Fellbeats; Two, the Hobbits were specifically able to carry it because they had no grand ambitions or desire for power that Sauron could leverage; And three, this presumes the Eagle who has full power over the course of the Ring wouldn't bank to the side and drop his rider as he flew along to take it for himself, despite having no fingers with which to wear it.
All three of which dude addresses. Nazgul on fellbeasts get crushed by Mangeto power. He carries the hobbits far away from himself while the hobbits carry the ring to go for no direct contact and as little inderect contact as possible. And of course Magneto isn't going to bank and drop them because he's got Gandalf's goals. And he's keeping them in a Force Bubble so they couldn't drop if they wanted to.
*nods*
The MunchKING is Back! And he is AWSOME!
Well, Helm’s Deep would have been a f*ck-ton easier. All the orcs are crushed by their own armour while their blood is just stopped from reaching their brains.
Then Mags pings the ring into a singularity and uses the iron ore in Mount Doom to completely collapse it and seal it.
Honestly, I know the intent was to focus on McKellen Mags as a contrast to McKellen Gandalf, but without the specificity we revert to prime canon, aka 616. And 616 Mags is so far above any physical threats in LotR as to be laughable.
Chief Curmudgeon
This exactly - Mags can explicitly use his powers on the other side of the planet with a thought and from decently universal distances with effort.
He can chill with a cup of tea in the Shire while dropping Frodo and the ring in the lava, while oh-by-the-way chucking the Nazgul into space, stuffing the White Tower into the core of the Earth and Sauron's home into the sun.
Hell, he's got explicit feats for manipulating invulnerable metals - I don't see why he couldn't simply reduce the ring to atoms. I get that Gandalf and Gimli can't do it - Sauron is a lot stronger than they are and he made the thing, but Mags is orders of magnitude more powerful then they are, especially with metals.
"But... But I want to be a big karate cyborg... ;_;" - Nik Hasta
"Get off my lawn! ...on this forum, that just makes people think of Cyclops." - Sharpandpointies
"...makes me think the Night King just says "Screw the rules, I have magic money" when it comes to physics." -Captain Morgan
Basically the only issue here is if Magneto tries to manipulate the Ring itself. Then we could get into a debate about Granpagen's point about 'Is Magneto using his powers on the Ring the same thing as holding it?'.
Outside of that, Magneto outperforms anyone in the setting (outside of the Valar, and they aren't involved) by a large margin and has a convenient stop for any attempt by Sauron to use mental powers against him. He can stomp all over the various enemies, allowing the Ring to be brought to Mt. Doom itself, at which point with Sauron absolutely crushed, I'm pretty sure he could just snatch it up with his powers and flick it into the lava.
Or toss the Ringbearer; Magneto has always been a bit of a Forest over Trees kind of guy.
Why are we here?
"Superboy Prime (the yelling guy if he needs clarification)..." - Postmania
"...dropping an orca whale made of fire on your enemies is a pretty strong opening move." - Nik
"Why throw punches when you can be making everyone around you sterile mutant corpses?" - Pendaran, regarding Dr. Fate
assuming he can resist the ring, sauron will be hearing boss music.
Would Magneto's helmet reduce the ring's effect on him? It is magical as compared to things like Charles' mental power. While tossing the ring into the lava is appealing, Magneto could also do a sun toss - no one in Middle East could even think of that and the physics of that sun are unknown. He could easily destroy Mordor, Isengard, all the armies of Sauron and Saruman - orcs, humans, etc. If Sauron had the ring and no other material resources - what's his options?