School Suspends 9-Year-Old For Pretending He Had Hobbit ‘Ring of Power’

Aiden Steward had just watched the third Hobbit movie with his family and he wanted to pretend that he had a ring that could make people disappear, just like Bilbo Baggins. But when he brought the toy ring to school, it ended up getting him suspended.

The ring he brought may not have been the true ring of power, but the Kermit, Texas, school where he attended said the pretend Tolkien “one ring” was used in a “threat” against a classmate.

When Aiden told a student that he could make him disappear since the plastic ring was forged in fictional Middle Earth’s Mount Doom, the school accused him of “threats of violence” against classmates.

“It sounded unbelievable,” Aiden’s father, Jason Steward, said in an interview with the Daily News. But Jason said his son “didn’t mean anything by it.”

He explained that their family had just watched “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies” that week, and the elementary school boy was just pretending he had a ring like in the movie.

“Kids act out movies that they see. When I watched Superman as a kid, I went outside and tried to fly,” Steward explained.

“He loves that book. They were studying the solar system and he took it to school. He thought his teacher would be impressed,” Aiden’s father explain.

Apparently books with knowledge and kids with imagination do not mix at the Kermit Elementary School.