Gollum: A Character Study

who actually is Gollum yes we know his history but should we be repulsed by him as most seem to be or have pity on him as Frodo and Bilbo did is he good or evil or something else entirely hi everyone this is Robert welcome to in deep geek this video is brought to you by my wonderful patreon community I am now creating regular JRR tolkien and Lord of the Rings content on this channel that's as well as the usual Game of Thrones and Westworld videos if you're interested in seeing more please click on the subscribe button in the bottom right of your screen and to the bell icon Lord of the Rings is often labeled as being a simple story of good versus evil but at its heart is a character who defies those labels our heroes wouldn't have succeeded but for his help and yet he betrays them the Dark Lord uses him but then he causes the Dark Lord's downfall he is dismissed and reviled by almost everyone and yet some of the most important characters in the story feel an overwhelming sense of pity for him Gollum is not easy to categorize which is probably the point as we see again and again when we dig into the characters of The Lord of the Rings there is a lot of grey there and layers of character that often get ignored when rushing to label this as a battle of good versus evil Gollum was born over five hundred years before the story of The Lord of the Rings hailing from the Anduin Valley nestled between the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood centuries before that that was where the hobbits lived before migrating west to the Shire Gollum ought schmegle as he was called then was a storage hobbit from one of the few families that had stayed in the area the stores were great swimmers and Fisher people characteristics we see in Gollum when we encounter him much later one day on Smeagol birthday he and deagle his cousin went on a fishing trip to the gladden fields around the area where two and a half millennia earlier Isildur had been killed and lost the ring in the reeds of the river deagle caught a large fish on his line which dragged him into the water while underwater he found a ring the one ring of course but there's no reason to think that he or Smeagol had any idea of that the Rings power was strong and Smeagol demanded it from deagle deagle refused and they fought and Smeagol strangled deagle to death claiming the ring as his own his later repeated assertion that it was his birthday present is seemingly a self justification for why he had to kill his cousin we'll get on to his apparent dissociative personality disorder in a little bit in the short-term though the Rings power over Smeagol grew he was disowned by his family and turfed out of the family home by the matriarchal grandmother he was forced to hide in a cave in the Misty Mountains eating raw fish and growing to hate both the Sun and the moon the ring as it does stretched out his life focusing it in on the ring itself and just survival he developed that hacking cough that sounded a bit like Gollum which gave him his new name he became the character we know in the stories obsessed with the ring his birthday present his precious we know the story of how Bilbo found it and escaped with it from the Misty Mountains thinking it's just a magic ring that could make him invisible but it's probably worth reminding ourselves of the fact that none of this deagle Smeagol Bilbo was coincidence the ring as Gandalf said wanted to be found it wanted to be rescued from the riverbed then when a traveler passed by he was heading east out of the mountains towards Mirkwood it chose to move to him abandoning Gollum why choose a traveler heading to Mirkwood because that's where Saren was at the time and the ring always wanted to get back to Salim it's no coincidence I think the Saren set up his secret base in Mirkwood during that time he will have been able to sense the Rings presence and dole Guldur was probably about as close as he could get while remaining secret and secure Bilbo of course did take the ring through Mirkwood although Saren could do little about it because that was when gamble left the dwarfs and Bilbo to lead an attack on dull gold or throwing Sauron back to Mordor we'll never know what sarin would have done when the ring passed so close to him anyway let's return to Ghanim he lingered under the Misty Mountains for a while longer mainly out of fear of the goblins and the Sun and the moon but eventually he ventured out to try to find Bilbo and the ring he failed but his wanderings eventually brought him to Mordor where he gained all that knowledge of the back routes in and out Sauron was now out in the open and calling the Rings and his allies to him no doubt some magical trace of the ring led Gollum there and when he was there he was captured and tortured and interrogated for information on where the ring might be he gave up the only information he had Baggins the Shire these clues were what the nazgûl rode forth searching for and then Sauron released him there's a throwaway line in The Return of the King where the orcs in Kiev ungol admit that they'd seen him before when he was escaping Mordor and that they'd instructions to let him go it's never explicitly stated why Saren let him go but the clear implication is that Saren didn't see him as a threat and knew that he would keep hunting for the ring regardless and if he found it unlike someone like Boromir say he definitely wouldn't use it to try to gain power just to return to a cave and hunt fish so Gollum roamed the land again searching for the ring and was caught by gandalf and Aragorn during that period before the main events of The Lord of the Rings where Gandalf is suspicious of the origins of Bilbo's ring and goes studying searching and trying to patch together a history of the One Ring Gandalf gets golems story from him and leaves him with the elves in Mirkwood although Gollum manages to escape with the help of some orcs presumably again under orders from Sauron he goes hunting again for the ring and ends up back under the Misty Mountains in Moria where he disguise was the fellowship following them at a distance until it's just Frodo and Sam left just going through this short history we have to acknowledge that Gollum is a remarkable figure despite being hated by pretty much everyone he met Bilbo Frodo and Gandalf are pretty much the only people to show him any kindness he is a survivor he survived torture by Sauron escaped imprisonment by the elves made his way largely undiscovered through places like Moria Mirkwood and Mordor and even managed to get some kind of understanding with Sheila that she wouldn't kill him and Shelob tries to kill everyone it's as if his fate was inextricably linked with that of the ring and the very magical and those also strongly connected to the ring could sense it as Gandalf said to Frodo before Frodo had ever met Gollum he is bound up with the fate of the ring my heart tells me that he has some part to play yet for good or ill before the end and among the wise and the kind of heart the overwhelming response to Gollum is not just disdain or disgust but pity Frodo says do you mean to say that you and the elves have let him live on after all those horrible deeds now at any rate he is as bad as an orc and just an enemy he deserves death deserves it I dare say he does many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life can you give it to them then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment for even the very wise cannot see all ends I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies but there is a chance of it and he is bound up with the fate of the Ring my heart tells me that he has some part to play yet for good or ill before the end and when that comes the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many yours not least in any case we did not kill him he is very old and very wretched the wood elves have him in prison but they treat him with such kindness as they can find in their wise hearts the word pity here has perhaps lost a little of its meaning over the years since talking wrote this it isn't just feeling sorry for someone in a rather condescending way it is about compassion and mercy and kindness and that perhaps brings us to the heart of Tolkien's message here Gollum did need to survive for the ring to be destroyed and that only happened because of compassion love from Bilbo Gandalf the elves Frodo and even Sam yes we all know Sam disliked and distrusted Gollum but at the very end when Frodo was taking the last steps up Mount Doom and Sam is holding back Gollum he has a chance to kill him and doesn't Sam's hand wavered his mind was hot with ruff than the memory of evil it would be just to slay this treacherous murderous creature just and many times deserved and also it seemed the only safe thing to do but deep in his heart there was something that restrained him he could not strike this thing lying in the dust forlorn ruinous utterly wretched Sam lets him go Gollum lives circles around and confronts Frodo in the heart of Mount Doom Sam's pity also ruled the fate of many the cause of this pity and compassion does vary for the elves it seems to come from their inherent goodness for gamble for sense that Gollum still had a role to play and for the ring bearers Frodo and Sam it seems that they saw a bit of themselves in Gollum as Sam thinks he himself though only for a little while had borne the ring and now dimly he guessed the agony of golems shriveled mind and body enslaved to that ring unable to find peace or relief ever in life again there is no doubt that column was wretched we mentioned earlier his dissociative personality disorder splitting into Smeagol and Gollum this isn't just a cool character trait it's showing us how he views himself his hatred of himself and his burning need to survive his obsession with the ring and how he pities himself for it he didn't want to be who he is the ring took him over sometimes we see glimpses of who he once was capering about and laughing at Jegs but this is always covered in a cloak of who he has had to be he flinches at sudden movements and despises sunlight and normal food we get reminded from time to time of the power of the ring / Bilbo and Frodo Bilbo gives us that speech about how he feels like he's been stretched like butter over too much bread and Frodo talks often of Harriet is weighing him down it is a burden that never leaves you even when you no longer have the ring they only had the ring for a few years but Gollum had it for centuries the weight of it on him will have been immense finally I think we need to recognize something that often goes unrecognized with Gollum he could have used that ring to become powerful he could have built a small Kingdom for himself under the Misty Mountains or perhaps even more but it seems that that lust for power just wasn't within him the limit of his ambitions was only ever to fish and eat and enjoy simple things in life I'm sure his Hobbit heritage must have played a part in that but although it may seem minor detail it tells us a lot about who he or Smeagol is at heart he may have been driven to terrible deeds by the power of the Ring but that wasn't him not really Andy Serkis talked about playing golem and Smeagol as being like playing a good person overtaken by addiction I think that's a pretty good analogy so what should our response be to Gollum Gollum is there at center of the story beginning and end it is from him that the ring has come when we first encounter it and it is he who has it when we last see it it is he who destroys the ring and ends the threat to middle-earth and more than any other character we are encouraged repeatedly to consider what role they have to play for good or ill and how people react to him with repulsion or mercy and perhaps that is it perhaps it is our reaction to him that is important it was pity and compassion that got Gollum to where he needed to be Bilbo's Gandalf's the elves Frodo's and finally sands so perhaps our reaction to Gollum should echo theirs and this is what Frodo says when the ring is gone and he and Sam are at the end of all things do you remember Gandalf's words says Frodo even Gollum may have something yet to do but for him Sam I could not have destroyed the ring the quest would have been in vain even at its bitter end so let us forgive him compassion pity and forgiveness yes that is how we should respond to Gollum if you'd like to see more videos in the world of jr. our Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings please click on the link to the playlist on the left of your screen or if you'd like to support this channel or get access to some content I produced just for my patrons please click on the link to my patreon page on the right of the screen thanks for watching that's all for this time I'll see you again soon

Channel: In Deep Geek

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Id: XN2ZRDOS9bo

Length: 15min 3sec (903 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 11 2020