Gollum

In the new version, Gollum pretended that he would show Bilbo the way out if he lost the riddle-game, but he actually planned to use the Ring to kill and eat him. Discovering the Ring missing, he suddenly realised the answer to Bilbo's last riddle – "What have I got in my pocket?" – and flew into a rage. Bilbo inadvertently discovered the Ring's power of invisibility as he fled, allowing him to follow Gollum undetected to a back entrance of the caves. Gollum was convinced that Bilbo knew the way out all along, and hoped to intercept him near the entrance, lest the goblins apprehend Bilbo and find the Ring. Bilbo at first thought to kill Gollum in order to escape, but was overcome with pity, and so merely leaped over him. As Bilbo escaped, Gollum cried out, "Thief, Thief, Thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!"[T 3]

The Lord of the Rings

Gollum's real name was Sméagol, and he had once been a member of the secluded branch of the early Stoorish

Frodo, Sam, and Gollum left Faramir and climbed the stairs to Cirith Ungol. Gollum slipped away and visited Shelob, planning to feed the hobbits to her and then get the Ring for himself when she was done. When he returned, he found the hobbits asleep, and the sight of Frodo sleeping nearly moved Gollum to repent. However, Sam woke up and spoke harshly to him, and the opportunity for redemption was lost.[T 10]

Gollum followed through with his plan and led Frodo and Sam into

Moments later, Frodo stood on the edge of the Crack of Doom, but claimed the Ring for himself and put it on. Gollum struck, struggled with the invisible Frodo, bit off Frodo's finger, and seized the Ring. Gloating over his "prize" and dancing madly, he stepped over the edge and fell into the Crack of Doom, taking the Ring with him with a last cry of "Precious!" Thus, the Ring was destroyed and Sauron defeated. Sam cursed Gollum after his death, but Frodo urged his friend to forgive him, as without him the quest would have failed.[T 13]

Characteristics

In the first edition of The Hobbit, Tolkien made no reference to Gollum's size, leading illustrators such as Tove Jansson to portray him as very large.^[7] Tolkien realised the omission, and added in later editions that Gollum was "a small slimy creature."^{[T 3]} The Two Towers characterises him as slightly larger than Sam;^{[T 11]} and later, comparing him to Shelob, one of the Orcs describes him as "rather like a spider himself, or perhaps like a starved frog."^{[T 14]}

The Hobbit states that Gollum had pockets, in which he kept a tooth-sharpening-rock, goblin teeth, wet shells, and a scrap of bat wing;

In The Fellowship of the Ring, Aragorn states that "his malice is great and gives him a strength hardly to be believed in one so lean and withered."^{[T 15]} In The Two Towers, Gollum's grip is described as "soft, but horribly strong" as he wrestles with Sam.^{[T 6]}

Sam notes that Gollum has two distinct personalities: the sinister "Stinker" and the submissive "Slinker", with a green glint in his eyes showcasing the change between them. In "The Passage of the Marshes" chapter, Sam overhears a debate between the two, with the nefarious "Stinker" ultimately coming out on top.^{[T 16]} However, as shown in "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol" chapter, Gollum often oscillates between good and evil. When Gollum stumbles upon Frodo and Sam outside of Shelob's Lair, he is briefly overcome and nearly repents, but this is ultimately ruined by Sam's skeptical remarks.^{[T 10]} Tolkien describes this as the story's most tragic moment, and he claims "Sam failed to note the complete change in Gollum's tone and aspect. Gollum's repentance was blighted, Frodo's pity was wasted, and Shelob's Lair became inevitable."^{[T 17]}

Personality

Tolkien describes Gollum's personality after he had been captured by Frodo and Sam:^{[T 6]}

For that moment a change, which lasted for some time, came over him. He spoke with less hissing and whining, and he spoke to his companions direct, not to his precious self. He would cringe and flinch, if they stepped near him or made any sudden movement, and he avoided the touch of their elven-cloaks; but he was friendly, and indeed pitifully anxious to please. He would cackle with laughter and caper if any jest was made, or even if Frodo spoke kindly to him, and weep if Frodo rebuked him.^{[T 6]}

Gollum hates everything

Gollum speaks in an idiosyncratic manner, often referring to himself in the third person, and frequently talks to himself. In The Hobbit, he always refers to himself as "my precious".^{[T 3]} When not referring to himself in the third person, he sometimes speaks of himself in the plural as "we", hinting at his alter ego. The rare occasions when he actually says "I" are interpreted by Frodo as an indication that Sméagol's better self has the upper hand. Gollum also uses his own versions of words similar to the original words. He usually adds -es to the end of a plural, resulting in words such as "hobbitses" instead of hobbits or "birdses" instead of birds. When forming the present tense of verbs, he frequently extends the third person singular ending -s to other persons and numbers, resulting in constructions like "we hates it" (by analogy with "he hates it"). Gollum's speech emphasises sibilants, often drawing them out.^{[T 18]}

Age

Through the influence of the Ring, Gollum's life was extended far beyond that of other members of his clan. An average hobbit lifespan is over 100 years, but a span of 556 years separates Gollum's finding of the Ring and its destruction, by which time he was almost 600 years old.^{[T 4]}

Analysis

Sméagol and Déagol

Cain, Abel, and Grendel

Commentators including the theologian Ralph C. Wood,^[10] and the critics Brent Nelson and Kathleen Gilligan, have remarked that Sméagol's murder of Déagol echoes Cain's killing of Abel in Genesis (4:1-18). Cain is jealous of his brother Abel; Sméagol is jealous of the shiny gold ring that his friend Déagol has found. Nelson observes that the names of the friends are similar, hinting that at least figuratively they are "brothers". Cain is guilty of Abel's murder, and ends up as a restless wanderer, never finding peace; Sméagol likewise is disowned and exiled by his family, and "wandered in loneliness".^{[T 4]} Nelson notes that Tolkien was a famed scholar of the Old English poem Beowulf, which he acknowledged was a major source of his own fiction;^{[T 19]} and that the Beowulf poet calls the monster Grendel one of the sons of Cain. Among the many parallels between Gollum and Grendel are their affinity for water, their isolation from society, and their bestial description.^[11][9]

The Tolkien scholar

McGregor further compares Déagol's delight in the ring with the Rhinemaidens' innocent rejoicing in their gold: "And behold! when he washed the mud away, there in his hand lay a beautiful golden ring; and it shone and glittered in the sun, so that his heart was glad".^{[T 4]} He draws a parallel between Sméagol's asking for the Ring with Fafner's; Déagol refuses, saying "I'm going to keep it", just as Fasolt says "I hold it: it belongs to me"; Sméagol derisively says "Oh, are you indeed, my love", and strangles him, turning by degrees into the wretched creature Gollum, while Fafner sourly says "Hold it fast in case it falls" and clubs Fasolt to death, becoming by degrees a treasure-fixated dragon.^{[13][T 4]}

Much later, Bilbo blunders into Gollum's cave and finds the Ring by accident; he holds off Gollum with his sword, and escapes by winning a peaceful battle, a riddle contest;

anti-hero; and the shrunken Mime is the most Gollum-like character in Wagner's Ring Cycle.^{[13][T 3]}

Psychological pairings

Further information: Character pairing in The Lord of the Rings

A variety of commentators have suggested that Gollum constitutes a "

Ted Sandyman for Sam Gamgee, the Barrow-wight for Tom Bombadil, and Shelob for Galadriel, but the Gollum/Frodo pairing is by far the most widely accepted.^[15]

The Tolkien scholar Charles W. Nelson described Gollum as an evil guide, contrasted with Gandalf, the good guide (like

Eru Ilúvatar, in the struggle against the forces of darkness, and "ironically" all of them, good and bad, are necessary to the success of the quest.^[16]

Playing a part in a cosmic game

Further information: Christianity in Middle-earth § Moral conflict

David Callaway, writing in

Christian".^[17] Callaway describes Gollum as fitting into this framework as a being not wholly evil, able to make moral choices.^[17]

The

Council of Elrond, Frodo angrily resists the notion that Gollum was a Hobbit like himself. She adds that Gandalf describes the tale of Gollum's enslavement to the Ring as "a sad story" rather than as Frodo's description of him, "loathsome". Gandalf says that Gollum "had no will left in the matter", and could not get rid of the Ring; instead, "the Ring itself .. decided things".^{[T 15]} Rutledge comments that the sad story has happened to everybody, trapped, as Christians believe, in "Sin and Death", and states that^[18]

The genuinely revolting Gollum is central not only to the surface narrative, ... but also to the underlying theological drama.[18]

Eru makes use of every being's choices for good: Callaway gives as example the way that

Dead Marshes. In short, as Tolkien writes, Gollum is "not altogether wicked".^[17] Finally, at the end of the quest inside Mount Doom, Gollum takes the Ring from Frodo, and causes it to be destroyed, completing the quest successfully at the moment that Frodo had announced that he would keep the Ring. Callaway calls this "the ultimate heroic self-sacrifice", arguing that Gollum acted "consciously" using "the good fraction in his mind finally overpowering the Ring's evil".^[17]

Degenerate

Further information: King Solomon's Mines

English literature scholars William N. Rogers II and Michael R. Underwood compare Gollum to the similarly named

She

, as a major influence. They note that Haggard's tales share many motifs with Tolkien's The Hobbit, including a non-heroic narrator who turns out to be brave and capable in a crisis; a group of male characters on a quest; dangers in caves; a goal of treasure; and return to a happy countryside. Gollum and Gagool both have a monstrous character, Gagool being described as

a withered-up monkey [that] crept on all fours ... a most extraordinary and weird countenance. It was (apparently) that of a woman of great age, so shrunken that in size it was no larger than that of a year-old child, and was made up of a collection of deep yellow wrinkles ... a pair of large black eyes, still full of fire and intelligence, which gleamed and played under the snow-white eyebrows, and the projecting parchment-coloured skull, like jewels in a

charnel-house. As for the skull itself, it was perfectly bare, and yellow in hue, while its wrinkled scalp moved and contracted like the hood of a cobra." —King Solomon's Mines, 1885^[19]

Rogers and Underwood note that Gagool rejoices in "blood and death".

economic recession, fear of moral decline and degeneration leading indeed to eugenics, and a "for-the-moment hedonism" in the face of these concerns. They comment that Gagool can be seen as a "worst-case" embodiment of such Victorian era fears.^[19]

Dale Nelson, writing in the

Morlocks in his 1895 novel The Time Machine. They have "dull white" skin with a "bleached look", "strange large grayish-red eyes" with "a capacity for reflecting light", and run in a low posture somewhere close to all fours, looking like "a human spider", through having lived for generations underground in darkness.^[20]

Tom Birkett, writing in A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien, likens Gollum to Hreiðmarr's son in the Völsunga saga, who took the shape of an otter to catch fish; in the myth, the gods pay a ring as ransom when they kill the otter. Birkett comments on the resemblance to Gollum of "this semi-aquatic creature, greedily devouring fish in a mountain pool".^[21]

A 2004 paper in the

British Medical Journal by supervised students at University College London noted that over 1300 websites had discussed possible diagnoses for Gollum's apparent mental illness, and argued that Gollum meets seven of the nine diagnostic criteria for schizoid personality disorder.^[22]

Adaptations

Animations

Gollum's first known screen adaptation is in Gene Deitch's 1967 short film The Hobbit, where his role is reduced from the action described in the novel to appearing in a single scene which depicts him sitting in his boat.^[23]

Rankin/Bass's animated 1977 The Hobbit^[24]

In the 1977

Rankin/Bass adaptation of The Hobbit and its 1980 The Return of the King, Gollum was voiced by Brother Theodore.^[25] He appeared somewhat froglike.^[24]

In Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, as in the 1981 BBC radio dramatisation, Gollum was voiced by Peter Woodthorpe.^[27][28] Austin Gilkeson, writing on TOR.com, called the prologue with the "snaring and transformation of Gollum" "beautifully rendered as black shadows cast against a red canvas" like a shadow play or a medieval tapestry come to life, with a mix of animation, painted backgrounds, and rotoscoping.^[26]

Television plays

In the Soviet-era television film Сказочное путешествие мистера Бильбо Бэггинса, Хоббита (The Fairytale Journey of Mr. Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit) of 1985, a green-faced Gollum is portrayed by Igor Dmitriev.^[30]

A different Russian Gollum was played by Viktor Smirnov in

Leningrad Television's two-part 1991 TV play Khraniteli, rediscovered in 2021.^[31] Variety reported that "he's speaking Russian, sports orange eye-shadow and has what appears to be bright green cabbage leaves pasted to his head."^[29]

Kari Väänänen portrayed Gollum (Finnish: Klonkku) in the 1993 live-action television miniseries Hobitit [The hobbits] produced and broadcast by the Finnish network Yle.^[32]

Feature films

In

Weta Digital, animators created Gollum's performance using a mixture of motion capture data recorded from Serkis and the traditional animation process of key frame, along with the laborious process of digitally rotoscoping Serkis's image and replacing it with the digital Gollum's in a technique coined rotoanimation.^[33]

In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Serkis himself appears in a flashback scene as Sméagol before his degeneration into Gollum. This scene was originally earmarked for The Two Towers, but was held back because the screenwriters felt audiences would relate better to the original Sméagol once they were more familiar with who he became. The decision to include this scene meant that Raitt and Jamie Beswarick had to redesign Gollum's face for the second and third films so that it would more closely resemble Serkis'.^[35] Serkis once again played Gollum in the 2012 prequel film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.^[36] In Jackson's films, Gollum has a split personality: the childlike "Sméagol" and the evil "Gollum". Screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens included scenes in The Two Towers, The Return of the King and An Unexpected Journey in which "Gollum" and "Sméagol" argue, with Serkis slightly altering his voice and body language to play the two as separate entities. This style was praised by the Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey who described the Jackson interpretation as "masterful" and the additional scenes as "especially good".^[37]

Serkis and Gollum appeared on the

Empire magazine's "100 Greatest Movie Characters of all Time".^[40]

Fan film

Gollum is the eponymous character in The Hunt for Gollum, an independently produced 2009 prequel to the Jackson films directed by Chris Bouchard. Bouchard's CGI Gollum, voiced by Gareth Brough,^[41] looks much like the Gollum of the Jackson films.^[42]

Other media

In Canada, Gollum was portrayed by

Dora Award for the performance.^[44]

Gollum appears in a 1989 three-part comic book adaptation of The Hobbit, scripted by Chuck Dixon and Sean Deming and illustrated by David Wenzel.^[45]

Xbox Series X/S, by Daedalic Entertainment.^[46]

Cultural references

The band Led Zeppelin mention Gollum and Mordor in their 1969 song "Ramble On", with the lyrics "Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor / I met a girl so fair / But Gollum, and the evil one crept up / And slipped away with her".^[47]

See also

• Erdoğan–Gollum comparison trials

References

Primary

1. ^ Tolkien 1980, Part Three, IV. "The Hunt for the Ring", p 353, note 9
2. ^ ^{a b} Carpenter 2023, #214 to A. C. Nunn, c. late 1958-early 1959 "remigration of the Stoors ... Deagol-Smeagol incident"
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Tolkien 1937, ch. 5 "Riddles in the Dark"
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Tolkien 1954a, book 1, ch. 2 "The Shadow of the Past"
5. ^ ^{a b} Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 9 "The Great River"
6. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 1 "The Taming of Sméagol"
7. ^ Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 3, "The Black Gate is Closed"
8. ^ ^{a b} Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 4, "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit"
9. ^ ^{a b c} Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 6, "The Forbidden Pool"
10. ^ ^{a b} Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 8, "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol"
11. ^ ^{a b} Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 9, "Shelob's Lair"
12. ^ Tolkien 1955, book 6, ch. 3, "Mount Doom"
13. ^ Tolkien 1955, book 6, ch. 4, "The Field of Cormallen"
14. ^ Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 10, "The Choices of Master Samwise"
15. ^ ^{a b} Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 2 "The Council of Elrond"
16. ^ Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 2 "The Passage of the Marshes"
17. ^ Carpenter 2023, #246 to E. Elgar, September 1963
18. ^ Tolkien 1955, Appendix F: II, "On Translation"
19. ^ Carpenter 2023, #25 to the editor of The Observer, February 1938, stating "Beowulf is among my most valued sources; though it was not consciously present to the mind in the process of writing"

Secondary

1. ^ Child, Ben. "Hobbit release marked with giant Gollum sculpture at Wellington airport". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
2. ^ ^{a b c} Wendling, Woody (29 May 2008). "The Riddle of Gollum: Was Tolkien Inspired by Old Norse Gold, the Jewish Golem, and the Christian Gospel?". Volume 6: A Collection of Essays Presented at the Sixth Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends. Article 23. Archived from the original on 29 November 2020. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
3. ^ Bosworth & Toller 1972, "smygel"
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7. ^
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   . It could be argued, however, that large Groke-like Gollum, mountain-tall trolls, impish goblins and tribal wargs dancing against the backdrop of white snaky flames – all of the scary creatures which unlike the dwarves are placed in the centre of the frames – resonate with the rest of the illustrations that aim to evoke a sense of terror.
8. ^ Hammond & Scull 2005, p. 447.
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23. ^ ^{a b} "The Hobbit 1967". Suggap. January 1967. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
24. ^ ^{a b} Gilkeson, Austin (24 April 2019). "Middle-earth's Weirdest Movie: Rankin-Bass' Animated The Return of the King". Tor.com. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
25. ^ "Brother Theodore". Behind the Voice Actors. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
26. ^
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27. ^ "Peter Woodthorpe". Behind the Voice Actors. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
28. ^ Pearse, Edward (15 January 2009). "The Lord of the Rings, Episode 2". Radio Riel. Archived from the original on 15 January 2020.
29. ^ ^{a b} Davis, Rebecca (2021). "Inside the Soviet 'Lord of the Rings': Cast Details Their Epic TV Movie, Uncovered After 30 Years". Variety. Archived from the original on 12 May 2021. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
30. ^ Gilsdorf, Ethan (9 January 2013). "A Very Weird Russian Hobbit from 1985". Wired. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
31. ^ Vasilieva, Anna (31 March 2021). ""Хранители" и "Властелин Колец": кто исполнил роли в культовых экранизациях РФ и США" ["Keepers" and "The Lord of the Rings": who played the roles in the cult film adaptations of the Russian Federation and the USA] (in Russian). 5 TV. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
32. ^ Kajava, Jukka (29 March 1993). "Tolkienin taruista on tehty tv-sarja: Hobitien ilme syntyi jo Ryhmäteatterin Suomenlinnan tulkinnassa" [Tolkien's tales have been turned into a TV series: The Hobbits have been brought to live in the Ryhmäteatteri theatre]. Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). Helsinki, Finland: Sanoma. (subscription required)
33. ^ ^{a b} The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – Special Extended DVD Edition, The Appendices Part Three: The Journey Continues (DVD). New Line Cinema. 2002.
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37. ^ Shippey 2005, p. 422
38. ^ "2004 Hugo Awards". The Hugo Awards. Archived from the original on 7 May 2011. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
39. ^ Wizard magazine, issue 177, 31 May 2006
40. ^ "13. Gollum". Bauer Media Group. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
41. ^ "The Hunt for Gollum, kortfilm fra 2009". FilmFront. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
42. ^ Wired Staff (May 2009). "Review: Lord of the Rings Fan Film The Hunt for Gollum is an Impressive Achievement". Wired. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
43. ^ Spencer, Charles (20 June 2007). "Lord of the Rings doomed to epic defeat". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 January 2022. Only Michael Therriault's charismatically creepy and athletic Gollum, and James Loye and Peter Howe who make a touching double act as Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee, come to persuasive life.
44. ^ "Doras". Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts. 2008. Archived from the original on 2 December 2008.
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External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gollum (Middle-earth).

• Tolkien website of Harper Collins (the British publisher)
• Tolkien website of Houghton Mifflin Archived 24 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine (the American publisher)