Part two of the widely known and much-loved Lord of the Rings. When I reviewed
Fellowship of the Ring in March I focused mainly on the parts that were not put
in the movie or were less known – this time I just want to focus on one very
interesting character.
You guessed it – Gollum.
Having said that, I realise I should probably start explaining the One Ring before
I start my rant about Gollum. So let’s get that done and over with first.
I don’t think I’ll need to go in specifics about the Ring’s history – Sauron
pretended to be nice and beautiful to trick the elves into sharing their knowledge
about forging rings, and he used that knowledge to forge a master ring. The
ring is a part of him - he literally forged his power into it - which is why he was weakened to his
lidless eye form when the ring was cut from his hand. Thus,
we can see the ring as a sort of psychological copy of Sauron: and we all know
Sauron is known for being a deceiving, tempting, and greedy bastard. You don’t
become Morgoth’s favourite making giftbaskets. When he hears that the dwarves of Erebor (watch
the Hobbit and you’ll know who I’m talking about) know more about the One Ring
he sends messengers first, promising the dwarves gifts beyond their wildest
dreams if they would only share the location of this ‘lesser ring’. He could
probably have captured and tortured one of them instead – but he likes tempting
the dark side in people (and dwarves): he wanted them to betray their friend
Bilbo. Sneaky bastard.
So let me clarify: the ring does not simply turn good people into bad people,
not even over a long duration of time. Gollum isn’t evil, or at least not
because of the ring. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
What the ring does, in my humble opinion, is wakening a feeling of greed. This
is why Gandalf and Galadriel refuse to have anything to do with the ring: they
are already so ancient and powerful that they’d easily conquer Middle-Earth, or
at least a large part of it- but at what cost? They are probably some of the last people to
want Middle-Earth to change, even though they know
it’s inevitable. Galadriel especially, who got into so much trouble just
because she wanted a piece of land to care for when she still lived in Valinor,
would think twice before doing anything foolish.
 |
| as if she needs to be given more power. |
They do not want to feel the
overwhelming urge to have more. Even Sam, who bears the ring when Frodo is
drugged on spider juice
, suddenly gets a vision where he
overthrows Sauron and creates a giant garden in Mordor before he shakes himself
and realises all he really wants is his little garden in Bag End.
So no taking over minds. More like taking over priorities. The people bearing the ring would only
want to do good – thinking that if they ruled things would be done right and
proper. But they would want to do so
at whatever cost, and that’s the
catch.
So now let’s talk about our dearest Slinker & Stinker. After all, he’s such
a deliciously layered character.
Gollum, of course, started out as Sméagol, a hobbit who was a bit introverted
and liked to study roots. He enjoyedlistening to Grandmother, who was a leader
of their village, and he often tagged along with Déagol when he went fishing so
he could dig in the mud.
"Smials. A word peculiar to hobbits
(not Common Speech), meaning 'burrow'; leave unchanged. It is a form that the
Old English word smygel 'burrow' might have had, if it had survived. The same
element appears in Gollum's real name, Sméagol."
― Tolkien
And then he obtains the ring out of Déagol's dead
hands. My theory behind this is that the ring was quite tired of lying in that
river for so many years, so when these hobbits got close he boosted up his
power so he’d definitely be found – he wanted to be owned again (or I guess
when he’s worn he kinda becomes the owner). Both hobbits feeling this urge,
this powerful desire could only lead to murder.
Sméagol, being a hobbit and sturdy of mind, did not immediately feel the
overwhelming urge to kick his grandmother off her throne, but as he was not
warned for the ring’s powers he did become greedy for little things; he became
what you could call 'naughty'. He started to
steal from others, which is
quite easy when you
can be invisible. Eventually the grandmother grows tired of his shenanigans and
sends him away. And even then Gollum doesn’t exactly become greedy: he looks up
and sees the Misty Mountains, and he thinks
"It
would be cool and shady under those mountains. The Sun could not watch me
there. The roots of those mountains must be roots indeed; there must be great
secrets buried there which have not been discovered since the beginning." All things considered, Sméagol seems to be
quite the biologist to me
, maybe even a
philosopher. He has ambition, yes, but not to own or
to lead.
So then
he begins his hermit existence in the deepest of caves in the Misty Mountains for a couple of hundreds of years. And of
course such a thing changes you. He forgets his own name and
starts to call himself Gollum – quite frankly, he reminds me of a
half-senile grampa that demands to be pampered and spoon-fed but still manages to flick the beans to the TV with deadly precision. Quite a stereotype indeed. Gollum’s
desires are simple: fish and darkness. And while these two are amplified to the
extreme, they do no damage to the world beyond the one he has created around
his hypothetical hospital bed: plenty of fish nearby if you live on a giant
lake, and you can’t get pitch-blacker than being under a frickin mountain.
Then Bilbo comes and goes, taking the Precious with him. The only thing that
had any value to Gollum, the only memory from his past, peaceful life – never
mind the inner turmoil (the ring, whilst still influencing Gollum by merely
existing, must be less powerful when it’s not in such near vicinity) when The Ring
loosens its
hold
over his mind. Speaking of a major existential crisis of elephaunt proportions.
Then Gollum starts to wander all over Middle-Earth,
following Bilbo’s footsteps all the way to the Lonely Mountain and back, and
then eventually to Mordor. And there he meets a 'friend'.
I’ll give you a clue. She has too many legs and eyes.
Shelob is pure, pure evil. She’s the
essence of
evil. She will kill your kittens and dribble their intestines down your throat
when you’re sleeping. She’s fucking gross and eeeeeeevil. She literally vomits darkness.
Nobody owns her, though Sauron likes to claim ownership – she
does and eats whatever she damn well pleases. And
for some reason she “spares” Gollum. Maybe it’s because he loves darkness, all
we know is that she takes hold of his mind, clouding it with darkness.
This is important.
When Gollum was alone in his cave under the Misty Mountains he was always
talking to his ring or just complaining out loud, which sounds relatively sane.
But the Andy-Serkis-Should-Have-Gotten-An-oscar-For-This scene where Gollum
talks to himself? That’s Shelob. She is “the green gleam in his eyes” when he
is up to something – like luring hobbits to their graves, which happens to be Shelob's
lair. It isn’t the ring that gives him the
split personality: it’s literally Shelob being a fucking long-distance parasite
(creeped out much?) that Gollum can only seem to control when Frodo is being
friendly to him.
Guys, this is why Gollum is such a relatable character. Because we all have a
bit of Shelob’s voice in us that we try to suppress, no matter how often it hisses
at us that we don’t have any friends and that nobody likes us. And it doesn’t
matter how often we yell at it to leave now and never come back, it will always
sneak back up on us when we’re alone. We just have to hope that we’ll have a
friend to stab our Shelobs in the stomach so the voice will temporarily back
off -
which might even be done by a stupid, fat,
hobbit.
And people still ask me what I see in this ‘fairytale’.
Just one more thing. There is a very important scene with Gollum in chapter 2
of book 4 where Gollum is talking to himself and Sam overhears him plotting.
“Gollum was talking to himself. Sméagol
was holding a debate with some other thought that used the same voice but made
it squeak and hiss. A pale light and a green light alternated in his eyes as he
spoke.”
I won’t put the whole hissing debate here where ‘green lights’ is trying to
convince ‘pale lights’ to take the ring and kill the hobbits. Green lights is
convinced that if they take the ring, then they are the master, and since they
promised to be nice ‘to the master of the ring’ it would be okay to kill the
hobbits. Pale lights doesn’t want to kill Frodo, because Frodo is nice to him.
“No, sweet one. See, my precious: if we
has it, then we can escape, even from Him, eh? Perhaps we grow very strong,
stronger than Wraiths. Lord Sméagol? Gollum the great? The Gollum! Eat
fish every day, three times a day, fresh from the sea. Most Precious Gollum!
Must have it. We wants it, we wants it, we wants it!”
At this point poor Sméagol is battling the power of the ring over his mind. The
power of the ring grows stronger the closer it gets to its true master, and for
the first time Gollum truly becomes so greedy that he wants to rule. Let me
remind you that it only took Galadriel five seconds. I think that deserves some
recognition.
I am not sure how much of Shelob is present in this debate – the greed is
definitely the ring, the tricking as well. But I do recognise the feeling of
wanting to push everyone away when I am feeling very, very sad. I think it is
partly Shelob who wants to destroy Gollum’s only chance of healing emotionally.
Green lights eventually reminds Pale lights of ‘her'. Shelob can kill them for him so he can
take the ring after she’s thrown away the bones. Sméagol doesn’t give in yet,
but he does lead them to Cirith Ungol. He’s not sure if he will warn Shelob
that there’s a meal of fresh hobbit meat coming. But then Frodo ‘betrays’ him
in Ithilien. He surrenders Gollum to the hands of the men of Gondor, yet Gollum
doesn’t know that the other option would have been his death. So it is this,
this last betrayal by the only one who was truly nice to him, that pushes him
to malice.
I just
thought I needed to explain this.
Until next time,
Bejoes
PS: compare the emotional state between '
Hobbit' Gollum and '
Two Towers' Gollum. PJ, you're awesome.
