Gollum
 

After Gollum is in possesion of the ring..Do you think that Gollum becomes purely evil? Or is he just severly tainted? Especially in light of the end of the book when Gollum is standing at the mouth of Mount Doom and still wants the ring for himself..

hopelessly addicted

From Letter No. 153:

Hmm...I've quoted this four times today!

Anyway, this comment from one of Tolkien's letters explains the free will and nature of beings in Ea (Ea = creation, the universe).

The Silmarillion says the same about Melkor:

All of the beings in Ea have free will apart from what Eru would have them do (and at the same time, it is what Eru wants them to do ultimately, as he has given them this free will). Because of *and* in spite of this free will, because they are of Eru, that is, existing in his world, they are bound to the ultimate goodness of him that is, of course, exemplified in his creation.

Basically, because Gollum was allowed to be a part of Eru's creation, he had an ultimately good core that was bound to come out and would come out as a part of Eru's design. That good came out in his inadvertent sacrifice. You know - the old "There's good in everyone" concept.

Yea, Legalos,

When you say,

I would agree insofar as reminding you that ... "a traitor may betray himself, and do good that he does not intend."

I like your choice of quotes. Though you've cited the first one four times in one day, well does it withstand the wear of repetition. As for the second quote, it's one that resonates with me such that I ofttimes refer to it myself.

Hail and well met, good Elf. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

At your Service, * bows *

Gandalf the Grey

[ November 25, 2002: Message edited by: Gandalf_theGrey ]

I don't think he was so bad that he was unredeemable, but he was pretty bad. Reading through the books for the first time, I actually kinda liked and pitied Gollum, until I got toward the end of TTT. I think it would be like a drunkard, only worse. When they are drunk, they might do bad stuff. But, that doesn't make them purely evil or unredeemable. If they could get away from their addiction and it didn't get them killed or something, they could eventually be completely away from it. I think the One Ring has an even stronger hold, though. I hope this makes sense! I'm really tired, so I might not be very clear.
Arwen, Queen of Gondor

Gollum's desire for the ring at Mount Doom is not individual. Anyone, presented with this journey, choice, and final attempt, would likely succumb to the tempting power of the ring. Frodo and Gollum both did, and luckily the twin desires cancelled each other out and finger, ring, and Gollum all ended up in the fires. I can't think of a character who wouldn't try to take the ring at the last moment. The pull would be too strong.

well it depends on the length of time you have it doesn't it-whether it's near or far?-but I think nearer will be more effective...

I think that Gollum had been under the control of the ring for such a long time that the power had overwhelemed all his senses and he had such a desire for the ring that nothing could prevent him from getting it back.

All his senses were overpowered and he did not realise the fear and the danger he was in through out the time on Mount DOom as the Ring was the only thing of concern to him

Remember what Gollum did to gain possession of the Ring. At the very least, he must have been more selfish than Frodo, who certainly never contemplated murdering Bilbo for the Ring. Although Frodo refused to relinquish it at the Cracks of Doom, he yet consistently displayed a very different character than Golllum.

In The Two Towers, remember when the old Smeagol began to resurface? If Gollum was completely given over to evil, he would have been incapable of such a change.

I'm just throwing this out there, since I'm unable at the moment to really study on this subject. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

I kinda pity gollum more than anything.
When he was Smeagol and he killed his friend could it not have been the power of the ring making him do that as it wanted to be found. Or maybe he was already kinda evil inside when he was Smeagol because the ring could maybe hve been content with deagol. However, when Gollum is being scitzophrenic(i don't know if i've spelt that right) in TTT, Sam dislikes the Smeagol side too even though he is supposed to be the kind of "good" gollum and i personally trust Sam's judgement.
The thing i actually kind of admire about Gollum is in TTT when he actually keeps to the promise he made on the ring (even though he almost breaks a few times). For this reason i would have to say that i like him more than Wormtongue who I think is the most dispicable character in the novel.
What about everyone else?
luv
elise xxx

Oooh i was also going to say that when he speaks in the first person he is being more like his true self and just judging by the things he says in the first person, he actually seems quite reasonable.
Maybe he was just more suseptable to the evil of the ring when he first saw it than frodo or any of the company was. i mean, could boromir have turned out like gollum if frodo had given him the ring??
mm i wonder, and then, we would all pity him because we knew his personality before the evil of the ring started working on him. So, seeing as we don't know gollum's exact personality before the ring took hold, maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt
love elise xxx

[ November 25, 2002: Message edited by: Earendil evening star ]

Gandalf - I agree totally. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] I did not intend to imply otherwise.

This inadvertent action further proves the perfection of Eru's design. Whether or not a being in Eru's world is thinking for good or for evil (or whether or not they are controlling their actions in direct accordance to their own will), the being can do (or be influenced to do) as he/she (or their influence) wishes, but because of the ultimate good contained in every part of creation, things will work out the way they're "supposed to" work out.

Gollum's ultimate goodness was his clumsiness/forgetfulness (losing the Ring for Bilbo to find) and his strong propensity to lust after the Ring that destroyed it. Even Sauron had an ultimate good. Sauron's ultimate good was that he a) created a means to destroy himself and in the process of its destruction, b) he made way for a new era in Middle-earth, moving the elves, including the Wise, to Valinor so that men could take over as they were destined to.

[ November 25, 2002: Message edited by: Legalos ]

I think each of the individuals confronted by the power and temptation of the ring only had as much propensity to do evil as their ambition would lead them to. For example, Galadriel would be an evil queen: lots of power and beauty, and then the twisting of it (which was was good when submitted to her role as given by Eru) to a greater evil. I don't think Smeagle ever had the same potential to do that kind of evil (let's think of Gandalf, Aragorn, and even Boromir as other examples of possilbe "Dark Lords"--and I use the term loosely, so don't berate me for it).

Once again, from my viewpoint, it has to do with choices made by the individuals. The end result for Gollum is he chose evil (as someone said before, it was consistent with his other choices). Frodo had a moment of weakness, but was redeemed....Boromir had a moment of major weakness (redeemed in a warrior's death?). My point is that: though no one can say who was ultimately "redeemed" or who was ultimately "condemned", I DO think that we can see by the character development Tolkien gave that there were people who chose evil and were evil, but because of a greater design than their own, good came of their evil intent. I do not think, however, that it means that they were ultimately GOOD.

Sure it does - Tolkien even said so, no?

Good becoming of their evil intent is *ultimate* goodness. Ultimate being 'in the end,' 'finally,' etc. The point Tolkien was making is that no matter what side they choose (good or evil), the result will be good in the end (because of the beings in Ea being an independent extension of Eru's own mind - subject to their free will, but hopelessly tied to his fundamental nature).

I was using "ultimately" as a bad replacement for "inherently", sorry (need to define my terms better)! But, I do want to clear that up and say: though I believe Eru, as the creator of ME, had ultimate control (and therefore the good accomplished or the evil committed had the conclusion of "ultimate good", I also believe that he created the individuals to have their own wills as well (The Ainur being a great example of this). I think this was written as a reflection of Tolkien's own beliefs about Christianity (free-will and predestination) or have I misinterpreted? (highly possible).

So my next question is this: when someone does evil, and yet the end result is good, does that make the evil-doer good, or perhaps the Being who has authority over that evil-doer? And how does a being tainted by evil ever become "good" again (in the pure form of good, which is what I'm using throughout my comments, to define it appropriately)? [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

I've started a new thread for the evil discussion here!