Quote:
|
Deserving of sympathy is very different than deserving of redemption (or forgiveness, for that matter).
|
But, if you are looking at it from the perspective of the reader, they can be the same. If the reader feels sympathy for Gollum (and there is much in the books to evoke such a feeling), then might he not be redeemed in the reader's eyes? Or, does the fact that his final act is a selfish (albeit fortuitous) one supersede any sympathy we might have felt for him?