[Lord of Angmar]

I agree with Saucepan and a few others in this particular discussion in the theory that any misconceptions by non-Tolkien readers about Gollum's "sweetness" cannot be attributed to a failure on Peter Jackson's part. I thoroughly enjoyed Gollum's part in the Two Towers, but it did not make me like him any more or less.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>I wonder about this idea, mainly because I think Tolkien also said somewhere in his letters that the Ring would not have gained such quick power over Smeagol had he not been a mean sort of creature to begin with.(Lyta)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I disagree with the idea that Gollum was definitely a "mean sort of creature" before he got the Ring because he killed Deagol for the Ring. After all, look at Boromir. Though he may have been proud and sometimes wilfull, I would certainly not call him "mean," and yet he probably would have taken Frodo's life to get the Ring had Frodo not escaped. It seems to me that in Smeagol's case, that one act of murder, caught up in a sudden lust for the Ring, was enough to attach him to the Ring and to corrupt him. I see his action towards Deagol as not necessarily a function of Smeagol's negative tendencies (although I am sure he had many). This is rather a digression from the initial subject, but I do hope that, in the opening sequence of the Return of the King movie in which Smeagol murders Deagol, Smeagol is not portrayed as wholly or mostly Gollum-ish to begin with.