[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

If anyone can interpret the books in any way they see fit, what was the point of such lengthly posts? It would have taken maybe a couple of sentences from each of us to state our personal opinions, after which there would no longer be any point in discussion, because there would be no further basis to support one side or the other. I can't help feeling that I wasted the six hours I spent posting above, since clearly all the research I did was worthless, and my opinion meaningless. After all, it's not based on objective proof: anyone can read whatever they want to into anything.

Rubbish. Even A-level literary criticism demands that you provide quotation and analysis to support your reactions to the text. Simply stating an opinion, even one that can be fully supported by such quotation and analysis will get you at best a C. In any case, why should we disregard Tolkien's opinion when it is not contradicted by the text? Even when discussing his own work he offers citations to support his arguments, so at the very least we should afford him the same status as any other knowledgeable critic. If our own opinions and reactions are all that matters, then this entire discussion forum is a complete waste of bandwidth: just a group of misfits talking at one another and demanding nothing less than slavish agreement. Wherever there are dissenting opinions, only recourse to an agreed objective standard prevents protracted and increasingly acrimonious stalemate, such as has arisen here.

Now that I've got that off my chest, if Gollum is not responsible for his actions then his near-repentence in TT is meaningless. If he is responsible for his actions then he is also morally culpable. If we are to give him credit for coming so close to a change of heart, we must also give him responsibility for his crimes. Indeed, true pity could never be offered to the insane, since their madness forms a third party to which their crimes can be attributed. One cannot be forgiven for the sins of someone else. Therefore, in order to be rehabilitated and healed, Gollum must be fully and knowingly culpable in all his actions. His madness: what I suppose would popularly be called 'multiple personality disorder' results from his attempts to externalise his own guilt, and to deny his actions. He is not the only character to be faced with this decision: Saruman is also offered the chance to repent, atone and be forgiven; he too denies it out of pride and distrust, and so falls from grace. It is a hard moral philosophy, but one that can be traced through Tolkien's letters and his fiction; it seems even harder today, when we are encouraged to do as we please, and told that hard decisions are in some way unfair or to be avoided.

Conversely the 'kind' approach that Gollum is mad and not responsible also denies him mercy in its fullest form, which is the utmost cruelty.