The One Ring and split personalities

[Alfirin]

Let's not forget that Gollum has also spent literally centuries basically on his own in his cave with absolutely no one to talk to. He wouldn't be the first time isolated indivisual to develop an alter ego just to have someone to talk to. And since Hobbits are already higly social enteties, that probably made the compuction even worse.
That being said, I thinke there may actually be some sort of tendency in the ring to split personalities. Consider Frodo's behavior as the ring took him over vis a vis any time he thoght the ring was in peril. He went all the way from normal gentle Frodo to a near homicidal maniac almost instantly. And while he "faded" as the burden got heavier (with regards to his hope and his memories of the better time he was figting to preserve) we really saw no "middle ground" Frodo; one whom was partially under the rings power, but not totally. When the ring took him over, it was almost like flipping a switch, he turned all the way to fully posessed in a heartbeat. Even Sam when he took the ring bsically went from thought of his garden to thoughts of being a world conquering warlord almost at once.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

I thinke there may actually be some sort of tendency in the ring to split personalities. Consider Frodo's behavior as the ring took him over vis a vis any time he thoght the ring was in peril. He went all the way from normal gentle Frodo to a near homicidal maniac almost instantly. And while he "faded" as the burden got heavier (with regards to his hope and his memories of the better time he was figting to preserve) we really saw no "middle ground" Frodo; one whom was partially under the rings power, but not totally. When the ring took him over, it was almost like flipping a switch, he turned all the way to fully posessed in a heartbeat. Even Sam when he took the ring bsically went from thought of his garden to thoughts of being a world conquering warlord almost at once.

Yet we don't see Frodo or Sam referring to themselves in the plural. The Ring acting on one's darker side is hardly the same as an actual "split personality" like Gollum exhibited, in which two sides of the psyche were apparently at odds, and even spoke to one another.