My Precious?

[Firefoot]

Gollum spoke like that because he was a severely muddled individual.

That's why he's so interesting. However, I don't think that this is the only reason Gollum spoke like that. Gollum certainly isn't stupid - in fact he is quite clever - and he has a fairly strong understanding of what the Ring is (at the time of LotR, anyhow) and its larger implications on himself, Frodo, and Sauron. At the time of the Hobbit, you might make the argument that he was simply severely muddled. The Ring was simply his precious and his birthday present, and a useful tool for going about invisibly, and he had been driven nearly insane by his solitude. Even then, though, he had intelligence and wiliness, so I do not think the term 'precious' was simply one he had picked up in his mad ravings. It meant something to him. There were very few things that mattered to Gollum: his precious self, his precious Ring, and fisssh. As he grew more attached to the Ring, he became more like it, associating himself with it, and thereby giving himself and it the same name.

So I do not think you can say Gollum's speech patterns came only from his muddled-ness (though, I grant that it was a large factor), which was a direct result of his possession of the Ring. It is more complex than that.

Gollum/Smeagol Re: It occurred to me that the contexts in which the two personalities use the term "precious" are very different. Gollum uses it referring to himself and having lost it - very selfish terms, focused only on himself. Smeagol solely uses the precious to refer to the Ring, and in these cases it is capitolized. It is then simply another name for the Ring, which though it grew from Gollum's usage of the word, it has very separate connotations indeed.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

I am not convinced that it is more complex than that. I don't think Gollum put too much thought into how to properly use the word precious. He just bandied it about rather carelessly, which is precisely the kind of thing that you do if you're having quite tremendous personal and psychological problems as Gollum clearly was.

[ninlaith]

Ok here's what I think...even if it is a little mixed up. Isildur called the ring precious. Or it was precious truly more like it. I think when Gollum acquired the ring the essence of Isildur sort of stuck to the ring and Gollum started calling the ring his precious. Then as the ring started to consume his mind, the precious started consuming him and becoming a part of him. The part of him that he called my precious when he was talking to himself. If you remeber Smeagol used pet names while he was still a Hobbit. Give that to us Deagol my love. So i guess Gollum just really likes pet names. I don't really know. That's just always been the way I've percieved it.

[burrahobbit]

It didn't have anything to do with Isildur.

[Sapphire_Flame]

Ah, the return of the scarily short responses. o.O Way to go, Eomer and burra.

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

I don't think Gollum put too much thought into how to properly use the word precious. He just bandied it about rather carelessly, which is precisely the kind of thing that you do if you're having quite tremendous personal and psychological problems as Gollum clearly was.

That's a very good point. I think it could have become just something he said, with little significance behind it. It could be rather like some people will habitually say "I love you" when terminating a phone call with someone close to them. It becomes a habit; so whether they consciously decide to say it or not, it still comes out.

I do think there may be a difference between "precious" and "The Precious", however. The Precious does seem to be in reference to the Ring. "precious", uncapitalized, seems to just be the habitual term Gollum/Smeagol uses when talking to others or himself. Perhaps it's like an "affectionate" (heh) moniker, such as "dear" or something to that effect. And, as I stated above, Gollum's use of it could be purely subconscious.

~ Saphy ~