Split Personality?

[davem]

Originally Posted by alatar

Nice post, davem. But what of PJ's Gollum?

PJ's Gollum is an innocent, a nice, friendly guy out fishing with his friend who is instantly corrupted by the Ring. That's PJ's take on it - the Ring instantly corrupts anyone who comes into contact with it, rather than just tempting them. The point of the Ring in the book is that its both the most powerful & the weakest thing in M-e - if you claim it & use it its the most powerful thing. If you ignore it, leave it by the wayside (as Faramir put it) its powerless. In Tolkien's M-e you can make a moral choice not to claim it, & therefore it can gain no hold on you. It only has power over those who succumb to it. Anyone 'taken over' by the Ring has made a choice to be taken over - even Frodo right at the end has chosen to claim the Ring, though at that point he is so weakened & psychologically vulnerable that it was almost (but only almost) inevitable.