If Smeagol had not died...?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Gordis

I believe Gollum would almost instantly die with the Ring destroyed, turn into dust literally. It was the Ring that kept the 500++ years old hobbit alive.

Well, what you lay in front of us here is very well calculated, but I don't accept it so easily. Certainly not Arwen's statement: of course Bilbo was ancient in his age now, and of course now that the Ring was destroyed, it had some effect - on all that's been done with the power of the Rings, we know about that well (Lothlórien etc.). But that does not mean that all of a sudden, the things that were not really closely tied to the Ring (like the Nazgul) would have crumbled into dust in a minute. Bilbo (and Gollum) would just start to age even faster now than usual, true, but I do not think that it would be so dramatic.

As for your quote about dust - I believe Gollum was speaking a bit metaphorically here. He just meant that he would lose the meaning of his life, which would be the same as losing the life itself.

And if hypothetically Gollum would have survived the destruction of the Ring, his future would be bleak: madness and misery. Frodo was unable to recover from the shock of seeing the Ring gone, and he had the Ring for only 18 years. What then about Gollum who possessed the evil thing for 500 years? He was better off in the lava of Orodruin, I believe. At least his shrunken tortured soul has found peace.

All right, I more or less agree with what you say about Gollum in the end - his ending was really probably the most, well, fitting, or how to put it - one still has to consider that it would be really weird for him to survive; let us not forget that in Middle-Earth, there are certain powers at work which seem to kind of balance people's fates, and it does not seem to me - from the way I understand Arda - that Gollum the murderer would get away with it so easily. Please, now I strongly appeal on you not to get me wrong. You have to look at it from the "outside", not from the "inside". The way Gollum died just fits the pattern of the tale of Arda, if he didn't, it would seem weird. That does not mean I am saying he deserved to die, and certainly not by some inner mechanism of law that would work inside Arda. It does not seem to me to work like that. It was just fitting that he died, putting all questions of morality or law away (putting them away = not even thinking about them! Not even thinking whether they do or do not exist). Okay, I am not sure if I made much sense, but I hope the point can be seen at least a bit.

Err... all right, whatever, but what was I saying? Yes, that I agree with the end - but not with the beginning of what you say. I think, like I said, if Gollum let go, he would be able to get rid of it. And was it so that Frodo was really unable to recover from the shock of seeing the Ring gone? Does it really say so?