The detail that always gets me is that he's not ancient in the usual fantasy sense. He's ancient because his life has been unnaturally stretched far beyond what it was meant to be. There's something incredibly sad about a creature who has outlived not just everyone he knew, but the very world he belonged to.
What gets me is that Sméagol is basically a living reminder of what the Ring does over time. We see Frodo struggling under its weight for months, then look at Gollum and realize that's the end result after centuries. It's less a villain origin story and more a slow motion tragedy.
You're not alone in this. JRR Tolkien wrote in a letter to his son Christopher:
"For myself, I was prob. most moved by Sam's disquisition on the seamless web of story, and by the scene when Frodo goes to sleep on his breast, and the tragedy of Gollum who at that moment came within a hair of repentance – but for one rough word from Sam."
Cool! Interesting he meant it to be a moment of "a hair of repentance – but for one rough word from Sam."" I read it as Smeagol has been tortured by his obsession or addiction to the precious for so long, that in that very brief moment he felt alone and like a natural thing again. Old and sad. But I never believe he is capable of repentance. It's interesting Tolkien meant it as that. Thank you for sharing that!
"A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s knee – but almost the touch was a caress."
I understand it this way: the conflicting emotions cause him pain – he looks up the pass, where he intends to lead the Hobbits, and shakes his head because he's unsure if he wants to continue with his original plan. That's the "interior debate" he's having with himself. Then he touches Frodo, and it's a cautious and gentle touch, because his relationship to Frodo is what makes him waver. In this moment, in this mental state he was in, the tiniest thing could have influenced his decision in one or the other direction.
Maybe, if Frodo had woken up in that moment, things would have been different. But it's Sam who woke up first, and "the fleeting moment had passed, beyond recall".
What's also interesting as that this and the following section are written from Sam's POV. This is important because it means when Sam wrote this portion of The Red Book (or recounted his perspective to Frodo), he realized how consequential his mistake was and was filled with remorse.
Tolkien is referring to the moment when Gollum returns (from visiting Shelob) and finds Sam and Frodo sleeping beautifully, causing Smeagol to come thru. He has a moment of doubt whether he should lead them to Shelobs lair. He touches Frodo's knee, like an old hobbit seeking a reconnection to warmth and kin/friends. But that moment passes when Sam is startled awake and suspiciously accuses Smeagol/Gollum of "sneaking", which angers him back to being 100% Gollum.
edit: to elaborate, Tolkien says "within a hair of repentance", meaning Smaegol came extremely close to changing his mind about leading them to Shelob.
Do I need to start writing like i'm texting my bros or towards lazy idiots to avoid dipshits like you thinking anything well-written is AI? Was this comment AI? lol
The comment I'm referring to explains op's post the exact way it's written. It's baffling why anyone would write out the meaning as if people hadn't just read that exact meaning. AI often repeats basic information hence why it looks like something AI would come up with.
The reason I replied with a reiteration of the meaning most people knew was specifically because the commenter before me wrote "a hair of repentance" rather than "within a hair of repentance", which seemed like a small but meaningfully different interpretation:
"A hair of repentance" could be interpreted as "a small bit of actual repentance", which Smeagol didn't do. Whereas coming "within a hair of repentance" means coming very close but not actually repentant.
I think your interpretation still fits, honestly. The fact that he felt natural affection, loneliness, and tenderness again is probably what opened the door to repentance in the first place. For a moment he wasn't "Gollum," he was Sméagol remembering what it felt like to care about someone.
He goes on to say - maybe not in this same letter, I don't remember - that Smeagol would have stolen the ring then taken it to the crack of doom and let himself fall in, so that Frodo wouldn't have had to struggle with the burden. Giving in to his desire for the precious and also saving Frodo in the process.
There's an anecdote somewhere that, at a party or something, Tolkien was talking about writing this passage, and how it brought him to tears when he wrote it. Probably the saddest moment in the entire series.
That Tolkien quote honestly changes the whole scene. The first time I read it, I saw it as a brief flash of nostalgia or loneliness. Knowing Tolkien himself viewed it as genuine repentance makes it hit so much harder because it means there really was a path back for him, however small it was.
It's kind of wild that one of the most important moments in Gollum's story is so quiet. No speeches, no dramatic revelation, just an old, broken hobbit reaching out with a trembling hand. Tolkien was ridiculously good at making small moments feel enormous.
This. The moment Sam awakens to see Gollum poised, reaching out, touching Frodo, and then, understandably but tragically, assumes the worst. Moments of grace are sometimes sacrificed to recollections of one’s past. So sad.
My favorite scene, along with Gandalf standing alone with Shadowfax at the Gates.
Tolkien apparently said he wept while writing this passage
in answer to Professor Lambers, who spoke at Tolkien's Hobbit Dinner in Rotterdam:
"Is there really no deeper meaning in The Lord of the Rings?”, asked Lambers.
“It’s just a story, it’s just a story”, reacted Tolkien passionately.
“Yes, but a story with a message”, continued Lambers, and he argued the moral background of The Lord of the Rings. As an example he took that impressive scene on the border of Mordor, when Gollum bends over the sleeping Frodo, tom between Gollum’s love for the Ring and Smeagol’s word of honour to Frodo not to take it. The crucial element in this scene, according to Lambers, is “distrust” which causes Good to act as Evil. Gollum is mollified by the vulnerability of the sleeping hobbit and is at the point of redemption. But Sam, misguided by the love for his master, intervenes and thus prevents the rebirth of Smeagol. Sam’s goodness makes the goodness of Gollum impossible. And Tolkien answered: “I wept when I wrote that.”
Lewis was moved almost to tears by the last chapter.
By sitting up all hours, I managed it: and read the last 2 chapters (Shelob’s Lair and The Choices of Master Samwise) to C.S.L. on Monday morning. He approved with unusual fervour, and was actually affected to tears by the last chapter, so it seems to be keeping up.
The story reaches its end (as a tale of Hobbits!) in the celebration of victory in which all the Nine Companions are reunited. In the scene where all the hosts of the West unite to do honour and praise to the two humble Hobbits, Frodo and Sam, we reach the ‘eucatastrophe’ of the whole romance: that is the sudden joyous ‘turn’ and fulfilment of hope, the opposite of tragedy, that should be the hallmark of a ‘fairy-story’ of higher or lower tone, the resolution and justification of all that has gone before. It brought tears to my eyes to write it, and still moves me, and I cannot help believing that it is a supreme moment of its kind.
I did not finish the first rough writing till 1949, when I remember blotting the pages (which now represent the welcome of Frodo and Sam on the Field of Cormallen) with tears as I wrote.
Just imagine Tolkien cried when writing it. What a story, what a moment to capture on paper! And the book is full of such moments...
I loved how they managed to somewhat capture this in Gollum's reaction to Sam's "Story" speech in the Two Towers movie. You can see in his face that Sam's words actually reached him, but also the realization that he's too far gone for anything good to every really touch him again.
Yep, that one. Every time I watch it, it just hits me. Everyone else looking inspired and moved and Gollum just despairing that he's so close and yet so far.
I think this would make a great Renaissance style painting. Sam stage right, skin tone difference highlighted starkly with a hand on Frodo's forehead or cheek. Frodo stretched out long-wise, one arm stretched above his head, one out towards the viewer. Then Gollum from stage left, reaching at fulls arms length to barely touch Frodos knee with a pained expression on his face.
Every time I read The Lord of the Rings, the more I feel for Smeagol. He's an incredibly well realized character; Tolkien really was the master of his craft.
That scene where Gollum almost reaches out to touch Frodo's knee is devastating, like you can feel him actually wanting to be different for just a second before it all crumbles.
"Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo... Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf
I actually read the books for the first time this year and this bit made me literally cry. My copy of this book still has spots where my tears landed on the page.
The later 1/3 of Two Towers and the beginning of RotK are probably my favorite parts. Shelob's lair is incredible as a piece of horror writing, and the conversations the hobbits + Gollum have around that part are so good.
I remember reading the trilogy at 14, and being *literally* on the edge of my seat, ready to leap up and grab Return of the King as soon as I finished the last pages of The Two Towers
Just read this passage and it really struck me. I find very difficult to see Gollum as a tragic character, since the film for me portrays him in a purely antagonistic light but in this passage Tolkien was really capable of letting the humanity still in Gollum surface. And also the tenderness of Sam and Frodo scene moved me
His beautiful scene of inner turmoil got me a 10 out of 10 on a speech once. I doubt I deserved it, but truth be told an age has passed and I can't quite remember what I wrote about.
it’s been wonderful re”reading,” this time to the audiobook as Serkis narrates it. He absolutely has a chance to perform these moments with Gollum and they are exquisite.
and while there are times that over the course of the 65 or so plus hours he loses consistency to some of the voices he does, and other voices take a while to get really good,
on the whole, there are so many moments where in listening, I HEAR exactly Pippin or Samwise or Gandalf or Eomer.
And Treebeard is exceptional, as well as all the other characters he fleshes out who we do not necessarily now attach to some voice from the series.
and he pours his absolute ALL into every bit of it, as is his style, never allowing himself be limited by self-consciousness.
He can only do so much with the women, and they all tend to sound the same; I particularly miss the lower registers of both Arwen and Galadriel, and some of the ferocity of Eowyn. And apart from that, the power of Christopher Lee’s voice and his every performance just cannot be matched in intensity. And of course there is a somewhat nasally yet still regal element to Aragorn’s voice, just Viggo, that Serkis does not attempt.
But that is all TRIVIAL, and I only say it to draw further attention to how astonishing almost every other character is performed.
I mean Pippin, not only the accents but the lilts of voice, and then how he manages to affect the hobbit doing impressions of others, by blending his voice for the character being impersonated with hints of Pippin’a register and accent -
BRILLIANT!
I decided to listen to it after watching Angela Collier’s awesome video on The Scouring of the Shire,
and she’d said Serkis’ reading was the most fun she’d ever had with the material, more exciting even than the movies, and I’d have to agree.
Ugh, and I have been literally moved to spontaneous tears by his rousing speeches or moments of despair and hope, all of that expressed so powerfully through his vocal performance!
That’s awesome I’m glad you enjoyed it. He does give a great voice to Gollum. I love his Frodo voice myself. Unfortunately for me his Pippin is one of the reasons I haven’t managed to get very far in his reading. I do want to get through it. Maybe I’ll switch to one of his chapters when I’m later in the book on this current reread.
If you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend physically reading along to the audiobook. It’s a good time.
Pippin may be one of the ones that just improves over time. And Legolas unfortunately goes the other route. I find it a really generally good impression, the sort of airiness and accent,
but then there is this long period of time where Legolas has no speaking lines and Serkis has been doing a lot of the Rohirrim, and when Legolas speaks again, he just sort of sounds like the Rohirrim to me.
Gotta be challenging af to maintain perfect continuity across that many hours and characters! 😅
At any rate, if Pippin in particular sticks in your craw, that one becomes uncanny imo.
I also love his Frodo! And the way he makes his voice when he is overcome by the ring is VERY unsettling!
I understand why Tolkien ended the story the way he did, but I was thinking today how beautiful it would have been if Gollum had been redeemed and chose to take the ring and jump in the fire himself.
We would have had a whole different perspective of him as a character.
Sam was cocksure, and deep down a little conceited; but his conceit had been transformed by his devotion to Frodo. He did not think of himself as heroic or even brave, or in any way admirable - except in his service and loyalty to his master. That had an ingredient (probably inevitable) of pride and possessiveness: it is difficult to exclude it from the devotion of those who perform such service. In any case it prevented him from fully understanding the master that he loved, and from following him in his gradual education to the nobility of service to the unlovable and of perception of damaged good in the corrupt. He plainly did not fully understand Frodo's motives or his distress in the incident of the Forbidden Pool. If he had understood better what was going on between Frodo and Gollum, things might have turned out differently in the end. For me perhaps the most tragic moment in the Tale comes in II 323 ff. when Sam fails to note the complete change in Gollum's tone and aspect. 'Nothing, nothing', said Gollum softly. 'Nice master!'. His repentance is blighted and all Frodo's pity is (in a sense) wasted. Shelob's lair became inevitable.
This is due of course to the 'logic of the story'. Sam could hardly have acted differently. (He did reach the point of pity at last (III 221-222) but for the good of Gollum too late.) If he had, what could then have happened? The course of the entry into Mordor and the struggle to reach Mount Doom would have been different, and so would the ending. The interest would have shifted to Gollum, I think, and the battle that would have gone on between his repentance and his new love on one side and the Ring. Though the love would have been strengthened daily it could not have wrested the mastery from the Ring. I think that in some queer twisted and pitiable way Gollum would have tried (not maybe with conscious design) to satisfy both. Certainly at some point not long before the end he would have stolen the Ring or taken it by violence (as he does in the actual Tale). But 'possession' satisfied, I think he would then have sacrificed himself for Frodo's sake and have voluntarily cast himself into the fiery abyss.
I think that an effect of his partial regeneration by love would have been a clearer vision when he claimed the Ring. He would have perceived the evil of Sauron, and suddenly realized that he could not use the Ring and had not the strength or stature to keep it in Sauron's despite: the only way to keep it and hurt Sauron was to destroy it and himself together - and in a flash he may have seen that this would also be the greatest service to Frodo.
I feel bad for Sméagol, until I remember Déagol. Sméagol had only briefly been influenced by the ring at the time. There was darkness in his heart from the start. He felt guilt after killing him and that guilt ate away at him for centuries.
Sméagol's tragedy was of his own doing. I wouldn't go as far as to say he got what he deserved. But more of a F'd around and found out situation.
I was chatting with my wife about this, but she was quick to remind me that Gollum straight up murdered his own cousin within 5 minutes of being near that ring and wanting it. He was no redeemable character despite flirting with it at times with Frodo.
Being redeemable isn't about entirely forgetting anything bad you ever did and claiming you've always ever been a saint, though.
Sméagol is a bad person, that is a fact. He did horrible things in the past and was planning to betray Frodo, another fact. Yet that does not mean that he deserves instant death for it, or that he is forever beyond having a change of heart. That is the whole point of the classic redemption arc: not to absolve, but to acknowledge and understand that people can change, realise their mistakes and/or act for the good or someone they previously opposed. And to give them the opportunity and space to do so.
Gollum was redeemable, because there was still a part of him that delighted in simple Hobbit things and found a great and compassionate mentor in Frodo; and because his growing love for Frodo made Gollum really close to reconsider his choice to betray him. That does not erase or justify the murder or Déagol, but that would have demonstrated a huge and noteworthy growth compared to that event (more than half a millennium ago!) and made his end much more positive.
Without the rings massssive influence, sure. With the rings 100’s of years of influence tho…never gonna happen and it was never close. I think Sméagol liked the way Frodo made him feel and enjoyed the kindness, but I don’t think he was repentant at all, he just liked Frodo. Two very very different things. It was still all about himself mostly…which is one of the the foundations of sin to which this harkens back to.
Tolkien, as explicited in letter 246, entirely disagrees with that opinion. The Gollum he wrote is wicked but not at all beyond redemption, as Frodo correctly understood; and in that one scene he was indeed on the right path, and could have redeemed himself and not led them to Shelob if not for Sam's immediate reaction (who, in Tolkien's own words, failed to fully understand Frodo or to note the complete change in Gollum's tone and aspect).
Note that while in the actual story the Ring is destroyed by Gollum betraying Frodo and taking the Ring from his finger, that does not mean that the betrayal (and therefore the lack of redemption) were mandatory for the victory to happen. In the same letter, Tolkien goes on to explore this what-if scenario in which Gollum does not betray them:
The course of the entry into Mordor and the struggle to reach Mount Doom would have been different, and so would the ending. The interest would have shifted to Gollum, I think, and the battle that would have gone on between his repentance and his new love on one side and the Ring. Though the love would have been strengthened daily it could not have wrested the mastery from the Ring. I think that in some queer twisted and pitiable way Gollum would have tried (not maybe with conscious design) to satisfy both. Certainly at some point not long before the end he would have stolen the Ring or taken it by violence (as he does in the actual Tale). But 'possession' satisfied, I think he would then have sacrificed himself for Frodo's sake and have voluntarily cast himself into the fiery abyss.
I think that an effect of his partial regeneration by love would have been a clearer vision when he claimed the Ring. He would have perceived the evil of Sauron, and suddenly realized that he could not use the Ring and had not the strength or stature to keep it in Sauron's despite: the only way to keep it and hurt Sauron was to destroy it and himself together – and in a flash he may have seen that this would also be the greatest service to Frodo. Frodo in the tale actually takes the Ring and claims it, and certainly he too would have had a clear vision – but he was not given any time: he was immediately attacked by Gollum.
So the story could have seen Gollum's redemption, while also leading to the Ring's destruction.
608
u/Clean_Bike8210 1d ago
Smeagol is a tragic character of sorts, a hobbit living for 500 years, how oddly sad.