Did Gollum deserve death?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Raynor

So, he has morality only when he has to resort to this defence; the only problem is he has to resort to it constantly, even when talking to Gandalf. His moral equilbrium is still highly important for him, and to appease his remorse he resists a lot of Gandalf's pressure. First and foremost he hides the truth from himself, because it still hurts him to acknowledge he is evil.

No he isn't 'evil'. He does evil things.

such a problem that you mention does not exist, in a world where knowledge outside current time and space is still acessible to istari, Men and Elves - esspecially since with the palantir, Gandalf could have looked as back as Feanor creating. I am sorry, but this is a laughable defense, in utter disregard of the story, its elements, and its logic. Even in the text, after the hobbits awake, his voice is at first soft, and then he hisses when he is further pushed, and a green glint flickers in his eyes; Tolkien commented several times about the lack of sophistication of Sam, and how he so missed seeing the change in Gollum.

This simply doesn't stand up. How could anyone within the story possibly know what was going through Gollum's mind at that point? I still say that 'repent' in the context in which it is used in ToY does not imply Gollum concieves of himself as 'evil'. Repenting of leading the Hobbits to Shelob is not repenting of his whole life. What do you consider this 'repentance' consists of - that for a fleeting moment he had decided to help Frodo complete the Quest & destroy the Ring? There was never any point at which Gollum would have even contemplated such a thing. He was overwhelmed by loneliness & despair & didn't want to see Frodo dead. That's all he 'repented' - killing Frodo, the only person in an age who had showed him any compassion.