Gollum the Hero

[Juicy-Sweet]

Two years ago I recited Gollum's song about fish - it became classic for us. And it made me realize after a while, that in LotR there's only four characters that produce their own poetry - Sam, Tmom Bombadil, Aragorn (maybe? I'm reading his song in praise of Frodo and Sam as being improvised but it might of course be written by someone else) - and Gollum.

The thought of Gollum sitting at his lake under the Misty Mountains - my guess is he made it there - making up songs made me rethink the character entirely. I now see him as one of the most resourceful of all the LotR characters

He is an incredible traveller and explorer. There's much fuss about how incredible Aragorn is and how much he has travelled. I think Gollum is right there up with him. Gollum managed single handedly to find his way through Moria in the first go, while Gandalf had considerable difficulty finding the way the SECOND time he was there. He found his way through the Dead Marshes, seemingly being the only one that ever did so ("Swamp. Yes, yes. Come master, we will take you on safe paths through the mist. Come hobbits come. Real quickly. I found it, I did. The way through the marshes. Orcs don’t use it, orcs don’t know it. They go round for miles and miles, come quickly, swift and quick as shadows we must be.") as well as find a secret way into Mordor, something nobody else managed, ever. "One does not simply walk into Mordor" - well Gollum did pretty muct that.

This MUST demand considerable intelligence. I don''t think these things would be possible if he just scuffled around randomly and hid from everything.

His intelligence is also seen in his keen sense of danger - there are several scenes when he is the one urging the Hobbits on, before they realize the danger. Him being able to stalk the Fellowship, with some of the keest people in the world (Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas) means he is able to judge there abilities or perception very accurately.

He has been tortured in Barad-Dur and seemed pretty unscathed by it. By Sauron in person I think? He didnt seem weirder after that than before. Maybe his somewhat fractured personality protected him? Still, I find it one of the most impressive feats in Lotr to be tortured in Barad-Dur and get out while being "up and running".

- He has held his own, more or less, against the ring for a record breaking 700 years or so. He is of course badly mangled, but nowhere near at being a servant to Sauron or a wrath. I suppose he didnt war it much. Even so - stick Frodo, not to say Boromir, in a cave with only the ring for company for just 10 years, and they would have been wraths for sure.


As well I have some questions to clear up...

1: I always wondered how he managed to be ready in West Moria right when the Ring Bearer passed by. I read somewhere it was thought he had entered Moria to escape his elven pursuers, then tried passing through and get out on the West side, but found the gate closed. How did he know one could through Moria? From orcs pherhaps? This strikes me as just too much of a coincidence. He spent 77 years looking for the ring - which could be ANYWERE in Middle Earth. Then suddenly it walks right past him, after he has been sitting camping at a closed gate for months. Boy was that lucky?

So did he KNOW of THINK the ring was passing there and then waited for it. Did he somehow learn from spying on the elves that the ring probably was west of the Misty Mountains and then deduce it MIGHT pass through Moria? Did he know the Shire was west of the Mosti Mountains? He might havelearned that Saruman was hostile to Baggeinsses - and then deduced that they could not pass over Caradhras. Another possibility I like is that the ring had given him some sort of spiritual powers of foresight, so then maybe he dreamt being in Moria and Frodo passing by, much as Frodo's visionary dreams? I wonder if there's any evidence that Bilbo "kept" some of the powers bestowed by the ring after parting with it? It makes sense to me that if one had the ring for an extended amount of time, you would have a permanent (small and unreliable) window into the spirit-world.

2: I never understood what he was doing in the Cirith Ungol Pass when he met Shelob. Does anyone know? He must have tried to get into Mordor, but what on earth did he want there?

3: I consider it an increadible feat to befriend Shelob - as being that has eaten everything she sees alive, even Orcs, for thousands of years. I imagine that no matter what, when he met her, she would lounge out to kill him on sight. Somehow, he must have been able to convince her not to eat him or kill him for fun. I think this is also one of the most herois and impossible feats in LotR, and this proves he is very ressourceful. To my knowledge, the last person that formed an alliance with Shelobs kind was Morgoth himself, with Ungoliant. Nr two was Gollum

4: Many characters in LOTR are prased as "wise and full of lore". Gollum has a great deal of knowledge on all the races (maybe except dwarfes) - he knows what the ghosts in the Dead Marshes are, while the Hobbits have no clue before he tells them.

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by Juicy-Sweet

As well I have some questions to clear up...

1: I always wondered how he managed to be ready in West Moria right when the Ring Bearer passed by. I read somewhere it was thought he had entered Moria to escape his elven pursuers, then tried passing through and get out on the West side, but found the gate closed. How did he know one could through Moria? From orcs pherhaps? This strikes me as just too much of a coincidence. He spent 77 years looking for the ring - which could be ANYWERE in Middle Earth. Then suddenly it walks right past him, after he has been sitting camping at a closed gate for months. Boy was that lucky?

I'd suggest that Gollum just happening to be in West Moria would be as much as a coincidence as Gandalf just happening to meet Thorin Oakenshield in Bree, or Tom Bombadil just happened to pass by Old Man Willow when the hobbits needed him, or a whole bunch of people just happening to arrive at Rivendell just in time for the Council of Elrond. Given the way the Valar play with fate, luck and coincidence, Tolkien might have a better excuse for having wild coincidences advance his plot than most authors.

[Juicy-Sweet]

Originally Posted by blantyr

I'd suggest that Gollum just happening to be in West Moria would be as much as a coincidence as Gandalf just happening to meet Thorin Oakenshield in Bree, or Tom Bombadil just happened to pass by Old Man Willow when the hobbits needed him, or a whole bunch of people just happening to arrive at Rivendell just in time for the Council of Elrond. Given the way the Valar play with fate, luck and coincidence, Tolkien might have a better excuse for having wild coincidences advance his plot than most authors.

You might be right - this one just seem thicker to me. Bree is a sorta normal place to pass by, being on a main road. They Hobbitsd ran into Tom Bombabil near his home, so it makes sense he was therew. The council of Elrond - well there is a common cause for all the people being there, being Sauron's putting on the screws everywhere - and it seems natural that some of the people having trouble with Sauron will send emissaries to Rivendell looking for advice. Some of them had been there for some time as well.

Nut Moria ... its one of the most out-of the-way places in Middle Earth. Nobody even knows how to get in. From the book it seems there has been only 3 people in there since the dwarfes got killed --- Aragorn, Gandalf, Gollum. Maybe a few more heroes.

Found this snippet from Unfinished Tales:

What then happened to Gollum cannot of course be known for certain. He was peculiarly fitted to survive in such straits, though at the cost of great misery; but he was in great peril of discovery by the servant of Sauron that lurked in Moria, especially since such bare necessity of food as he must have he could only get by thieving dangerously. ... he became lost, and it was a very long time before he found his way about. It thus seems probable that he had not long made his way toward the West-Gate when the Nine Walkers arrived. He knew nothing, of course, about the action of the doors. To him they would seem huge and immovable; and though they had no lock or bar and opened outwards to a thrust, he did not discover that. In any case, he was now far away from any source of food, for the Orcs were mostly in the East End of Moria, and was become weak and desperate, so that even if he had known all about the doors he still could not have thrust them open. It was thus a piece of singular good fortune for Gollum that the Nine Walkers arrived when they did.

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by Juicy-Sweet

And it made me realize after a while, that in LotR there's only four characters that produce their own poetry - Sam, Tmom Bombadil, Aragorn (maybe? I'm reading his song in praise of Frodo and Sam as being improvised but it might of course be written by someone else) - and Gollum.

I can think of some others: Bilbo's song about Earendil, Frodo's lament for Gandalf, and Aragorn and Legolas's lament for Boromir are all clearly composed by their respective singers.

[Juicy-Sweet]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I can think of some others: Bilbo's song about Earendil, Frodo's lament for Gandalf, and Aragorn and Legolas's lament for Boromir are all clearly composed by their respective singers.

True that.

Even Sauron did a poem now that i think of it - the inscription on the ring is quite good. It would work as lyrics for a metal song.

[Ardent]

Originally Posted by Juicy-Sweet

...it made me realize after a while, that in LotR there's only four characters that produce their own poetry - Sam, Tmom Bombadil, Aragorn (maybe? ...) - and Gollum.
...

In addition to those you and others have added:

Goldberry sings many songs that "began merrily in the hills and fell softly down into silence..."
Galadriel sings of leaves of gold.
Treebeard leads the Ents with a battle song.
The Ent Quickbeam sings of Rowan trees.
An Eagle sings of the fall of Sauron.
The chant of the Wight in the Barrow.

Then there are the songs in The Hobbit by Dwarves, Elves and Goblins. As I have said in other threads, the songs of the various individuals and races all have their own character. Gandalf noticed the similarity between Gollum and Bilbo's riddles, which is what first roused his suspicion about Gollum's origins.

Originally Posted by Juicy-Sweet

...
1: I always wondered how he managed to be ready in West Moria right when the Ring Bearer passed by. I read somewhere it was thought he had entered Moria to escape his elven pursuers, then tried passing through and get out on the West side, but found the gate closed. How did he know one could through Moria? From orcs pherhaps? This strikes me as just too much of a coincidence. He spent 77 years looking for the ring - which could be ANYWERE in Middle Earth. Then suddenly it walks right past him, after he has been sitting camping at a closed gate for months. Boy was that lucky?...

In Appendix B, The Tale of Years, it says that after Orcs invaded the Elves kingom in Mirkwood gollum escaped then, while Gandalf was imprisoned by Saruman:

"All trace of Gollum is lost. It is thought that at about this time, being hunted by both the Elves and Sauron's servants, he took refuge in Moria; but when he had at last discovered the way to the West-gate he could not get out."

I don't think we are meant to suppose Gollum knew the Ring would pass by, but it is another of those circumstances that confirm what Gandalf said about the Ring:

"...it abandoned Gollum... Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker."

and about Gollum himself:

"...he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet..."

Originally Posted by Juicy-Sweet

... stick Frodo, not to say Boromir, in a cave with only the ring for company for just 10 years, and they would have been wraiths for sure.
...

Boromir yes, he was already undone by its proximity in daylight, but I'm not so sure about Frodo, at least not before being stabbed by the Morgul blade. In fact the Witch King probably knew about the resilience of Hobbit folk from the capture of Smeagol, and that would explain why the blade was used. The only reason Gollum was not similarly enslaved by a blade was because it was thought he could track the Ring and so lead Sauron to it. In the story it is unclear whether he escaped or was released, but again Apendix B explains:

Year 3017 TA - Gollum is released from Mordor. He is taken by Aragorn in the Dead Marshes, and brought to Thranduil in Mirkwood.

.

[Pervinca Took]

In fact the Witch King probably knew about the resilience of Hobbit folk from the capture of Smeagol, and that would explain why the blade was used.

Would the Witch King have realised that Gollum was originally a hobbit, though? (Or of a hobbitlike folk, as Gandalf put it). Even Gollum doesn't identify with other hobbits as being of his own kind.

[Ardent]

Originally Posted by Pervinca Took

Would the Witch King have realised that Gollum was originally a hobbit, though? (Or of a hobbitlike folk, as Gandalf put it). Even Gollum doesn't identify with other hobbits as being of his own kind.

Gandalf made the connection so if Sauron got the riddles out of Smeagol he too could have deduced a similarity. But even if he didn't make the deduction Gollum was stil a creature which, like Thrain II and other Dwarves, had withstood becoming a wraith. That would be enough to imply that there would be others. The morgul blade would have been an insurance against this kind of resilience.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

"Tolkien might have a better excuse for having wild coincidences advance his plot than most authors."

Like Pratchett's million-to-one chance: according to the rules of Narrative Causality, if you can get the odds of success of something ridiculous pushed up to a million to one, it's guaranteed to work.

[Juicy-Sweet]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

"Tolkien might have a better excuse for having wild coincidences advance his plot than most authors."

Like Pratchett's million-to-one chance: according to the rules of Narrative Causality, if you can get the odds of success of something ridiculous pushed up to a million to one, it's guaranteed to work.

And then again, it adds to Gollum's glory.

Being at the right spot at the right time out of sheer luck is the mark of great people