|
Post by Stormrider on Sept 11, 2008 6:27:37 GMT -6
Even Frodo could not throw The One Ring into the fire. He wanted to, after all that was the whole purpose of his quest, but he couldn't do it in the end. And Frodo was a much better Hobbit than Gollum ever was. Golum had been twisted by The Ring for a much longer time than Frodo had.
It would have been a nice twist for Gollum to really have loved Frodo so much that Gollum--now Smeagol--would have tried to destroy The Ring himself even if he threw himself into the fire with The Ring. What a cool message of love and sacrifice that would have been for JRRT's story!
Instead as they got closer to Mt. Doom, Gollum was more determined not to allow Frodo to throw it in.
What is Sam's mistake that JRRT's letter is surmising about that pushed Gollum back into the path of evil? It has been so long that I have READ the book and have been influenced by the movie version. Is it that Sam just won't ever trust Gollum? I have to rush off to work and can't go look....maybe I will take ROTK to work with me and look at it at lunch.
|
|
|
Post by Andorinha on Sept 12, 2008 9:53:25 GMT -6
I think there were a series of events featuring Sam and Gollum that served to erode the "Slinker/ Smeagol" side of the latter and increase the power of the "Stinker/Gollum" personality element, culminating with the final triumph of the Gollum side when Frodo is betrayed to Shelob. But I understand the pivotal event to come, in the hardback version, (TT, "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol," pp. 323-24). Here Gollum returns after scouting the stairway up to Shelob's lair and finds Frodo and Sam sleeping: "In his lap [Sam's] lay Frodo's head, drowned deep in sleep, upon his white forehead lay one of Sam's brown hands, and the other lay softly upon his master's breast. Peace was in both their faces."
At this point, Gollum almost becomes a normal hobbit: "For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the field and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing." (TT 324)
Sam wakes up suddenly, misinterprets Gollum's intention, and breaks the fragile mood of reconciliation by calling Gollum a sneak and a villain. "The fleeting moment had passed, beyond recall." Gollum, as "Stinker," returns in full force and Frodo is led to his presumed death in Shelob's lair.
Apparently this scene was one of JRRT's best loved: "... certain features of it [LotR], and especially certain places, still move me very powerfully. The heart remains in the description of Cerin Amroth ... but I am most stirred by the sound of the horses of the Rohirrim at cockcrow; and most grieved by Gollum's failure (just) to repent when interrupted by Sam..." (Letter # 165, p. 221, my emphasis).
|
|
|
Post by Stormrider on Sept 12, 2008 16:37:54 GMT -6
Ok...there were quite a few instances between the three hobbits especially Sam and Gollum. I am glad you pinpointed the one that seems to be referenced in the quote above. It does seem like quite a shame to have spoiled Smeagol's chance to return to the normalcy of his old hobbit self once again. Very sad actually.
|
|