July 31, 2002

Re: Jeff C About Gollum and Ring
Danny

Hmmmm good point about the inconsistency with Gollum and the ring. I never thought about that. I don't claim to have any clear cut answers about that inconsistency, and perhaps Tolkien felt that was one thing wrong with the book. I understand that pressure from the publishers made Tolkien publish Fellowship despite a few things he would have liked to 'fix.' But anyway, I am going to attempt, perhaps pretty poorly to address that inconsistency.

My first thought was that Gollum wasn't looking for an invisible Bilbo because he didn't know Bilbo had the ring, but that is not true. Gollum drew the right conclusion immediately and left to find Bilbo knowing that he had the ring so that idea is dead.

Perhaps my only idea would be the change Gollum went through without the ring. After he left the mountains, he became more cunning and I beleive his senses sharpened. He also had interaction with Sauron, and was tortured by them. Perhaps you could say that the withdrawl so to speak that Gollum went through hightened his awareness of the ring, and allowed him to see Frodo when he was wearing it. Perhaps some of Sauron's influence rubbed off on him also heightening his awareness of the ring. Or an even less likely but kind of funny though would be that perhaps Gollum didn't see Frodo, but the craze of his mind at the rings near destruction caused him to jump at the logical location where Frodo was. Now any rational thinker wouldn't jump at someone standing on the edge of a precipice even if he was visible, but Gollum was far from rational.

Okay so there are my speculations. Keep in mind they are speculations, and I don't claim to have any answers. Anyway, maybe this will start a new thread of discussion which would be nice.