Speaking of learning from Shakespeare (and, my apologies, this has nothing to do with Macbeth, but I'm just so pleased I found a halfway appropriate place to mention it, and it IS related, just read till you get to the end)....
Although Sam refers to Gollum as "the old villian," the latter is in fact an EXTREMELY hobbit-like creature, a fact highlighted by his true name, Smeagol,about which Appendix F of RotK says
Quote:
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smial (or smile) "burrow" is a likely form for a descendent of smygel... Smeagol and Deagol are equivalents
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So there's a direct relationship between his name and the homes of the hobbits.
.....
Which just goes to show that one may smial and smial and be a villian! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]
...... Yes, it's silly, of course... but I wonder if Tolkien didn't intend just that joke???
(hey, cool, I seem to have disintegrated!)
[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Belin ]