The one thing I can be totally sure of is that, like the Ents, I do not feel comfortable with either side in this equation.
However, if compelled to lean one way or the other, I will come down with those who are saying that Gollum does not deserve death. Interestingly, I didn't start my post with this position. I actually began to write in SpM's defense and then discovered I did not agree with him.
Perhaps we are having so much trouble with Gollum's deserving or not deserving death because the question reflects a much larger problem that runs through LotR and possibly the Legendarium as a whole. There is a dichotomy that underlies the Lord of the Rings, or at least a difference in emphasis in terms of what the author is stressing in different places. This dichotomy makes it difficult to come to any firm judgment on Gollum, if we are trying to decipher how Tolkien felt. This interests me more than simply considering how I personally feel. I've been influenced by any number of things in contemporary life and politics, so my judgment may not be the same as JRRT. But having thought about it a while I think Tolkien would have counselled forebearance in terms of Gollum and would not have made a judgment on his "guilt" or his "deserving" death.
It's true that there are some things pointing in the opposite direction. We find many quotes and scenes in both the book and the letters that suggest Tolkien believed there were clear and immutable standards of right and wrong. The best known of these is by Aragorn:
Quote:
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Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among men.
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We are a long way here from the moral relativism that has such enormous impact on our contemporary culture and influences how many of us regard right and wrong (myself included). My honest opinion, however, is that Tolkien saw right and wrong as absolute in essence rather than relative. (I am not talking here about the nature of an individual but rather the moral standards as a whole.) There are also scenes and quotes in the book where it is clearly stated that the good guys are expected to step forward and take a stand to preserve the right against those who would take a stand on the opposite side. While Gollum is not Sauron's agent, he clearly did not want to see the Ring destroyed, which was the whole point of Frodo and Sam's journey. As such, he was an enemy.
It's a small step to start from those premises in the text and go on to condemn Gollum or at least to conclude that he "deserved death". He clearly murdered someone within thirty seconds of seeing the Ring.....the only character we know who acquired the Ring in quite that way. Murder is wrong, and just how much influence can the Ring have in 30 seconds? Some of this nastiness has to be coming from within Gollum himself. Given this situation and an absolute moral standard, it would not be difficult to say that Gollum "deserves" death.
Interestingly, Tolkien does not do that. In fact, he spends a huge chunk of the book setting up a conflict between Sam and Frodo over what to do with Gollum (with other characters like Faramir occasionally poking their nose in). In many ways the journey to Mount Doom can be interpreted as the struggle to answer the question that Mansun has posed for us in this thread. By trying to answer this question, we are actually following in the footsteps of Sam and Frodo.
Given the fact that Tolkien believed in absolute standards of good and evil, and that he clearly felt that Frodo made the right choice by not making an overall judgment on Gollum or Saruman (let alone executing them), I can only believe this..... Although Tolkien believed absolute standards existed, he also felt that only Eru was in a position to read the truth, make "true" judgments, and enforce those standards. No one else --not an immortal maia or a hobbit or a man --is in a position to make a true judgment on Gollum (or anyone else for that matter). Tolkien spends most of the book slowly spelling out this lesson in the scenes with Frodo and Sam. And just to make sure we "got it" he comes back in the Scouring and says the same thing in the final scenes between Saruman and Frodo.
I can see how someone might feel differently about this, but I think the weight of the evidence is in favor of those who are saying we are in no position to make a definitive judgment on Gollum. Obviously, Tolkien was not a pacifist. His characters had to step forward and fight for what they believed was good, but they could not take the one extra step and make the ultimate pronouncement on their enemies--whether Gollum or Saruman actually "deserved" death in the ultimate sense. That was reserved for something or someone with a wider view of what was happening, by implication Eru Given the flawed nature of our world and our limitations in thinking, even if a person "deserves" death by Eru's standards, we are in no position to dish it out.
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Whoops! I crossposted. Others are also discussing Saruman.