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Of course, there was speculation that Gollum was a tricster figure. I suppose we have two possibilities for his 'consort' - Shelob & his Grandmother. What interests me is that just as Tom manifests some of the positive aspects of the Trickster, his consort is a positive figure, while Gollum & Shelob seem to represent the negative aspects.
I wonder if we're dealing with 'Pagan' ideas/symbols as seen from a 'Christian' perspective. The old archetypes don't appear in their pure form but as split into their positive & negetive aspects - as we have the splitting of Odin into positive - Gandalf/Manwe - & negative - Sauron/Saruman. Or the 'good' king/bad king split in Theoden/Denethor.
The four-way 'split' of the trickster-consort pair into positive male-female & negative is interesting. Another thing that occurs is that Tom/Goldberry are childless while Shelob seems incredibly fecund - though she does tend to eat her brood. Gollum also is stated to have taken babies from their cradles to eat. So, the positive dyad seems not to reproduce, & children are absent from their world, while the negative dyad (the female aspect of it at least) reproduces almost uncontrollably but consumes its young....
& I have no idea where I'm going with this, so I'll stop now.
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