[Galadriel55]

That's a really interesting point, and something I never thoughr about. Gollum would have died at his highest point since finding the Ring. But there is a certain theme among LOTR's wrongdoers. Gollum should be slain by law and common sense; he is spared with Frodo's vouching for the hint of goodness in him, only to die later in an unrelated turn of events attributable to all sorts of reasons and quite possibly decreed by fate. Grima could have been executed for high treason; he was given mercy on account of his past honest service, but is killed far away by unrelated people for unrelated reasons. Saruman also falls in this category, but he is the one exception where the death closely follows the condemnation and is arguably linked; Frodo convinces the mob of angry hobbits that he should be pitied as a great one fallen low, and it is not the mob angry at his destruction of their world but an individual who has had enough personal contempt and mistreatment that does him in. In all cases the executions would not only have been lawful but also sensible and supported by the populance and not unjust. And in all cases the subject is given a pass because of faith in some past or hidden goodness - a sort of hope of it reawakening. But none of them rise to a nobler position than they were in - they only fall lower. It would probably have been a nobler death for Grima to be executed by Theoden in Edoras as the infamous spy than to be an emaciated miserable man shot down by people he feared and did not know. Perhaps nobler is not the right word, but he was certainly still higher in position, fame, respect and self-respect in Rohan than in Hobbitton.

I can think of one other person who was spared from lawful death: Beregond. Having spilled blood in the Silent Street he merited death by the law, but he was forgiven because his intentions were good. And he makes good of his chance: we do not see much of him, but presumably he just continues to be the Beregond we knew before in all that matters. If anything, he gained from the encounter - lost his job but got a better one, and the love and gratitude of his lord (and hero!) to go with it. There certainly are Numenorian patterns at play here: Denethor in his ruin turns to the tombs; Beregond, Faramir, and Aragorn all represent honouring death and history without being mentally enslaved by it. But what about this other pattern - what makes Beregond's second chance so different from the others? Is it that his intentions were good in the first place and they were taken into account? The comparison with Gollum seems to outline the relativity and context-dependance of the morality in LOTR. Gollum is oblivious to breaking law and doesn't actually do anyone any harm, while Beregond knows he is breaking old laws and he actually kills people, but it seems like in the end he gets much better treatment that Gollum does. Though maybe that's more because Beregond can see and appreciate the kindness he is given. Gollum can't understand Faramir's point of view at all so the exception making is wasted on him; Gollum only saw the bad treatment and not the worse treatment he was spared, so of course he thinks it was not fair.

I am starting to ramble so I will stop here, but I wonder what others think of the spared evildoer theme.