[Kalimac]

Hmmm, I'll venture to disagree here somewhat. I doubt anybody would say that Gollum was *wholly* evil (what living being can be said to be 100% evil, no redeeming features whatsoever, not even the slightest?). On the other hand, evil has clearly gained the upper hand in his soul and he has allowed it to do so and has served evil for almost half a millennium; on that balance I'd say he is evil, because he has nursed and fostered it and allowed to it to grow, and has pretty much strangled whatever good impulses he may have had.

Consider, even before the Ring came along Smeagol was not the nicest of characters; he had a reputation as a sneak and his love of "roots and beginnings" is ominous symbolism for his fondness of darkness and dark deeds. He murders Deagol almost instantly upon finding the Ring, and while we are told the murder "haunts him" he doesn't have the courage to attempt to make any kind of restitution for it or straighten himself out in any way - instead he gives in to the bad impulses which he has had before and which the Ring encourages, eventually becoming a complete pariah and going off to the Misty Mountains to become a living wraith and very much the creature of the Precious. When he meets Sam and Frodo, he has been choosing the evil path at every turn in his life, and while the good spark in him hasn't been wholly extinguished (as we can see in the Slinker/Stinker dialogue) it certainly isn't for lack of effort on his part.

Obviously most of this was due to the Ring, and the fact that all owners of the Ring are going to fall under its evil power eventually. Gollum was exceptional even among them, however, in the sense that he didn't even make a fleeting attempt to use the Ring for good (or tell himself he was doing so) or to resist its influence. Instead, his nature was such that he was almost eager to give himself over the Ring instantly; its influence was congenial to him in a way that it wasn't to Bilbo, Frodo, or Isildur. This isn't to say that the pre-Ring Gollum was an evil creature, just that he was more disposed towards evil than many other people, and when temptation came along he chose to give in to it by murdering Deagol instead of resisting even for a second. So yes, the Ring made Gollum evil, but I'd say that it had enough encouragement from Gollum himself that you couldn't exactly call him an innocent victim.

Gollum isn't wholly evil. But he is evil. And while he's a victim of the Ring, he's also a victim of his own choices. Not to say that he wouldn't have fallen to the Ring eventually - better men than he had certainly done so - but he did have some choice in how and when he fell.