The foundation and transformation of Sméagol's character and the role of the Ring - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Leaf · 12-14-2015, 12:29 PM

My original point was that it was mainly Sméagol's character, and not the influence of Ring, which triggered Sméagol's decision to murder his companion, Déagol, immediately after seeing the Ring for the first time. I came to this conclusion because I found it to be odd, that this is indeed the only case of holdup murder in the history of the Ring.

This make sense if you look at it at a contentual point of view. I compared different scenarios of people meeting the current ring-bearer and their outcome purely on a innerwordly basis. But there's a problem: This method necessarily tries to level out contradictions to archive a logical harmony, of sorts, for the events within the fictional world.

If you look at the Sméagol/Déagol-incident from more of a literarily point of view, one might come to a different conclusion. The function of Gandalf's account on Gollum's back-story (The shadow of the past) of how he acquired the Ring might very well have been to illustrate the corrupting and dangerous nature of the Ring. The reader gets a very good impression of the evil nature of the power of the Ring. After all the chapter is about this very subject. It is only consistent that the Ring seems to be so much more powerful, in that regard.

The problem is that this concept would directly contradict a story about a Fellowhip, at it's core. If Tolkien would have kept this level of intensity no story about friendship and holding together would have been possible. Frodo, essentially, would have to be on his own from the very beginning.

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Switch to Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Threaded Mode

12-14-2015, 12:29 PM	#2
Leaf Haunting Spirit Join Date: Jun 2014 Posts: 87	My original point was that it was mainly Sméagol's character, and not the influence of Ring, which triggered Sméagol's decision to murder his companion, Déagol, immediately after seeing the Ring for the first time. I came to this conclusion because I found it to be odd, that this is indeed the only case of holdup murder in the history of the Ring. This make sense if you look at it at a contentual point of view. I compared different scenarios of people meeting the current ring-bearer and their outcome purely on a innerwordly basis. But there's a problem: This method necessarily tries to level out contradictions to archive a logical harmony, of sorts, for the events within the fictional world. If you look at the Sméagol/Déagol-incident from more of a literarily point of view, one might come to a different conclusion. The function of Gandalf's account on Gollum's back-story (The shadow of the past) of how he acquired the Ring might very well have been to illustrate the corrupting and dangerous nature of the Ring. The reader gets a very good impression of the evil nature of the power of the Ring. After all the chapter is about this very subject. It is only consistent that the Ring seems to be so much more powerful, in that regard. The problem is that this concept would directly contradict a story about a Fellowhip, at it's core. If Tolkien would have kept this level of intensity no story about friendship and holding together would have been possible. Frodo, essentially, would have to be on his own from the very beginning.