The Hobbit - Chapter 05 - Riddles in the Dark

[Tuor of Gondolin]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
I think you're all off track with this Sméagol/Gollum dichotomy as it pertains to this chapter. Gollum was in the fore, and had been for quite a few centuries, and remained in the fore right up until the moment Frodo bound him by the Ring ... and treated him as someone with the dignity of a human (read hobbitish) soul. Only then did Sméagol appear. Tolkien makes this quite clear in the chapter called The Taming of Sméagol.

Ssss. Always poor Smeagol is picked on. Didn't we just go over
to see The Baggins out of curiosity, preciouss.

'What iss he, my precious?' whispered Gollum...This is what he had come to find out, for he was not really very hungry at the moment, only curious

And what of the story the nice hobbit later wrote:

Even Gollum was not wholly ruined. He had proved tougher than even one of the Wise would have guessed- as a hobbit might. There was a little corner of his mind that was still his own, and light came through it, as through a chink in the dark: light out of the past. It was actually pleasant, I think, to hear a kindly voice again, bringing up memories of wind, and trees, and sun on the grass, and such forgotten things.

And everyone knows you cannst cheat at the riddle game, not even
nassty, evil creatures would do so, gollum.