Did Gollum deserve death?

[Boo Radley]

Nah, it's OK. I sense a puckish sense of humor there, which is very cool with me.

Here's the thing, I will freely admit that I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer. As a matter of fact, my mother's nickname for me is "Big Dummy", (Gotta love a person like that). And when it comes to reading, I tend to... underanalyze the story.
I read for entertainment. Not for enlightenment. Life does that for me and reading is a respite.
That's why I would be the worst possible person to have in a book discussion. While everybody else would be talking about character development and motivation and throwing out words like "gestalt" and "angst" and "Dickinsian", I'd be in the corner, saying,

"But... er... what if he just put that bit in there cuz it made for a ripping good yarn?"*

And then I'd tug my forelock.

And then I would be stoned.
And not the fun way.

Sad, really.

So, I'm just sayin'...

*[/i](A paraphrase of something that Stephen King once reportedly said in a creative writing class in college. Which, you could say, "So what? He's a hack" and althought I'd have to agree with you now, in his earlier days I thought he could toss off a "ripping good yarn")[/i]