Gollum the Hero

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by Juicy-Sweet

As well I have some questions to clear up...

1: I always wondered how he managed to be ready in West Moria right when the Ring Bearer passed by. I read somewhere it was thought he had entered Moria to escape his elven pursuers, then tried passing through and get out on the West side, but found the gate closed. How did he know one could through Moria? From orcs pherhaps? This strikes me as just too much of a coincidence. He spent 77 years looking for the ring - which could be ANYWERE in Middle Earth. Then suddenly it walks right past him, after he has been sitting camping at a closed gate for months. Boy was that lucky?

I'd suggest that Gollum just happening to be in West Moria would be as much as a coincidence as Gandalf just happening to meet Thorin Oakenshield in Bree, or Tom Bombadil just happened to pass by Old Man Willow when the hobbits needed him, or a whole bunch of people just happening to arrive at Rivendell just in time for the Council of Elrond. Given the way the Valar play with fate, luck and coincidence, Tolkien might have a better excuse for having wild coincidences advance his plot than most authors.

[Juicy-Sweet]

Originally Posted by blantyr

I'd suggest that Gollum just happening to be in West Moria would be as much as a coincidence as Gandalf just happening to meet Thorin Oakenshield in Bree, or Tom Bombadil just happened to pass by Old Man Willow when the hobbits needed him, or a whole bunch of people just happening to arrive at Rivendell just in time for the Council of Elrond. Given the way the Valar play with fate, luck and coincidence, Tolkien might have a better excuse for having wild coincidences advance his plot than most authors.

You might be right - this one just seem thicker to me. Bree is a sorta normal place to pass by, being on a main road. They Hobbitsd ran into Tom Bombabil near his home, so it makes sense he was therew. The council of Elrond - well there is a common cause for all the people being there, being Sauron's putting on the screws everywhere - and it seems natural that some of the people having trouble with Sauron will send emissaries to Rivendell looking for advice. Some of them had been there for some time as well.

Nut Moria ... its one of the most out-of the-way places in Middle Earth. Nobody even knows how to get in. From the book it seems there has been only 3 people in there since the dwarfes got killed --- Aragorn, Gandalf, Gollum. Maybe a few more heroes.

Found this snippet from Unfinished Tales:

What then happened to Gollum cannot of course be known for certain. He was peculiarly fitted to survive in such straits, though at the cost of great misery; but he was in great peril of discovery by the servant of Sauron that lurked in Moria, especially since such bare necessity of food as he must have he could only get by thieving dangerously. ... he became lost, and it was a very long time before he found his way about. It thus seems probable that he had not long made his way toward the West-Gate when the Nine Walkers arrived. He knew nothing, of course, about the action of the doors. To him they would seem huge and immovable; and though they had no lock or bar and opened outwards to a thrust, he did not discover that. In any case, he was now far away from any source of food, for the Orcs were mostly in the East End of Moria, and was become weak and desperate, so that even if he had known all about the doors he still could not have thrust them open. It was thus a piece of singular good fortune for Gollum that the Nine Walkers arrived when they did.

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by Juicy-Sweet

And it made me realize after a while, that in LotR there's only four characters that produce their own poetry - Sam, Tmom Bombadil, Aragorn (maybe? I'm reading his song in praise of Frodo and Sam as being improvised but it might of course be written by someone else) - and Gollum.

I can think of some others: Bilbo's song about Earendil, Frodo's lament for Gandalf, and Aragorn and Legolas's lament for Boromir are all clearly composed by their respective singers.

[Juicy-Sweet]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I can think of some others: Bilbo's song about Earendil, Frodo's lament for Gandalf, and Aragorn and Legolas's lament for Boromir are all clearly composed by their respective singers.

True that.

Even Sauron did a poem now that i think of it - the inscription on the ring is quite good. It would work as lyrics for a metal song.