Do you wish gollum had lived?

[Baran]

Baran, not to be too cynical or anything but a lot of it probably had to do with the fact that Deagol didn't have a loyal manservant standing by, ready to defend him; also the fact that while Deagol didn't know what he had, Frodo did, and was much less likely to let Gollum take a peek.

It seems like you have forgot the struggle Smeagol had with himself. There was one evil part (don't know their English name) who had no hesitations killing Frodo and Sam for the ring, ,and you had the "new" part that wouldn't kill Frodo partly because of the promise he gave and partly because Frodo was nice to him. They decided to go to Shelob as a compromice between he two personalitites. If the evil had been stronger Smeagol would probably have killed both Frodo and Sam at an earlier opportunity, if the good one had been stronger Smeagol would probably not have led them to Shelob at all. I think the good Smeagol would have been stronger if it hadn't been for Sam.
If I don't remember very wrongly Smeagol almost told them what he was up to somewhere in the stairs, will see if I can find the quote later.

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: Baran ]