Do you wish gollum had lived?

[Jessica Jade]

I'm sure that everyone, at some time, wishes they could change one part about the story, or wonders what would have happened if...

In the end, I know that the story would not have been as powerful as it is without everything that happened in it. Gollum's death was inevitable- remember, the Ring does not truly have the power to create; it only stretches one's life and gives power according to the possesser's native strength. Gollum's life had been stretched beyond his mind's endurance, indeed like "butter scraped over too much bread," in a much worse way than Bilbo began to feel. Since the Ring was the only thing keeping him alive, it makes sense that he should die when the Ring does. In addition, the fact that it was Gollum who destroyed the Ring accidentally while fighting Frodo further illustrates the Ring's inescapable, seductive power- it shows that Frodo could not give up The Ring- at the very end of his arduous, perilous quest, he so very nearly failed. Later on, the lasting power of the Ring is further explored when Frodo experienced Ring-withdrawal,in which Gollum's death haunted him because he was not able to save him after all that had happened. Gollum was far beyond redemption, his mind was too shriveled, burned by his desire to possess The Ring.Basically, Gollum's death made lent the story much more power and irony, making the entire ending much more haunting. One of my favorite aspects of TOlkien is the bittersweet irony of it all--like Frodo says to sam at the end of the last chapter, "...when things are in danger, someone must give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them." I think that that is a recurrent theme or subtheme interwoven throughout the whole Middle Earth saga. I do not wish Gollum had lived. Every single event that happened, every nuance of emotion in the books- they all pertain to, and support the book's overall foundation: The Ring is powerful. Just how powerful? The nearly incomprehensible allure of the Ring is manifest in everything that took place in the novel. You see? The story is so tightly knit- everything has strings leading to everything else. If you change one thing about Tolkein's masterpiece, then the entire structure has been weakened, likely to collapse. Or, at best, become flimsy, conventional, and trite (like "happily ever after"). I cried so much at the novel's conclusion, when Frodo had to leave Middle Earth because he simply could not go on enjoying life in that world anymore, due to the nature of the evil he battled. I wished with all of my heart that he could heal, that he could be happy again, that he could be older and wiser, but still content, living in the Shire like he had before his ordeal. Yet, i know that the ending would not have been nearly as special and nearly as touching if not for the exact events that did happen. I believe that Tolkien wrote an ingenious, original masterpiece. I could never truly desire to change a word of it.