Visible souls....

[littlemanpoet]

Now Gollum I always think of as a 'special case'. Much more than a mere 'monster', he cannot be defined squarely as evil, nor can he be said to be good, and he is the one character we truly get into the head of, often distressingly so. - Lalwendë

This has been bugging me since I first read it. I don't think it's accurate. I don't ever remember reading any thoughts of Gollum or Sméagol that weren't actually spoken by him.

I'm close to being motivated to a re-read of LotR just to take special note of this one aspect! What characters does Tolkien "get into the head" of? We know this happens with Gandalf once, at Rivendell, as has been pointed out on this thread, but Gandalf's thinking about Frodo rather than revealing much about himself. The instance with Sam is similar. So do we actually "get into the head" of any character at all in LotR? I don't think so. I'd be happy to see some evidence to the contrary, if anybody has it handy.... - LMP