Did Gollum deserve death?

[Macalaure]

Originally Posted by TM

Macalaure you say the traditional justice doesn't work in his case...but why?

Hmm, I tried to explain that in the other post. I'll try to make myself clearer:

Well, let's assume Gollum would have been punished and he would have been locked up for a longer period of time. - This is what I had in mind, Raynor gave a good point that I was thinking a tad too narrowly. - Would he have understood why he was punished? In parts, yes, as we have good evidence that he had a bad conscience because of Déagol. But what about, for example, his eating of orcs? I don't think he saw that as evil. Which brings me to Squatter's point:

Originally Posted by Squatter

Therefore, in order to be rehabilitated and healed, Gollum must be fully and knowingly culpable in all his actions. His madness: what I suppose would popularly be called 'multiple personality disorder' results from his attempts to externalise his own guilt, and to deny his actions.

I disagree, a little. I would regard a gradual process of becoming aware of his full guilt already as a part of the healing - a necessary first step, not a premise.

Anyway, would punishment bring Gollum any closer to repentance? I strongly doubt that, given how he reacted to his imprisonments in Mirkwood or Henneth Annûn (though Lal makes a good point that he never was in custody for a longer time). He would rather regard his punishers as wicked than himself.

So the effect of just punishment would, in the end, only be to satisfy our sense of justice, which is little. It would not have changed Gollum. It's difficult to say whether a combination of punishment and healing, like in an asylum, would have had a effect, but I have a feeling he wouldn't have accepted healing from his punishers.

If we look at Frodo, he didn't punish Gollum, though he could have. In fact, it's his not punishing him, and his being nice to Gollum and caring for him instead, which led to his near-repentance later, which could have been a first step to healing.