It’s one of the most heartbreaking moments in The Lord of the Rings. A moment when
one of it’s greatest villains might have found redemption were it not for ill-timed harsh words.
Today, on Nerd of the Rings, we tackle the question: What if Gollum repented?
As always, I’ve used my usual approach of mapping travels,
timelines, and using Tolkien’s own letters in an effort to craft today’s theory.
First, we pick up at the point in the story where the deviation would most likely take
place. In this instance, we have a very clear moment in time - March 12, 3019. Gollum has
just returned from visiting Shelob, setting in motion his plan to betray Frodo and Sam.
As he returns to the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, he finds the two hobbits asleep..
Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from
his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him,
and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some
interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously
he touched Frodo’s knee – but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the
sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken
by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and
streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing. But at that touch Frodo stirred and cried out
softly in his sleep, and immediately Sam was wide awake. The first thing he saw
was Gollum – ‘pawing at master,’ as he thought. ‘Hey you!’ he said roughly. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Nothing, nothing,’ said Gollum softly. ‘Nice Master!’
‘I daresay,’ said Sam. ‘But where have you been to – sneaking off and sneaking back,
you old villain?’ Gollum withdrew himself,
and a green glint flickered under his heavy lids. Almost spider-like he looked now, crouched back
on his bent limbs, with his protruding eyes. The fleeting moment had passed, beyond recall.
This brief, pivotal moment would make Gollum’s betrayal inevitable. Tolkien
would say in Letter 246 that it was, for him, perhaps the most tragic moment of the
entire Tale. This moment when Sam fails to note the complete change in Gollum’s tone.
As for what Gollum feels at this moment, I believe we can look to Gandalf’s words about
Gollum for a clue. Here, in the early pages of the Fellowship of the Ring,
Gandalf talks about what Gollum experienced in his meeting Bilbo…
There was a little corner of [Gollum’s] mind that was still his own, and light came through it,
as through a chink in the dark: a light out of the past. It was actually pleasant,
I think, to hear a kindly voice again, bringing up memories of wind, and trees,
and sun on the grass, and such forgotten things.
These connections to his previous life and his affection for his newfound master
could have led Gollum to true repentance, however, as Tolkien also says in Letter 246:
[Sam] plainly did not fully understand Frodo's motives or his distress in the
incident of the Forbidden Pool. If he had understood better what was going on
between Frodo and Gollum, things might have turned out differently in the end.
So what if Sam had fully understood Frodo’s pity for Gollum at this moment. What if Sam
recognized a change in Gollum and was able to meet him in that moment with
pity rather than scorn? This is where we pick up with our theory…
Sam wakes to see not an evil slinking creature, but a weary old hobbit, stretched far beyond his
time. He has a similar realization as Bilbo does in the pages of The Hobbit:
A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in his heart: a glimpse
of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and
whispering. All these thoughts passed in a flash of a second. He trembled. And then quite suddenly
in another flash, as if lifted by a new hope and resolve, Sam finally sees Gollum as Smeagol…
Like Bilbo, Sam has this moment of clarity - understanding and pitying Smeagol. And together,
the three heroes would venture on from the Stairs of Cirith Ungol,
making their way closer to Mount Doom. Smeagol warns Sam and Frodo of the true peril of Shelob’s
Lair - warning them of the giant spider that lies in wait. Together, and with Smeagol as a guide,
they successfully pass through the tunnels on March 13, 3019. They are also able to
avoid detection by the orcs from the Tower of Cirith Ungol - thus Frodo is never captured,
his Mirthril shirt is not taken, and Sam does not need to bear the One Ring.
In total, this cuts out roughly two days of their journey,
and the three heroes view Mount Doom from the Morgai on March 14th. In the canon story,
Frodo and Sam in their orc disguises are forced to join a company of Orcs. However,
since they have come to this part of the journey two days earlier, Sauron’s orcs have not yet begun
amassing at the Black Gate for Aragorn will not march out from Minas Tirith for two more days.
By the time the Host of Gondor and Rohan departs Minas Tirith, Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol will be
two days closer to Mount Doom. They will no doubt still have much need of caution on their journey,
for the orcs will indeed be traveling to Udun to face off against the army of Men. Without
the whips of the orcs to drive them farther and faster, they do lose a short amount of time going
at a more cautious pace, likely a few hours. Frodo and Sam will also be without their orc
armor disguises which they acquired in the Tower of Cirith Ungol in the canon story.
However, with Smeagol as their guide, they continue on their path. His centuries of
experience in stealth and sneaking help them greatly - not to mention his experience in
Mordor itself. For Gollum had come to Mordor in 2980 TA, and according to Unfinished Tales,
he would not be captured by Sauron until the year 3017 - 37 years later.
On March 20, as Aragorn and his company ride north toward the black gate, Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol
leave the road and head South toward Mount Doom. As in the canon story, they lighten their burdens
the following day, casting aside their gear. They then reach the foot of Mount Doom on March 22.
Despite the change in Smeagol, we would see the same effects of the ring upon Frodo. Its
power grows as it draws nearer to the evil place of its creation. "The last stage of the journey
to Orodruin came, and it was a torment greater than Sam had ever thought that he could bear."
'Now for the last gasp!' said Sam as he struggled to his feet. He bent over Frodo,
rousing him gently. Frodo groaned; but with a great effort of will he staggered up;
and then he fell upon his knees again. He raised his eyes... to the dark slopes of Mount Doom
towering above him, and then pitifully he began to crawl forward on his hands.
Sam looked at him and wept in his heart, but no tears came to his dry and stinging eyes....
'Come, Mr. Frodo!' he cried. 'I can't carry it for you…
“but we can carry you and it as well.” Smeagol adds.
And together, Sam and Smeagol carry Frodo up the slopes of Mount Doom. Slowly they
scale Orodruin, even when forced to do so by crawling like insects.
While the host of men is still two days from the Black Gate,
their march still draws Sauron’s eye. While, throughout their journey,
Gollum would have played a pivotal role in their safely reaching Mount Doom,
he could not be wholly rid of the influence of the ring. As Tolkien once said of Gollum’s repentance:
If he had, what could then have happened? The course of the entry
into Mordor and the struggle to reach Mount Doom would have been different,
and so would the ending. The interest would have shifted to Gollum, I think, and the battle that
would have gone on between his repentance and his new love on one side and the Ring. Though
the love would have been strengthened daily it could not have wrested the mastery from the Ring.
Thus throughout their journey in Mordor,
Gollum would be experiencing a great internal struggle between the ring and his repentance.
The three finally come to the very cracks of Doom - the Sammath Naur - where Sauron
long ago had forged the one ring. But what would have transpired here, in the darkest of places
where the power of the One Ring is strongest? In the end, no one could resist the temptation
of the One Ring in Mount Doom - Frodo still turns to declare: ‘I have come,
but I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!’
Placing the ring on his finger, Frodo vanishes. Sauron is immediately aware
and sends forth his Nazgul not from the black gate roughly 80 miles away,
but from their positions shadowing the Host of the West in Ithilien. As the Nazgul race
toward Mount Doom, the defining moment of the age unfolds within its fiery walls.
Gollum in an instant wrestles with his love of Frodo and the pull of the Ring. Still,
overcome by The One, he attacks Frodo, biting off his finger and taking the ring for his own.
But even now, the ring returned to him, Gollum’s repentance is not fully cast
aside. The conflict within him remains - it is true, he desired the ring,
but he also cares for his master, and does not wish the evil of Sauron to come to bear.
Thus, with possession of the ring, and sensing the servants of the Enemy,
and the might of Sauron himself bearing down upon him, Smeagol casts himself
into the fires below. He meets his end along with his precious ring,
and in so doing, destroys the power of Sauron, saves the world, and saves Frodo.
While this ending may come as a shock,
we need look no further to Tolkien’s Letter 246 for the evidence…
I think that in some queer twisted and pitiable way Gollum would have tried (not maybe with
conscious design) to satisfy both. Certainly at some point not long before the end he would have
stolen the Ring or taken it by violence (as he does in the actual Tale). But ‘possession’
satisfied, I think he would then have sacrificed himself for Frodo’s sake and have voluntarily
cast himself into the fiery abyss. I think that an effect of his partial regeneration by love would
have been a clearer vision when he claimed the Ring. He would have perceived the evil of Sauron,
and suddenly realized that he could not use the Ring and had not the strength or stature to keep
it in Sauron’s despite: the only way to keep it and hurt Sauron was to destroy it and himself
together – and in a flash he may have seen that this would also be the greatest service to Frodo.
Indeed, the pity of Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam would rule the fate of many. Through Smeagol’s
sacrifice, Middle-earth is saved. But would Frodo and Sam survive? Would the eagles have still made
it to the mountain in time, since the battle of the black gate would never have transpired?
Should they have indeed been saved, Frodo’s life would play out much the same as before. He would
return to the Shire and alongside his fellow hobbits, reclaimed it from Saruman and his
ruffians. And still, he would fall ill on the anniversary of the Witch-king’s stab - though
notably not on the anniversary of Shelob’s lair, for in this tale he was never stung.
And eventually on September 29, 3021, he would sail into the West. He would remain the heroic
ringbearer who gave everything he had to get the ring to the fires of Mount Doom. He would
remember Smeagol not as the corrupted creature who fell into the fire when fate intervened,
but the tormented hobbit whose last act was to save Frodo from the great darkness.
Let me know what you guys think of this theory. Are there any changes you would
make? And what other theories would you like to see covered here on the channel?
It is well over 60 years since the great ringbearers sailed to the Uttermost West.
An old hobbit sits in his home, mourning the recent loss of his wife decades after the
loss of his best friend. Elanor Gardner enters Bag End, visiting her father months after the
passing of her mother Rosie. Sam presents to Elanor the Red Book of Westmarch so that she
may be the next keeper of this great book started many years ago by Bilbo Baggins.
Sam knows his time is drawing near. Soon his life will end, and the Garnder name will be carried on
by Elanor and his other 12 children. His thoughts are of Rosie and of Frodo. He wonders what lies
beyond the mortal world and if he may see his Rosie once more. He wonders if Frodo is yet
alive in the Undying Lands, for he would have loved to see his friend once more before the
end. However, since Shelob’s sting had been avoided, Sam had never become a ringbearer,
and thus would live out his remaining days in the Shire. There would be no reunion for
Frodo and Sam during their mortal lives, but perhaps one would come beyond - where
the spirits of men go to a fate which only Eru knows - beyond the circles of the world.
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