Exploring Tolkien30 Maj 2023

53. The Path to Gollum’s Redemption | Tolkien Discusses What May Have Happened

With the release of the new Gollum game, we decided to take a deeper dive at this character–not his motivations or history, but what Tolkien specifically said about him in his letters.

Tolkien indicates that the most moving scene in all of the Lord of the Rings was Gollum’s near repentance on the stairs of Cirith Ungol, as he looked on Frodo and Sam sleeping:

“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.”

Tolkien believed that Gollum was on the precipice of redemption, and quite nearly found his love for Frodo competing with his desire for the ring!

Join us in our extended episode where we discuss the best Lord of the Rings games made, and–if we were given the opportunity to make a game–what game would each of us create in Tolkien’s world. To get the extended episode, become a member at https://www.theonering.com/members ($4/mo and free for the 1st month)!

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Episode Links
Gollum Game (only buy this at a deep discount)
Game Livestream #1
Game Livestream #2

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???? If You Like Tolkien
The Silmarillion
The Fall of Númenor
The Fall of Gondolin
The Children of Hurin
The Atlas of Middle-earth
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

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