Was Gollum a ghoul
Leif U. Schrader
Was Gollum a ghoul
I have read various comments on Gollum, all agree that he was a hobbit.
Which I also believe to be true. Besides this I would even dare to say
that he was a ghoul and therefore beyond dead. In various passages of
LOTR
it reads that the ring stretched his life. David Day gives the point of
time
when his brother found the ring as the year 2463 TA. That would make him
about 478 years old when he lost the ring (2941 Smauf left Erebor). The
question
that appears is, why didn't he die when he lost the ring. I think that
two answers
can be considered reasonable. The first is that his will to recover the
ring made him
live on. Hence his thirst became a "substitue" for the power of life.
The other answer,
which I consider to be correct, would be that he left the realm of the
living and became
a "walking dead". As we all know he hated the sun, which is aclassic
aspect of living deads
(if you think of vampires and alike). In my point of view he even became
similar to the
Nazgul, he couldn't stand any Elvish item (e.g. the rope) as the Nazgul
couldn't stand
Elvish things (e.g. Elbereth). Just like the Nazgul Gollum's sight was
limited (especially
during the day) but his hearing and his sense of smell was increased
beyond the normal
range. The only remarkable difference is that the Nazgul served Sauron,
while Gollum
always followed his own aims. Even though he served the Lidless Eye for
some time, he
wanted to have the ring for himself (once he says, that if he get the
ring all will have
to serve him and he will get as many fish as he wants).
What do you think was Gollum similar to the Nazgul and a ghoul or not?
Greetings and thanks for any comment
Leif U. Schrader
(lsch...@t-online.de)
Nick Cuce'
tolkien (through gandalf) indicated that perhaps it is not possible for
hobbits to completely fade under the power of the ring.
as to the question of age, both bilbo and frodo, upon receiving the ring,
ceased to age completely; that is, they remained the age they were when
they began owning the ring (bilbo was 51, frodo was 33). it is my
assumption that, once they stopped possessing the ring, they began to age
again from the point at which they stopped.
therefore, if gollum was relatively young when he found the ring, given
how long hobbits usually live, he probably had a good hundred years left
in him once the ring was taken away. (if this is true, bilbo and frodo
probably lived another fifty to a hundred years on eressea also).
in any case, the book leaves no question about it: smeagol was very much
alive, albeit very lean and tough from years of living in the wild. he
still needed to eat ("nice fisssshh!"), and drink, and in fact still had
some of his own soul left. he was not fully a slave to the ring and came
very close to redeeming himself many times (read the scene on the steps
of cirith ungol, IMO the most touching part of the LotR).
nick.
James F. & Valerie J. Brown
I don't think Gollum was a ghoul. I think that maybe when Gollum put
the ring on he had 50 years left, so maybe he still had 50 left when he
took it off?
chad and eriko brinkman
i think that i read somewhere that the rings effects don't necessarily end
once someone who has had the ring no longer has it. they are affected in
some sort of a permanent way, though, once someone loses posession of the
ring, they will begin to age again. still, that aging would always remain
at a slower rate.
also, i don't think anyone dies on eressea from old age. i can't think of
his name, and i don't feel like going through my book right now, but isn't
the man who went to eressea still alive? damn, what was his name?
oh, well.
that's my two pieces of lint
chad brinkman
CHUCK BRAMLET
In that case, he would have died many years before Bilbo passed the Ring
to Frodo. That happened on Bilbo's 115th Bday. He had had the Ring for
64 years.
Also, I _don't_ think Smeagol/Gollum was a Hobbit, although he was from
the same ancestry. It may be splitting hairs, but wasn't S/G a _Stoor_?
Chuck
--
Margaret R. Dean
In article <5un20r$g...@news.asu.edu>,
The Stoors were a =kind= of hobbit. That's like saying, "I don't think X
was human . . . wasn't he Caucasian?" :)
--Margaret Dean
<marg...@access.digex.net>
David Salo
In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.97090...@astro.ocis.temple.edu>,
Nick Cuce' <dc...@astro.ocis.temple.edu> wrote:
> tolkien (through gandalf) indicated that perhaps it is not possible for
> hobbits to completely fade under the power of the ring.
>
> as to the question of age, both bilbo and frodo, upon receiving the ring,
> ceased to age completely; that is, they remained the age they were when
> they began owning the ring (bilbo was 51, frodo was 33). it is my
> assumption that, once they stopped possessing the ring, they began to age
> again from the point at which they stopped.
>
> therefore, if gollum was relatively young when he found the ring, given
> how long hobbits usually live, he probably had a good hundred years left
> in him once the ring was taken away. (if this is true, bilbo and frodo
> probably lived another fifty to a hundred years on eressea also).
Let's say that Gollum was 28 when he found the Ring - the same age as
Pippin when he joined the Fellowship, and Pippin was considered quite young
- then after 77-8 years of not having the Ring he would be 105-6. Hobbits,
Tolkien said, 'reached their century as often as not', and the recorded
ages at death fully bear this out. The Old Took and Bilbo Baggins, in
reaching 130, were quite exceptional, as was Lalia of the Clayhangers
(d.1402, 119); other than them, the oldest hobbit on record was Rorimac
Brandybuck (d. 1408, 106) and there are then a fair number of hobbits aged
100-104 at death. So Gollum must have been very old even by Hobbit
standards. I am not at all sure that a person touched by the Ring aged
normally, however, even if its power ended with the end of possession, it
might take a while for a 'stretched' life to return to normal.
With the passing of the One Ring, however, I think that its power may
have entirely vanished: so that Bilbo, from being a stout hobbit of 68,
would suddenly find himself an ancient of 128, aging 60 years in a moment.
When the hobbits found Bilbo again in Rivendell after their adventures, he
"looked very old, but peaceful, and sleepy." Frodo would have found
himself jolted from 33 to 51; perhaps another element in the strain on his
mind ensuing on the destruction of the Ring.
David Salo
Lalaith
ds...@usa.net (David Salo) wrote:
> I am not at all sure that a person touched by the Ring aged
>normally, however, even if its power ended with the end of possession, it
>might take a while for a 'stretched' life to return to normal.
> With the passing of the One Ring, however, I think that its power may
>have entirely vanished: so that Bilbo, from being a stout hobbit of 68,
>would suddenly find himself an ancient of 128, aging 60 years in a moment.
>When the hobbits found Bilbo again in Rivendell after their adventures, he
>"looked very old, but peaceful, and sleepy." Frodo would have found
>himself jolted from 33 to 51; perhaps another element in the strain on his
>mind ensuing on the destruction of the Ring.
I do not think that Bilbo's or Frodo's aging were stopped as soon as
they received the Ring. Certainly it needed some time to adjust to
each of its new hosts, esp. in the case of Frodo who did not wear it
for years. I do not believe that his aging was stopped for very long.
As far as Bilbo is concerned there may have been some residual left of
the One's power. Consider his statement on Frodo's return: "I would
have liked to see it [the Ring] again." I think that means that he
still was not fully free of its effects, but getting increasingly so.
And would that mean otherwise that in the moment the One faded, and
the Nine with them, the Nazgul found themselves to turn several
thousands of years old in an instant, and therefore went up in
spontaneous combustion?
- Lalaith
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Belief is the disease, knowledge the medicine.