Gandalf clearly has pity on Gollum. The wood elves clearly have pity on Gollum.
So say the ending wasn’t as we all know but instead
I’m not apologizing for the spoilers. If you don’t know the ending by now it’s your own fault…
At the edge of the Cracks of Doom Frodo succumbs to the power of the Ring. He puts it on and heads out. Gollum smells him and Sam gets to watch Gollum wrestle with an invisible Frodo.
With me so far?
Gollum bites Frodo’s finger off and retakes the Ring.
This is where we depart.
Instead of dancing and falling off into the Cracks of Doom with the Ring Sam cries “DON’T YOU HURT MR FRODO!” and roundhouse swings to Gollum’s jaw. Several teeth (no more than six) and the Ring go flying out into the Cracks of Doom. Sauron vanquished. Frodo saved. It’s all good.
Then the Eagles come and rescue Frodo, Sam AND Gollum.
So Gollum is alive and the Ring is destroyed.
My question:
Would the Elves have allowed Gollum to travel to the Undying Lands like the other Ringbearers did? He’s clearly ‘poisoned in his soul’ by the evil of the Ring and could clearly use the healing. God knows if Bilbo and Frodo needed it then most certainly Gollum needed it.
But would he have been allowed? Would a being so debased as Gollum (remember, even touching Elvish rope burned him) be allowed to make the journey?
I wonder if Gollum would have gotten better at all, if the Ring (and Sauron’s power) were destroyed.
I mean, he probably wouldn’t have un-mutated, but maybe he would have regained his sanity?
OTOH…remember how badly Bilbo aged, once the ring was taken from him? Gollum’s life had been extended even longer. Maybe he would have just pulled a “Dorian Gray” and crumbled into dust.
I don’t think that Bilbo and Frodo could be healed. My understanding is that the Undying Lands offered them (at least Frodo) relief from the pain (physical and emotional) but not necessarily healing.
As for Gollum, he seems to be so tied to the ring that once the ring is destroyed, I question whether he could survive beyond it.
I don’t think Gollum could have survived once the Ring was destroyed. He had held it for so long, and it had so taken over his soul, that I think its destruction would have killed him just as it killed Sauron and the Nazgul. Even if he wasn’t just snuffed out by the Ring’s destruction, he’s still several centuries old. Look at how badly Bilbo’s age caught up with him once the ring was gone, and he hadn’t even reached his second centennial.
But, assuming he could live without the Ring, I don’t think he could have gone to the Undying Lands, nor would he want to. Maybe if the Elves kept him for a century or so, working to rehabilitate him, he might eventually have been restored enough that he could bear to go West. More likely, though, they’d just let him return to the Misty Mountains so he could live out what life was left to him in the caves that had been home to him for most of his exsistence.
In re: would Gollum have survived the destruction of the ring?
People really do change as a result of contact with the Ring. If you’ve had the Ring as long as Smeagol, those corruptions are permanent. It’s not because the Ring is still out there, driving Smeagol mad and keeping him from dying from a long distance.
He was truly, and permanently, corrupted. Perhaps he had begun to heal in those 60 years or so that he didn’t have it. But you wouldn’t expect him to suddenly go “Dorian Gray” once the ring is removed from him. And the destruction of the Ring wouldn’t have any direct effect on his health or mortality - damage is done, and Gollum would be left to “get well” or not on his own.
In re: would he have been welcomed in Valinor?
No doubt Smeagol would have lost all interest in existence after the ring was destroyed. If he could be kept from suicide, I believe he wouldn’t have cared at all where he was being taken. But I believe that Gandalf, for one, would have insisted that Smeagol be taken on the gray ships. Even if the elves didn’t want Smeagol, he can be very persuasive… being an emissary of the Valar really does help in getting things done. Indeed, I expect that Gandalf very much regretted the fact that Smeagol couldn’t be saved.
Certainly, Gandalf and the Elves would have tried to heal him, if they had had the chance. Even Sam thinks that, with enough home cooking and TLC, Gollum could have been turned around. But there was no way that Gollum could have survived the destruction of the Ring. Even if he didn’t crumble into dust on the Ring’s destruction (a not unlikely possibilty, it seems to me), he would have dived into the fire himself, to try to save the Ring. And if he had been restrained from that, then he would have strangled himself against the restraints. Sadly, I think that by that time, he was too far gone.
Tolkien generally seems to portray people making choices, and he seems to be somewhat torn between the notion that choices are always open, and the notion that, at some point, it’s too late. I think his underlying Christian theology would push him to say that it’s never too late, but I think that his underlying Norse affinities would push him to say, yeah, sometimes it’s too late.
The example that occurs to me (in the books, not in the movie) is Saruman, given a last chance to repent after he is defeated and imprisoned in Orthanc (“Won’t you come down, Saruman?”). That’s a clear decision point. Once Saruman decides not to change, I think it becomes too late for him. He couldn’t repent later.
Note that Tolkien posits that Sauron himself was offered a chance to repent (in an earlier age) and pretended to comply, but it was trickery.
Wormtongue seems to be the one character not given a choice. He made his choices long ago and is stuck with them.
Denethor is given choices, too, and driven mad (in the books) by the deceits of Sauron. Perhaps Denethor is the best parallel to your Gollum scenario: once driven mad, there’s no longer freewill at work. Gollum is probably at the same point by the time Frodo gets to Mount Doom – or, arguably, after the ring is destroyed in Jonathan’s scenario – that is, no longer has freedom of choice, no longer has will, but is a mindless thing.
Note that orcs and trolls are depicted as such, too – no freewill, no choices, just mindlessness.
Morgoth first. After the time of his chaining was expired in the First Age, Morgoth pretended to repent of his crimes against the design of Eru, and so had the chance to work chaos among the Noldor before the Valar caught on.
Sauron, on the other hand, directly defied Eonwë after the War of Wrath, refusing to return to Valinor and be tried for his crimes, and instead fleeing and going into hiding.
Tolkien was extremely dissatisfied with the way that the depiction of the creatures of the dark made them seem irredeemably evil. He had a great deal of trouble coming down on one side or the other of the question, and I don’t think he ever did manage to work the problem out before his death.
I disagree, and so does Tolkien. He specifically mentions in his letters that had Frodo failed in his mission at some point, and had Sam not consistently beat him down and denigrate him every single chance that he got, Gollum would have taken the Ring and destroyed it. Gollum is a pitiable creature not because he is beyond repair, but because he is a redeemable character.
And yes, Gollum would have most definitely been invited on that ship. The question is, would one of the Elves have to give up their spot for him as Arwen did for Frodo?
In addition to Jayjay’s comment, even in the books, the orcs aren’t portrayed as entirely devoid of freewill and mindless. They have loyalties…some to Sauron, others to Saruman, they have desires (One of them mentions to another that he wishes he could leave Sauron’s army and lead a gang of bandits and raiders), they don’t obey orders out of blind obedience but out of fear (there are a number of points where one orc has to threaten another to get him to carry out orders), and so on.
Tolkein himself said that there were really only three real options:
They Fellowship falters. one way or another darkness creeps o’er Middle Earth.
Frodo and Sam sort of redeem Gollum (he was actually halfway there as is) and GOllum pitches himself into the fire out of sadness after seeing Frodo claim the Ring.
