Correct. Thank you.
Truthfully, I don’t recall if I read the book or saw the Rankin-Bass cartoon first. If indeed I did read the book first, it did not strike me the way seeing it portrayed did. When Frodo stood before the Fire of Mount Doom & said “I do not now will to do that which I have come to do”, I got chills. I wish Elijah Wood was given that exact line & his intonations were as chilling as Orson Bean’s.
Things would have ended quite differently had pity not stayed many hands against Gollum over the years. Frodo’s basic kindness and sympathy, even in the midst of his own troubles and hardships, enabled the most corrupted and vile character to complete the quest (accidentally… or not, depending on how you view the theology of the setting) when Frodo could not. Make of that what you will.
Also I do like the fact that the heroism of all the characters was a collective effort. No one person could have achieved any of the aims of the Fellowship. They were all heroes, in their own way, and not just supporting one person above the rest. They all had their day in the sun.
Also, I think Sméagol accepted his death because it finally ended his long years of torment, while Gollum accepted it because it meant that no one would ever again take his Precious.
Where do you get the notion that Gollum accepted his death? When did he even have time to contemplate the idea of it?
A better question is why age didn’t immediately start to catch up with Gollum after he lost the ring, the same way it did with Bilbo after he gave it away?
That’s a movie-ism.
In the books, something like 17-19 years passes between the Long-Expected Party and Frodo’s reunion with Bilbo in Imladris, rather than the few months implied by Peter Jackson.
Eh - he looked pretty content in the movie at least.
He was content because he had at last been reunited with his Precious, yes, his Precious. I’m not sure he even realized he was falling. The whole thing is shown in slow-motion. I doubt a quarter of a minute passed between Eru’s invisible foot tripping Gollum up and Gollum’s vaporization.
I rather like the scene in Bored of the Rings.
Sorry for the diversion, but I’m curious as to how it’s more realistic when an author uses world building and characterization to set up a certain outcome and then just doesn’t do it. Doesn’t the setup make the result less realistic?
I mean the books.
In the book the ring affected Bilbos aging process, keeping him young looking. After giving the ring to Frodo the ring stopped affecting this, Bilbo aged normally and lived another 19/20 years before leaving for the west as a very old and frail Hobbit.
Gollum was also a hobbit originally, and due to the ring was centuries old if I recall correctly. After losing the ring he lived for nearly eighty years before dying not of old age but of ring induced lava diving.
Eighty years is almost a full lifetime, so why did Bilbo start to age naturally while Gollum did not? If the ring kept Gollum fit and spry after losing it then why not the same for Bilbo?
Cool.
The Unexpected Party occurred when Bilbo was eleventy-eleven, did it not?
He was pretty happy while he was falling. But once he hit the lava, he looked pretty pissed off.
[Of course, if we were talking about real lava and not movie lava he would have been killed instantly and gone up in flames the second he hit rather than having time to think about anything at all. (Actually he would probably have been killed by the heat - about 1300 F - some distance above the lava itself. In the enclosed space, Frodo and Sam should have been killed by the superheated air as well.)]
No, the Unexpected Party happened when Bilbo was 50. That’s why Frodo felt the approach of his 50th birthday might be significant. Bilbo was eleventy-one at the time of the Long Expected Party, and Frodo was 33.
Worse, it’s Peter Jackson lava. If Gollum had had the good fortune to have a shield or mine cart handy, he’d still be alive today.
Not exactly. I didn’t expect him to just flick the ring into the lava because that would be anti-climactic. I expected him to either waiver or some other force to block his progress. Absolute power is supposed to corrupt absolutely, so if the ring is supposed to be that powerful but Frodo could resist it with heroic willpower that seems a little weak too.
I was actually expecting Frodo to self-sacrifice by performing a lava cannon ball or Sam would push him in. I enjoyed the irony of Gollum being responsible, but at the time I was also sort of wishy washy over whether it was too much of a “happy” ending.
Ah, thanks!
Well, the outcome was realized in both of these novels, just not by a single hero who overcame all odds, winning victories against personal demons and physical threats time and time again, with no long term cost. To read the occasional book where the protagonist doesn’t “win”, and in fact is damaged and scarred by the events (like Frodo) is a more “realistic” outcome and is refreshing to see in genre fiction given how rare a negative outcome is in it.