Posted: May 29, 2000 at 19:58:12: by Josh
: : Gandalf said that he thought Gollum was in kin with the hobbits before he journeyed under the Misty Mountains. There is also a passage in The Two Towers that describes gollum like an old hobbit. So why was anything made by the elves painful to him? I am having trouble deciding whether Tolkien meant this as something symbolic between good and evil, or if he truly meant some physical change occured in gollum to make him so much more different from the hobbits(who loved everything given to them by the elves). Why was the rope physically painful to him, and the lembas poison to him? : Gollum carried the Ring for some 500 years (IIRC). In this time he was corrupted by the Ring's influence. The mere fact that he was not reduced to a wraith attests to the incredible toughness of Hobbits. However, no one could hold the Ring for that long without experiencing adverse effects. In Gollum's case this manifested as an intense aversion to anything Elvish. (Remember, the main purpose of the Ring was to enslave the Elves). The "magic" of the elves manifested itself through the virtue of their items; (the rope returned to Sam when he "called' it, lembas could sustain life beyond normal endurance, the elven boats would not sink). IMHO, this "magic" interacted with the residual influence of the Ring much like two medecines can react in unexpected ways when mixed. Not to mention the fact that by this time, Gollum had been to Mordor and had faced Sauron himself. I don't think many beings could come out of that without some change happening to them. And it could have been that Gollum just didn't want to eat the Lembas because it was a taste that he couldn't remember. Eating fish for hundreds of years has to dull your taste buds.
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