Do you have a gollum in your life?

[The_Patriot21]

Thought for the day. LOTRs has always been one of my favorite stories because of how in depth the story is. Well, on a LOTRs FB group I'm in it was brought up that gandalf brought 3 eagles to mt doom in return of the king to rescue the hobbits-one of them was for gollum.

In fact throughout the series gollum has always been portrayed as a horrid creature and a villian. He killed his best friend over the ring and will do anything to keep it/get it back. He's literally evil, and in the end proves to be unredeemable. 

And Gandalf knew just how despicable he was, and even though he had multiple chances to kill him, he stays his hand, and even encourages frodo to show him mercy as well, which frodo does even going so far as to save gollums life on more then one occasion, once from his best friend sam.

And in the end gollum dies due to his own treachery, and gandalf while not knowing that, does know just how treacherous gollum is still sent an eagle to rescue him.

That's love. That's what Christ does for us, over and over, it's why He came here and died for us, even though He knew most of us would spit in his face.

And yet, as Christians when we run up against someone who has done us wrong over and over and over again, were more apt to take the attitude that samwise and most of the rest of the characters in the LOTRs took towards Gollum, and write them off as evil, instead of loving them like Jesus does. We don't know if they are unredeemable or not, only God knows that, we need to love them regardless.

[Eman_3]

It is not fancy, Jesus preached that we should love all. Follow the messages from Jesus.

[WowLookaDuck]

Gollum is an analogy for drug addiction.

[The_Patriot21]

I should add, that Tolkien didn't intentionally write analogies into the LOTRs like lewis did with Narnia. in fact, in an interview he was asked about analogies and he denied it, according to him the LOTRs was intended for entertainment purposes only.

However one can easily make analogies out of a lot of the content, I believe a lot of that was because his faith just naturally flowed into his writing. But it was not intentional, and there certainly are elements that cannot be made into analogies at all. 

 

[Marathoner]

I agree with Pat. I'm not aware of Tolkien inseminating his fictional works with allegory. He wasn't fond of such a literary device; the professor was rather exacting with the standards behind his works of fiction. Based upon a collection of his private letters (discovered posthumously), Tolkien fostered a dim view of modern literature, particularly Herbert's Dune.

J.R.R. Tolkien was an old-fashioned fellow. 

[Henry_iain]

I'm basically in agreement.  I do want to speak in the defence of Sam though.  I always consider him to be, in a sense more truly heroic than Frodo but that is a different conversation. I don't think Sam can really help expecting the worst from Gollum. It has a lot to do with their roles and personalities. Sam is fiercely loyal and  is suspicious of any individual that tries to interact with or approach  Frodo without clear purpose. He tries his best to give Gollum a chance but Gollum justifies his suspicions too often. 

Another interesting  thought to consider: near the end, Frodo himself succumbs to the rings power and it's only a stroke of luck (or is it perhaps a miracle) that saved the day. What would have happened if Gollum had been killed by Sam earlier? 

A good question to ask what would have happened if Frodo had actually completed his task without Gollum falling in? Could there then have been some hope for restoration? 

[The_Patriot21]

7 hours ago, Henry_iain said:

I'm basically in agreement.  I do want to speak in the defence of Sam though.  I always consider him to be, in a sense more truly heroic than Frodo but that is a different conversation. I don't think Sam can really help expecting the worst from Gollum. It has a lot to do with their roles and personalities. Sam is fiercely loyal and  is suspicious of any individual that tries to interact with or approach  Frodo without clear purpose. He tries his best to give Gollum a chance but Gollum justifies his suspicions too often. 

Another interesting  thought to consider: near the end, Frodo himself succumbs to the rings power and it's only a stroke of luck (or is it perhaps a miracle) that saved the day. What would have happened if Gollum had been killed by Sam earlier? 

A good question to ask what would have happened if Frodo had actually completed his task without Gollum falling in? Could there then have been some hope for restoration? 

Interesting notion, had gollum not gone after the ring, it would not have been destroyed. It would have taken frodo, and ultimately fell into saurons hands.

Hobbits had more resilience to the ring then humans, but they were still susceptible to it. It would have even taken sam had he been the ring bearer.

There were people in middle earth who could. The ring held no power over dwarves, for example. However most dwarves would not have tried to destroy it but rather bury it in their treasure heap. The few that would, such as gimli, would have never have been able to get it there, as they would have killed gollum on sight and as such never found the secret entrance.

Outside of dwarves the only person that was impervious to the ring was Tom Bombadil, who according to Tolkien's other writings was a equal match to sauron in power If not more powerful, as long as he stayed in his woods. Keyword there. He lost his power if he left, and even if he did was far to absentminded to be able to make the journey.

Gandalf of course knew all this, including that frodo wouldn't be able to destroy the ring on his own, but that's a study for another time.

 

 

 

 

 

[Henry_iain]

Even Sauron himself wasn't always evil. He was a bit like an angel working under the command of one of the Valar. He had obsessions which made it easy for him to be tempted.  

 

[TheBlade]

No offense but blood of Jesus... As much as in this world to just watch/read this stuff for me would be great yet since I am of with Christ its something I do not play with. When past forefathers really questioned it. It has things in it we do not ever play with because GOD told us not to. As Christ would say "there is no life in it".

[Vine Abider]

Gollum = Adam.  That is, in Adam, we are all capable of all kinds evil, and capable of repeating it over and over. "In me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing" as Paul lamented in Romans 7:18.

Love is merciful and we need lots of it!