The tragedy of Gollum
The tragedy of Gollum
In a
previous post, I discussed the case of a successful case of repentance
in fiction[1].
However, this is not always the case and I’ll now discuss the case of another
tragic figure that appears in the Lord of the Rings, the famous fantasy
series authored by J.R.R. Tolkien. Of course, this post will contain spoilers
for the story of the Lord of the Rings.
Anyway, the
character I’m considering is Gollum, a ‘fallen hobby’ who ended up living an ‘unnatural
long life’ and became obsessed with the ‘Ring’. At one point, Gandalf the Grey
says to Frodo, the ringbearer this beautiful quote when the latter wished that
his uncle Bilbo killed Gollum:
“Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity,
and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be
sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because
he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity”
In the
story (I only watched the Peter Jackson’s movies, to be honest), it is
remarkable how much Frodo ends up pitying Gollum and certainly he wishes the
good for him[2].
However, ultimately Gollum betrays Frodo and even takes the Ring from him.
However (as the book story goes as I later learned), Gollum in his ecstatic joy
of having again the Ring trumps and falls into the lava of Mount Doom. This
leads to the final destruction of the Ring and Sauron, the great evil lord that
forged the Ring.
This chain
of events actually is quite consistent with the metaphysical system of evil
being the privation of good and not a substance in itself. Indeed, the ‘power’
of the Ring is ultimately the reason of its undoing: it made Gollum so blind
and so consumed in evil that he even didn’t notice that he could fall into the
lava. Evil self-destructs. And, of course, it was the pity of Bilbo and Frodo
that allowed such a fate to happen: if they didn’t spare Gollum, Frodo (with the
aid of Sam) couldn’t get to a point in which the Ring could be destroyed.
However, to
be honest, when I learned that this was the ending of Gollum that is present in
the books I was impressed by the genius of their author. Tolkien brilliantly
showed how evil could self-destruct. Being a corruption, it can never ‘win’ and
leads, ultimately, those who get the worst consequences for their acts are
those who do evil. Indeed, this is consistent with Christian teachings on ‘sin’:
sin is the result of an abuse of free-will in which the person seeks fulfilment
in something other than the Good (i.e. God in Christianity[3]).
Hence, the inner conflict in which sinners are said to find themselves: they
refuse the Good, the ultimate proper end of their desires and the aid of God’s
grace and yet can’t find satisfaction – and the more obstinate the sinner is,
the more difficult becomes to repent. I believe that Gollum’s inner turmoil is
perhaps one of the best fictional representation of such a ‘paradoxical’ state.
At the same
time, though, the story left me with a sense of tragedy, a sense that the
victory of the good was, in fact, incomplete. I can, indeed, imagine that both
Frodo, Bilbo and Gandalf wished and hoped that Gollum repented. Indeed, while
Gollum’s demise lead to the victory over Sauron, his death enlarged the number
of those who irrevocably were ‘lost’. Yes, I know that, ultimately, if Gollum
survived and the Ring was taken by the Nazgul (Sauron’s most powerful servants)
the ending would have been worse for the Middle Earth. Still, though, I can’t say
that the Lord of the Ring isn’t a tragic story precisely because,
indeed, so many souls have been lost due to the influence of Sauron and
his Ring: the Nazgul, for instance, were once men but they fell irrevocably to
the evil and we see many human beings that served Sauron. Saruman and Grima
Wormtongue were once good but they were irrevocably lost. All these souls were,
if we take what we read or see in the Lord of the Ring story as the
final word to their endings.
Going back
to Gollum… we can imagine a scenario in which, in fact, Gollum could have
survived. Let’s say that Gollum had a ‘change of heart’ and cast the Ring into
the fires. Or even: let’s say that Gollum somehow sacrificed his life to give
time to Frodo and Sam to cast the Ring into flames by somehow hindering the
Nazgul’s movements (of course, within the story this wasn’t technically possible
but still…). I mean, I don’t think that Gollum’s repentance was a logical
impossibility. He could repent. It was very difficult for that to happen
but he could repent.
And,
indeed, if we share Frodo’s pity we find ourselves desiring that not even
Gollum would be irreversibly lost but would, instead, repent. And yet he doesn’t.
This desire, this hope is thwarted by Gollum’s own wickedness. Yet, even if that
is due to Gollum’s own choice, we cannot help but seeing that the desire for
Gollum’s repentance failed.
Given the
final loss of Gollum and the lack of satisfaction of the desire for his coming to
repentance… Isn’t the whole story, authored by an author that coined the term ‘Eucatastrophe’[4],
marked by an irreparable element of tragedy? Are we truly satisfied by the
ending? Yes, the story ends well for most character. But could the story end
even better? Can we imagine a better ending? Or is it as good as it gets? Do we
need to accept some irremediable marks of tragedy in our ‘good ending’?
[2] This is of course consistent with
the Christian teaching of loving enemies (Matthew 5:43-48, Luke 6:27-36)
[3] To quote from Augustine of Hyppo’s
opening hymn to God in the Confessions: “…for You have made us for
Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” (quia
fecisti nos ad Te et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in Te)
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