54 Facts About Gollum

Gollum was introduced in the 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit, and became important in its sequel, The Lord of the Rings.

Gollum was a Stoor Hobbit of the River-folk who lived near the Gladden Fields.

Gollum referred to the Ring as "my precious" or "precious", and it extended his life far beyond natural limits.

Gollum finally seized the Ring from Frodo Baggins at the Cracks of Doom in Mount Doom in Mordor, but he fell into the fires of the volcano, where both he and the Ring were destroyed.

Gollum was voiced by Brother Theodore in Rankin-Bass's animated adaptations of The Hobbit and Return of the King, and by Peter Woodthorpe in Ralph Bakshi's animated film version and the BBC's 1981 radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

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Gollum was portrayed through motion capture by Andy Serkis in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies.

Gollum was introduced in The Hobbit as "a small, slimy creature" who lived on a small island in an underground lake at the roots of the Misty Mountains.

Gollum survived on cave fish, which he caught from a small boat, and small goblins who strayed too far from the stronghold of the Great Goblin.

Bilbo Baggins stumbled upon Gollum's lair, having found the Ring in the network of goblin tunnels leading down to the lake.

Gollum was convinced that Bilbo knew the way out all along, and hoped to intercept him near the entrance, lest the goblins apprehend Bilbo and find the Ring.

Gollum spent the early years of his life with his extended family under a matriarch, his grandmother.

Gollum wandered in the wilderness for a few years until he finally retreated to a deep cavern in the Misty Mountains.

Gollum left his cave in pursuit of Bilbo a few years after losing the Ring, but the trail was cold.

Gollum made his way to the edge of Mordor, where he met the monstrous spider Shelob and became her spy, worshipping her and bringing her food.

Gollum was eventually captured by Sauron's forces and tortured, revealing to Sauron the names of "Baggins" and "the Shire".

Gollum's testimony alerted Sauron to the existence and significance of hobbits in general and the Baggins family in particular.

Gollum was freed, but was caught by Gandalf and Aragorn, who interrogated him about the Ring and placed him in the care of the Wood Elves of Mirkwood.

Gollum began following the Fellowship of the Ring in Moria, but was noticed by Frodo Baggins, Gandalf, and Aragorn.

Gollum picked up their trail again as they left, following them all the way to Rauros, then pursued Frodo and Samwise Gamgee across the Emyn Muil when they struck out on their own towards Mordor.

The unlikely company, guided by Gollum, made their way to the Black Gate, the main entrance to Mordor.

Faramir found out that Gollum was taking them to the pass of Cirith Ungol, an entrance to Mordor through the Ephel Duath mountains.

Gollum warned Frodo and Sam of the evil of that place, as well as the treachery he sensed in Gollum.

Frodo, Sam, and Gollum left Faramir and climbed the stairs to Cirith Ungol.

Gollum slipped away and visited Shelob, planning to feed the hobbits to her and then get the Ring for himself when she was done.

Gollum followed through with his plan and led Frodo and Sam into Shelob's Lair.

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Gollum struck, struggled with the invisible Frodo, bit off Frodo's finger, and seized the Ring.

Tolkien realised the omission, and added in later editions that Gollum was "a small slimy creature.

Hobbit states that Gollum had pockets, in which he kept a tooth-sharpening-rock, goblin teeth, wet shells, and a scrap of bat wing; it describes him as having a thin face, "big round pale eyes", and being "as dark as darkness".

Gollum spoke with less hissing and whining, and he spoke to his companions direct, not to his precious self.

Gollum was unable or unwilling to eat the lembas bread Sam and Frodo carried with them, and rejects cooked rabbit in favour of raw meat or fish.

Gollum speaks in an idiosyncratic manner, often referring to himself in the third person, and frequently talks to himself.

Gollum uses his own versions of words similar to the original words.

Gollum usually adds -es to the end of a plural, resulting in words such as "hobbitses" instead of hobbits or "birdses" instead of birds.

An average hobbit lifespan is over 100 years, but a span of 556 years separates Gollum's finding of the Ring and its destruction, by which time he was almost 600 years old.

Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger suggests that Gollum is Tolkien's central monster-figure, likening him to both Grendel and the Beowulf dragon, "the twisted, broken, outcast hobbit whose manlike shape and dragonlike greed combine both the Beowulf kinds of monster in one figure".

Episcopal priest Fleming Rutledge writes that at the Council of Elrond, Frodo angrily resists the notion that Gollum was a Hobbit like himself.

Gollum's adds that Gandalf describes the tale of Gollum's enslavement to the Ring as "a sad story" rather than as Frodo's description of him, "loathsome".

Gandalf says that Gollum "had no will left in the matter", and could not get rid of the Ring; instead, "the Ring itself.

Similarly, Callaway argues, Gollum "is being partly manipulated by Eru in this cosmic chess game" citing Gandalf's remark that Gollum "has some part to play yet, for good or ill".

Indeed, Gollum's alter ego, Smeagol, struggles to be good, speaks the truth when questioned by Frodo, and guides them through the Dead Marshes.

Finally, at the end of the quest inside Mount Doom, Gollum takes the Ring from Frodo, and causes it to be destroyed, completing the quest successfully at the moment that Frodo had announced that he would keep the Ring.

Callaway calls this "the ultimate heroic self-sacrifice", arguing that Gollum acted "consciously" using "the good fraction in his mind finally overpowering the Ring's evil".

Gollum's first known screen adaptation is in Gene Deitch's 1967 short film The Hobbit.

Gollum's role is reduced to a scene depicting him sitting in his boat.

Different Russian Gollum was played by Viktor Smirnov in Leningrad Television's two-part 1991 TV play Khraniteli, rediscovered in 2021.

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In Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Gollum is a CGI character voiced and performed by actor Andy Serkis.

Gollum is smaller than both Frodo and Sam, but still has considerable strength and agility.

In Jackson's films, Gollum has a split personality: the childlike "Smeagol" and the evil "Gollum".

Serkis and Gollum appeared on the 2003 MTV Movie Awards, when Gollum won "Best Virtual Performance" and went on to deliver an obscenity-laden acceptance speech in character, so well received that it won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.

Gollum is the eponymous character in The Hunt for Gollum, an independently produced 2009 prequel to the Jackson films directed by Chris Bouchard.

Bouchard's CGI Gollum, voiced by Gareth Brough, looks much like the Gollum of the Jackson films.

In Canada, Gollum was portrayed by Michael Therriault in the three-hour stage production of The Lord of the Rings, which opened in 2006 in Toronto.

Gollum appears in a 1989 three-part comic book adaptation of The Hobbit, scripted by Chuck Dixon and Sean Deming and illustrated by David Wenzel.

In 2014, the Turkish physician Bilgin Ciftci shared an image comparing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Gollum; he was banned from serving in the Turkish civil service, and Erdogan sued Ciftci for insulting him.