Tolkien believed that Gollum was on the precipice of redemption, and quite nearly found his love for Frodo competing with his desire for the ring! For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.” Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s knee – but almost the touch was a caress. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. Tolkien indicates that the most moving scene in all of the Lord of the Rings was Gollum’s near repentance on the stairs of Cirith Ungol, as he looked on Frodo and Sam sleeping:

With the release of the new Gollum game, we decided to take a deeper dive at this character–not his motivations or history, but what Tolkien specifically said about him in his letters. Subscribe! Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS | More

Lord of the rings frodo becomes gollum