I just finished rereading ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’.

What a wild ride.

Turns out Gollum could be the ‘hero’ of the story. Think about it.

1) He never wavers in his ‘commitment’ to his goal and is willing to die for it. [Reacquiring the ring which was taken from him by Bilbo Baggins in ‘The Hobbit’]

2) He leads the hobbits Frodo and Sam all the way into Mordor [The dark lord Sauron’s stronghold] Gollum takes them around the back way, away from Sauron’s watchful eyes. The path that the hobbits would not have found on their own.

At the very end of the journey. The power of the ring is too much for Frodo. Frodo falters and ultimately fails in his task at the top of the Mountain of Doom at the lip of the cauldron of fire. Frodo puts the ring on and declares he won’t give it up, which finally turns the great evil eye of Sauron towards the ring. Cue: The winged dark riders [The Nazgûl] who are going to come along and mess some shit up.

3) Gollum leaps up and bites the ring off of Frodo taking Frodo’s finger along with it and then losing his balance, falls with the ring into the fiery pit.

Saving Middle Earth in the process.

The only alternative would have been Sam Gamgee pushing Frodo along with the ring into the fire in order to rid Middle Earth of the ring. If Sam could have figured out where he was, because with the ring on Frodo was invisible.

Could Sam have done it?

“But for him Sam, I could not have destroyed the ring” Frodo Baggins, Lord of the Rings

The Admiral’s Boy