"The Taming of Sméagol" — Tolkien does not bring Gollum back into the story simply to portray a soul corrupted by the One Ring. He places the most broken creature in Middle-earth beside Frodo to explore a deeper question: what qualities make a person worthy of carrying a burden that no one else can bear?
After the Fellowship is broken, Frodo and Sam begin the loneliest stage of their journey to Mordor. It is at this point that Tolkien returns Gollum to the narrative.
At first, Gollum appears to serve a practical purpose. He knows the road to Mordor, yet he is treacherous, consumed by obsession, and forever searching for an opportunity to reclaim his Precious.
Gradually, however, it becomes clear that Gollum's greatest role is not to guide Frodo through the wilderness, but to reveal something about Frodo himself.
The remarkable thing is not that Frodo chooses to trust Gollum.
It is that Tolkien allows only Frodo to extend that trust.
If the story merely sought to illustrate mercy, Gandalf could have fulfilled that role. So could Elrond or Galadriel.
Instead, Tolkien entrusts it to the one person who now walks the same path Gollum once walked.
Peter Jackson expresses this idea with remarkable restraint.
As the journey continues, Frodo grows visibly thinner. His face is marked by exhaustion, and the burden of the Ring becomes increasingly evident. Beside him stands Gollum, a living portrait of what prolonged submission to the Ring has already produced.
When Frodo looks at Gollum, he does not simply see a dangerous creature.
He sees a possible future.
That recognition marks one of the most significant stages in Frodo's growth after leaving the Fellowship.
He has not become physically stronger. Indeed, every mile toward Mordor leaves him weaker than before.
What changes is something more important.
His way of seeing other people.
The sheltered world of the Shire once encouraged simple distinctions between good people and bad, friends and enemies.
The journey steadily dismantles those certainties.
Boromir reveals that even an honorable man can fall.
Galadriel teaches Frodo that some burdens cannot be carried by another.
Sam reminds him that even the loneliest calling cannot be fulfilled without faithful companionship.
Only after these lessons does Tolkien place Gollum at Frodo's side.
By then, Frodo has learned to see what he could not have seen at the beginning of the story.
Jackson underscores this transformation in one of the film's quietest moments.
Rather than allowing the audience alone to witness Sméagol's struggle with his darker self, he allows Frodo to witness it as well.
The scene is not included simply to explain Gollum's divided nature.
It allows Frodo to recognize that even within someone who appears almost entirely consumed by darkness, an inner struggle still remains.
Frodo does not mistake evil for goodness.
He knows what Gollum has done.
He knows his capacity for deceit and betrayal.
Yet he also refuses to believe that a human soul—or in this case, a Hobbit-like creature—can be understood solely by its worst failures.
Here Tolkien quietly reverses a familiar habit of judgment.
We often define people by the lowest point of their lives.
Frodo instead asks a humbler question:
Had I borne the Ring as long as he has, would I have done any better?
The question does not dismiss justice.
It tempers judgment with humility.
That humility shapes the way Frodo responds to Gollum throughout the remainder of the journey.
He refuses to allow another's corruption to determine his own character.
He does not answer suspicion with suspicion.
He does not answer betrayal with bitterness.
The darkness surrounding Gollum serves only to illuminate, with greater clarity, the moral steadfastness that Frodo is struggling to preserve within himself.
In this way, Tolkien suggests that the Ring-bearer's greatest test is not simply endurance.
It is whether he can carry immense responsibility without surrendering the virtues that give that responsibility its meaning.
For this reason, Gollum is not merely a foil to Frodo.
He is the mirror through which Frodo's own character is revealed.
Long before the fires of Mount Doom, Tolkien is already preparing the conclusion of his story.
Not by giving his hero greater strength, but by cultivating within him the humility, compassion, and moral clarity that make victory worth achieving in the first place.
Seen in this light, The Taming of Sméagol is far more than the introduction of an unforgettable character. It is one of the clearest windows into Tolkien's understanding of true greatness: not the power to overcome others, but the strength to remain faithful to what is good even while walking through the deepest darkness.
Name movie: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
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