Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Oriana’s choice of topic: Gollum. For all the high adventure, heroics great and small and world-shattering consequences and much more that exists in Tolkien’s legendarium, arguably the most fascinating character he created in the end is his most racked, ruined and miserable, first encountered as a mysterious slimy creature living and lurking in a subterranean lake with only one thing of particular value to his name. Tolkien’s introduction of both Gollum and a magic ring into this world was, to borrow a phrase from the narrator of The Hobbit, a turning point in his career, the more when as he embarked on the writing that would result in The Lord of the Rings he realized he needed to rethink and redo the original, much more comically grotesque version of Gollum into a being living out any number of emotional and physical extremities at once. Arguably both this transformation and then the incorporation of this version of Gollum into his grand story became something he never quite got over, based on his various reactions over time as seen most clearly in his published letters on the subject. Why might the strongest scene for the entire Lord of the Rings be the simple gesture of Gollum tentatively reaching out to touch a sleeping Frodo on the way to Cirith Ungol? What is it about Tolkien’s self retcon of what Gollum is at heart that is fascinating still? Does the unspoken backstory of Sméagol and Déagol’s relationship suggest deep waters indeed, and how did Tolkien regard them both? And did Gollum really eat babies in the end or was that just something dreamed up by dirtbag elves?