Gollum explained: who Sméagol was and why he matters
Spoilers ahead: this article discusses the ending.
Gollum explained simply: he was once a hobbit-like creature named Sméagol, and centuries of owning the One Ring twisted him into a wretched, divided being. In The Lord of the Rings he is guide, threat and, in the end, the reason the Ring is destroyed.
J.R.R. Tolkien introduced him in The Hobbit in 1937. Peter Jackson's films turned him into one of cinema's most famous digital characters, built around Andy Serkis's face, voice and performance. Here is who he is, what drives him and how he was made.
Who Sméagol was
Sméagol was a Stoor, one of the river-dwelling ancestors of hobbits. On his birthday, his cousin Déagol found the Ring in the river Anduin while fishing. Sméagol demanded it as a present, and when Déagol refused, he strangled him and took it. The story echoes Cain and Abel.
His family drove him out. His relatives called him Gollum because of the swallowing noise he made in his throat. He hid under the Misty Mountains, and the Ring stretched his life to nearly 600 years while hollowing out everything else.
Gollum and Sméagol: the split self
By the time Frodo meets him, two personalities live in one body. Gollum is the Ring's creature, cunning and murderous. Sméagol is what remains of the original, lonely and capable of affection when someone treats him kindly.
The Two Towers stages this as a conversation between two voices, with Gollum and Sméagol talking to each other in a pool of water. Film scholar Kristin Thompson called it perhaps the most celebrated scene in the film.
Why Frodo spares him
Gandalf tells Frodo early on that Gollum may yet have a part to play, and that pity stayed Bilbo's hand. Frodo, carrying the same burden, sees what he might become. He spares Gollum and makes him swear to guide them to Mordor. Sam never trusts him.
At the stairs of Cirith Ungol, Gollum comes close to turning back to good, but Sam's suspicion breaks the moment. He then leads them into Shelob's lair.
How Gollum dies
At Mount Doom, Frodo finally refuses to destroy the Ring and puts it on. Gollum attacks, bites off Frodo's finger and seizes the Ring. Celebrating, he falls into the Crack of Doom, and the Ring is destroyed with him. Frodo's earlier mercy saves Middle-earth, which is the moral Tolkien built the whole character towards.
How Andy Serkis created Gollum
Serkis performed Gollum through motion capture. He rehearsed scenes on location with Elijah Wood and Sean Astin, then stepped off camera to voice the character while they were filmed, and also performed in a capture suit so animators at Weta could map his movement. Gollum is barely glimpsed in The Fellowship of the Ring and becomes central in The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
Serkis has said he based Gollum's famous throat noise on the sound of his cat coughing up hairballs. The performance won Best Virtual Performance at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards, and Empire later ranked Gollum 13th among its greatest movie characters.
Gollum explained in brief
Gollum is Sméagol after centuries of the Ring: a murderer, an addict and a guide who loves and hates the thing that ruined him. His divided self gives the story its most human portrait of what the Ring does to people, and his final act, though unintended, completes the quest.
Questions people ask
Is Gollum a hobbit?
He was a Stoor, one of the river-dwelling peoples Tolkien describes as ancestors or close relatives of hobbits.
Why is he called Gollum?
His relatives named him after the gulping, swallowing noise he made in his throat.
Who played Gollum in the films?
Andy Serkis, through motion capture and voice performance, in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films.