Lord of the Rings, and now, The Hobbit, always gives me a headache when I’m watching them. And not just because The Hobbit is shot in 48 frames per second, although I hear that has given absolutely everyone a headache. It’s because I think I was trained that J.R.R.Tolkein was writing an allegory for The World Wars.
Now, whenever I watch the movies, I’m always trying to match up the different characters with the nationality they’re supposed to represent. The Shire is America, right? And the elves are English? And I don’t know about the Orcs. That just seems kind of mean.
And Gollum? Gollum just represents the deepest, loneliest, most frightened part of every unattached man or woman, right? Gollum is what happens to us when we have no one to love.
I really think Gollum is the fearful thing that unites us as people.
I guess the other fearful thing according to the Lord Of The Rings series is supposed to be the Atomic Bomb, maybe, but that’s beside the point.
Think about it. Gollum loses the person and thing he loved the most, and afterwards, he is forced to live forever alone, in darkness. He’s driven mad for want of a ring that he can never have, ever. He has only himself for company, and he does not particularly like himself. This is the most heartbreaking idea in the world. Everyone who is not a sociopath is afraid of that.
It’s possible that some people who are sociopaths are afraid of that, just because you need other people to do sociopath stuff with.
Gollum’s existence is everyone’s nightmare at the worst moment of your break-up. It’s that moment when you are convinced that you’re just going to have to sit around in darkness, longing for things that you cannot have. Always longing.
