A similar passage is there, but the subject is Bilbo, not Gollum. In the 1957 revision, Tolkien altered this as well. We were assured that Gollum would honor the results of the game: “For one thing, Gollum had learned long ago that he was never to cheat at the riddle game.” It was more about tradition and fairness than anything else. Of course, Gollum still wanted to eat the hobbit if Bilbo lost, but more than that, he wanted to play a game as he did long, long before. ![]() In the original 1937 edition, Gollum promised to give Bilbo a present if he answered the riddles correctly. Tolkien wished to bring the Hobbit story more in line with its sequel, Lord of the Rings, which was about to be published (1954), so he simply changed it completely. Of course, readers of Lord of the Rings know exactly why all of this was – Gollum had found the One Ring, murdered his cousin, and was exiled by his family. The Goblins did not come and separate him from his friends, rather, he lost his friends and was driven away into the caves. He was now not born under the mountains, but was from somewhere else. This was a completely different origin for Gollum. “…before he lost all his friends and was driven away, alone, and crept down, down, into the dark under the mountains.” Then, in 1951, Tolkien forced an important transformation: The bit about the riddle game being the only game “the old wretch could remember” was cut. ![]() When it was published in 1937, the above origin was nearly identical, with Gollum’s home still being the caves and lake under the mountains. The Goblins came into his home, not the other way around. This bit from the original manuscript painted a picture of Gollum as having always lived under the mountains. It was the only game the old wretch could remember.” “Asking (and sometimes answering) riddles had been a game he played with other funny creatures sitting in their holes in the long long ago before the goblins came, and he was cut off from his friends far under the mountains. While the riddles themselves were basically the same from the beginning, Gollum’s origins were a great deal different. When originally written in 1931 and originally published in 1937, the riddle game was drastically different than the later revision in 1951 (three years prior to the release of The Lord of the Rings). Though Bilbo and Gollum played the riddle game, it was much different from the version in the currently-available Hobbit. He sometimes referred to himself as “precious” (though in the early versions, never called the ring “precious”).Īnd there was also the riddle game. ![]() For starters, we learn that he said “Gollum” when “he swallowed unpleasantly in his throat – that’s how he got his name.” Also, Gollum “only spoke to himself not you,” we’re told. He was Gollum, as dark as darkness except for two big round pale eyes.”Įven in this early draft several features of Gollum’s character can already be found. I don’t know where he came from or who or what he was. “Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum. His first pen strokes about this odd creature were: Perhaps with this in mind, when Tolkien brought Bilbo, the Dwarves, and the Wizard into the dark caverns of the Misty Mountains, he might have brought old Glip along too. Sneaking and crawling under fishy stones, “Glip” was the poem’s title, as well as the name of this “slimy little thing.” It was part of a series entitled “Tales and Song of Bimble Bay.” There’s a small hint, however, that Gollum’s character was based upon one of his own poems from two years prior. This was, of course, where Bilbo met Gollum who “lived on a slimy island in the middle of the lake.” Bilbo Baggins, on a quest which soon saw them separated in the caverners under the mountains. ![]() It was the summer of 1930, and on a blank page in a student’s exam book Tolkien had written “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” He soon followed this mysterious little line, allowing it to lead him where it would: to a wizard named Bladorthin and a brood of dwarves whose leader was named Gandalf (there was still a bit of name-shuffling to do). The changes, which we’ll be uncovering today, are as curious as they are drastic. In doing this, he made the two Gollums one. In the original 1937 edition of The Hobbit, Gollum’s motives and demeanor were markedly milder than in Lord of the Rings. In 1951, Tolkien heavily revised his original 1937 version of the “Riddles in the Dark” chapter, completely changing Gollum’s story. The character of Gollum, as read in The Hobbit, matches up perfectly with the Gollum we know from The Lord of the Rings.
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