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Sometimes I find it difficult to determine when Tolkien is trying to establish a motif in his writing, and when he is simply falling back onto a default– if he is trying to thematically have all evil forces behave in a similar manner, or if he really only has one way that he knows how to write “evil” characters. 

But at the moment, in the middle of re-reading RotK, I’m struck again with the odd similarities between Gollum, and Melkor. (And this, I realize, is dangerously specific to the way I interpret and write Melkor as a character, so take this whole train of thought with that caveat).

 –cut for long rambling meta with no particular goal–

The pattern of addiction and obsession between the One Ring and the Silmarils was obviously intentional (even if the Silmarils aren’t corruptive in themselves like the Ring is), since it’s part of the intended similarity between Sauron’s fall and Melkor’s– I think that is where the basis of the comparison starts. Gollum is a creature who has hit rock bottom in his addiction to the Ring, and its consumption of him. Similarly by the end of the First Age (through the lens of my own headcanons), Melkor is reduced to skin and bones and paranoia, unable to relinquish what he’s stolen even though it means his doom. He fears capture and further injury more than he loves freedom, and though he loves his freedom, and himself, he has no pride that stops him from abasing himself to appease his captors, waiting to avenge himself of humiliation in cold blood. 

Less thematically, and more in the realm of personal headcanons, I’m finding that Gollum sounds like Melkor when he’s waxing towards Smeagol; his speech is broken and hissing, but he is clever, and has a very long memory, and when his head is clear he describes things poetically, thoughtfully, even sadly. The voice I use in my head even sounds similar to the way I imagine Melkor’s after wrecks his voice from screaming at Ungoliant– they have a similar sort of canny, lilting, suspicious, sneering way of speaking, that can seem wholly guileless and pitiable when injured. 

Even more down that blurry line between thematic similarities and accidental parallels, their behavior and interests are similar: Gollum is both cowering and vicious, delicate and disgusting, resentful and fawning. He hates things that everyone else finds natural to love like sunshine and flowery meadows and cooked meat; he sticks his hands into things to find out what they are, he sniffs and feels and tastes the world to understand it better by his reckoning. Being bound terrifies and burns him, captivity is anathema to him. Even the predilection for raw fish is rather in keeping with how I write Melkor, with a gleeful taste for sweet things and raw flesh. And at least in my eyes, they serve a narrative function (which I am still debating whether or not was intended by the author) in that they point out the flaws of the more powerful and “good” characters, both in how they are dealt with in captivity and in combat, and simply by existing as a comparison. Both are quick to point out any hypocrisy or injustice dealt them by characters with the supposed moral high-ground, even when they are in the very midst of double-crossing them. (A trait I admit I find terribly endearing, even when I like the good guys! Just like I’ll admit to finding cowardly and traitorous characters endearing.)

There’s just something there in the core of it; not only in their Otherness, but something about their all-consuming need for a thing that constrains them, when in all other aspects they care only for their own freedom to do whatever petty and indulgent things they wish; the disassociation this conflict of interests causes, the split personalities of past and present arguing constantly in the same voice, the way they crawl towards this thing that consumes them, through a volcanic hellscape or with hewn legs; their need is so great that it itself is almost beyond reproach, though their actions may be horrifying.  

It conjures up a particular set of motivations and behaviors that when put together, are always familiar in some way. So many other characters in LotR have spiritual predecessors, and this one just feels right to me; it sets a precedent for some of the traits I ascribe to Melkor, and puts a pin in some aspects of his character that I have had trouble describing, or justifying clearly, in the past.  They are wounded and canny, ready to betray or play dead or lie at any moment, used to being denied, rebuked, and punished. At once reveling in the power their loathsomeness gives them over others, while still shrinking with hurt innocence, wondering why they must endure so much hatred from both without and within, questioning why the things they enjoy are considered loathsome in the first place. At their core is something that was broken early and healed poorly, something lonely and stunted and childlike, and yet deeply self-aware, clever, selfish, and knowing; able to see the path to ruin but not strong enough to change. It is not without pathos.