Wild hobbits and Gollum

[Stormcrow]

1. What you often say in these situations hinges on the fact that your reading of Tolkien is 100% correct, which in a book based on the concept of reported events and the layering of many oral/textual sources/histories, is a little bold. In any work of fiction--or even in the real world--there's a level of subjectivity you have to acknowledge. Different truths can be valid for different people.

I did acknowledge subjectivity, if that's what you want to call it. I was careful to say that there is "no evidence I'm aware of." Got some?

The answer here is very simple. I make the claim that there is no place in the text where Gollum is said to murder anyone after Déagol and before he is turned out of his grandmother's hole. All you have to do is point to any bit of Tolkien text that says he did commit murder during that period. I'll even consider vague suggestions in the text that he did so. Anything.

And I do not often say that my reading of Tolkien is a hundred percent correct. You are mischaracterizing me.

2. When TOR is based around the idea of secondary/subcreation within Tolkien's world, it isn't very functional to constantly point out how players are deviating, even in the slightest way, from what is written. One, not everyone is going to play so strictly, or with such an eye for detail--and that's ok. Two, see (1) above: they might be playing according to their own reading of Tolkien. Even if it doesn't meet your idea of what Tolkien wrote/meant, that's ok.

I'm not asking anyone to play strictly according to Tolkien. Go ahead and add whatever you want—as I said above.

Two assertions were made: (1) it would be rare that wild hobbits would drive out one of their own; (2) a legend of the Gollum-boogeyman might exist.

(1) is based on the assumption that wild hobbits are relatively similar to Shire-hobbits. Tolkien never said anything like that, but Deaghaidh didn't say anything about adding his own details, either. So I said we don't know much about wild hobbits, and I ventured a guess that they don't resemble civilized hobbits.

(2) depends on believing that Gollum was murdering wild hobbits during this period. I pointed out that there is no textual evidence for this assumption, so I didn't see a likely path to his becoming a legendary boogeyman.

I offered textual evidence for my guesses, not a declaration that anyone was deviating, and not an order to play a certain way.

Deaghaidh then challenged my list of Gollum's crimes by adding murder to it, and I said that, "so far as we know," Gollum hadn't murdered anybody in this period. I think I was plain that I was reading the text, not making things up, so I read Deaghaidh's response as meaning Gollum was a murderer in the book, not just in the game that Deaghaidh makes up. If he had said "In my game Gollum also murdered wild hobbits," that would have been a completely different story.

So I really don't see any reason to interpret my posts as trying to shut someone down for being insufficiently loyal to Tolkien's texts. I gave information from the books that this whole game is based on, in response to the question posed by the original poster, whether wild hobbits remember Gollum. That was my answer: maybe, but unlikely, for these reasons. I really don't see the dismissiveness here.

[cuthalion]

So, just to try and make the point that you're being read differently than maybe you intend, all three of these one line responses refute the OP without offering any kind of affirmation/support/positive criticism.

Nobody ever found out about the murder of Déagol, so far as we know. Nor is it said that Gollum murdered anyone else before being turned out.

That's true of Shire-hobbits and probably Bree-hobbits, but we know almost nothing about wild hobbits. I would guess they don't resemble civilized hobbits much at all.

Possibly, but Gollum's crimes were thievery, gurgling, and spreading malicious gossip. His grandmother turned him out of the family hole and he left. Not exactly the stuff that leads to an enduring legend.

That's kind of what I'm getting at. It just feels a bit like a duck shoot.

I'm not really seeing the point in arguing textually with you, because you seem to have such very fixed ideas. For example, it seems like no great leap to me that Gollum's family all suspected about the murder of Deagol. It's implied in the text, and it's certainly how I always read it.

But we're probably not going to solve that disagreement--nor do we actually NEED to go to the cannon every single time to support/help someone's/our own idea--at least, not in a way that closes down creativity. It's explicitly suggested in TOR not to take that approach, so you can't just assume offering "textual evidence" and arguing minor points down to tooth and nail are what this forum is meant to be about.

My real point in posting was to encourage Deaghaidh, not attack you, so apologies if I put you on the back foot.

As an aside, totally recommend you watch the movie Rashomon re: the idea that one's own truth may not be THE truth.

[Glorelendil]

Although we all wish Tolkien had written volumes and volumes more than he did, the fun thing from an RPG point of view about the blank spaces is that we largely fill them in as we please. We are free to break canon, of course, but even for those of us who don't wish to break canon there's a ton of leeway. The question is how much license we take with the unknowns. I think all of us have the same objective in mind, though: maximizing the fun.

Even without evidence that Deagol's murder was ever discovered we can decide that it was in fact discovered, or at least concluded. Perhaps this occurred after Smeagol was driven out, so from his point of view (and thus Gandalf's, and thus ours...up until now) it never occurred.

What I think happens in these discussions, especially about this game in this world, is that we take our preferred interpretation and we start insisting that it is the interpretation. Or maybe we don't actually insist in writing, but we believe it to be so, and that belief comes through in our writing.

[Stormcrow]

For example, it seems like no great leap to me that Gollum's family all suspected about the murder of Deagol. It's implied in the text, and it's certainly how I always read it.

How is it implied? Please quote me the passage that implies this, and maybe make the connection that leads to the implication.

[Otaku-sempai]

Well, I opened up The Fellowship of the Ring to where Gandalf tells Frodo what he learned of Gollum's past. I don't see any implication there that Sméagol's folk ever suspected him of murdering Déagol or anyone else. If anyone had guessed then Gandalf did not speak of it.

[Dunheved]

This is such a great idea from the OP.
I think that no real story about the MURDER of Deagol would ever have been discussed. His body was never found (according to Gandalf's researches - and who would challenge that!). Perhaps that part should be discounted, but I would not want that to be a reason to reject this idea: it's too much in keeping with the tale of Gollum.
However TOR is 'set' about 5 years after the Battle of Five Armies and Gollum had been out & about for at least three years by then. In 'The Shadow of the Past' Gandalf describes the tired old Gollum as cunning enough to catch "small, frightened or unwary things" and that this "new food and new air" made him stronger and bolder. As Gollum continued moving around searching for his precious, he got to Dale, Esgaroth and into Mirkwood. Gollum is described as a ghost that "drank blood"; "climbed trees to find nests, AND CREPT INTO HOLES TO FIND THE YOUNG"

If you wish to read it in that way (and I do), I would say that is easily enough to IMPLY Gollum's hunting style would look for small animals in holes. Wild Hobbits would be part of that menu and - like the Woodmen - surely they would describe the mystery in the same manner with the same words. It might not be a story based in legend: but rather on real murders that Gollum has done in the past few years or so; and in the same style.

On reflection - it is faintly possible that Hobbits of the Anduin Vales would discuss any or all evil characters who had been banished from the clan over the years and use those names as things to scare small hobbit children into being quiet and stay-at-home. The irony would be that the modern adult Wild Hobbits would NOT believe that any ancient banished hobbit would still be alive to carry out the Bloody Ghost idea - but it is typical that these adults would use these scary names as if they really were supernaturally alive and as evil as before just to terrify the children. In this mixture of past legendary evil and current real evil the bogeyman hobbit would so easily become a contemporary story.

I am more sold on this story than when I first read it. Well done Deaghaidh and thanks.

[Glorelendil]

Regarding the question of how similar wild hobbits and shire hobbits are (in other words, would the "driving out" of a fellow hobbit be as unlikely among wild hobbits as we would assume it would be in the shire), it's worth noting that Gandalf was struck by the similarities between Gollum and Bilbo, despite hundreds of years of corruption of the former.

So, sure, it doesn't break canon to assume that Banishment was common among the Hobbits of Anduin Vales, but I think I prefer the interpretation that it would be exceedingly rare, to the point that when it actually happened it could become the foundation of boogeyman myths.

(Totally different setting, but Bernard Cornwell's Arthurian trilogy makes a delightful treatment of how actual events can lead to greatly exaggerated, enduring myths. Sometimes within a single generation.)

[Halbarad]

Sorry for wandering off topic a little, but I just have to say that of all Cornwell's books, the Warlord Trilogy is my personal favourite(and a favourite of the author as well..apparently).

Should Sky Atlantic be at a loss after GoT, they could do a lot worse than look at this. Enough twists and variations on the theme to make a very different Arthurian show.

That, or they should be contacting Stella Gemmell. I could just see the actor that plays the Hound playing Druss.

[Stormcrow]

Regarding the question of how similar wild hobbits and shire hobbits are (in other words, would the "driving out" of a fellow hobbit be as unlikely among wild hobbits as we would assume it would be in the shire), it's worth noting that Gandalf was struck by the similarities between Gollum and Bilbo, despite hundreds of years of corruption of the former.

That's a good point, and the corruption of Gollum isn't even really much of a factor here, since the similarities Gandalf notes are cultural in nature. I would guess, though, that banishment from one's home among "wild" (i.e., relatively uncivilized) hobbits to be a much more severe punishment than a similar banishment in the civilized Shire.

[Glorelendil]

I would guess, though, that banishment from one's home among "wild" (i.e., relatively uncivilized) hobbits to be a much more severe punishment than a similar banishment in the civilized Shire.

And thus even more rare/extreme?