Foil

Character Role Analysis

Gollum and Gollum

How can a character be a foil to himself? Easy: when he has dissociative identity disorder. Well, no one has gotten all DSM up in Middle-earth, but that's basically what it seems like. We're hesitant to call the two sides of Gollum good and evil, so we'll just refer to them as big and small (both in personality and eye-size).

Big Gollum sounds a lot like the Gollum we've always known and loved—er—been creeped out by. He's completely and totally obsessed with his "precious." Nothing else matters to him and now that he's found it, he'll do anything to get it back. But small Gollum is a breakthrough, thanks to the kindness of Frodo. Calling him "Sméagol," Frodo helps Gollum remember his past self, a self that was "not so different from a hobbit once."

The battle of the big and small Gollum is one of the most famous scenes from The Two Towers, and you can read all about it and more in our character analysis of Gollum.