Gollum is one of the most loathsome characters in all of the Lord of the Rings, but he is also one of the most pitiable. While he’s most often known by the name of Gollum, his real name is Sméagol. The story that led Sméagol to be called by his nickname is told in The Return of the King’s opening sequence, and it’s the reason that Gandalf told Frodo that he should pity the creature called Gollum. It’s a truly heartbreaking tale of how evil can corrupt good things.
Sméagol wasn’t always the conniving, repugnant, crawling figure that he was on screen. He was once a Stoorish Hobbit that lived near the Anduin River. One day, Sméagol and his cousin, Déagol, were fishing on a quiet stretch of the river and having a grand time. All of a sudden, Déagol caught a fish, but it was so big that he lost his balance and was pulled overboard. After nearly drowning, Déagol crawled onto the riverbank, but not before he found something in the river -- Sauron’s Ring.
Despite the pleading of Elrond, Isildur took Sauron’s Ring as his own after cutting it from the hand of Sauron during the Battle of Dagorlad. That decision led to Isildur’s death, and a year later, he was ambushed by Orcs while on a journey to Rivendell. There, on the shores of Anduin, in an event called the Disaster of the Gladden Fields, Isildur was killed, and the One Ring was lost in the river and forgotten. That is until Déagol emerged from the water with it in his hand.
He was immediately intrigued by the Ring, but Sméagol was infatuated with it. In its evil way, it was calling to him, so Sméagol tried his best to make the One Ring his own. Déagol, however, refused because he had found it, and that refusal was literally the death of him. He and Sméagol wrestled, and with the strength brought on by desire, Sméagol killed his cousin, took the Ring and named it his “Precious.”
Over time, the evil within the Ring cursed his mind and his body. He started crawling on all fours and developed a gurgling, choking cough that sounded like “Gollum.” His friends and family mocked him for the strange noises that he made with his throat and drove him away from his people, but not before the moniker of Gollum had usurped his true name of Sméagol.
While Gollum was far from a hero, he simply wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was an innocent, little Hobbit until the Ring came along and ruined his life. Luckily for Middle-earth, though, Gollum played the part of getting the One Ring into the hands of Bilbo Baggins. Without that crucial step, Sauron may have found the ring where Isildur had lost it and subjugated all of the world under his power. So, vile as he might have been, Gollum played an important role, and the evil that he endured was at least worthy of Gandalf’s pity.