
With no way to tell how deep or far across it is, he stops and comes across the dark and dreadful creature who lives on an island in the lake. “It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it” ( Hobbit 86). The transformation of Bilbo is also tremendous, and his actions in the second edition directly and profoundly affect the history of all Middle-earth.Īfter Bilbo suffers separation from his dwarven companions as they flee from the goblins, the hobbit crawls along the pitch dark tunnels in search of a way out and puts his hand down on a ring. In The Lord of the Rings he is an example of the damned individual who loses his own soul because of devotion to evil (symbolized by the ring) but who, through grace, saves others” (“Gollum’s Transformation” 9, 10). … In The Hobbit he is one of a series of fallen creatures on a rising scale of terror. Tolkien’s fallen hobbit, Gollum, is an interesting character in his own right, but the changes in his character that Tolkien made between the first edition of The Hobbit in the 1930s and second edition in the 1950s make him one of his most fascinating creations. But how many readers know how drastically different the aftermath of the game is from the original version? Bonniejean Christensen notes:

The meeting of Bilbo, the dreadfully and fearfully lost hobbit, and Gollum, a creature “as dark as darkness” ( Hobbit 88), their riddle-game and what happens after Gollum loses are among the most iconic scenes of children’s literature.
