Why Gollum Doesn't age like Bilbo after the Ring | Tolkien Explained

When my dad read LOTR to me as a kid, he described the ring not as making one live longer, but making one die more slowly. This is why bilbo feels thin and stretched. Its not prolonging his life, its stretching out his death

Bilbo is a sedentary creature, especially after going to Rivendell. Gollum is physically active with a diet of raw fish and the occasional goblin.

Another passage that might be cited is the one when Gollum almost repents. The narrator says that if any had seen him at that moment, they would have seen an ancient Hobbit, frail and weal. He was impossibly old for his kind, but the Ring kept him going.

"Butter scraped over too much bread" is such an excellent example of evocative writing, and is surpassingly beautiful in its simplicity and relatability.

Even Gollum seems to understand this dimly. When he attacks Frodo and Sam on the slopes of Mt. Doom and Frodo leaves him for Sam to deal with, Tolkien writes that Gollum says, “Don’t kill us,’ he wept. ‘Don’t hurt us with nassty cruel steel! Let us live, yes, live just a little longer. Lost lost! We’re lost. And when Precious goes we’ll die, yes, die into the dust.’ He clawed up the ashes of the path with his long fleshless fingers. ‘Dusst!’ he hissed.” Apart from the psychological toll of having his addiction taken beyond where he can reach it, he seems to understand that his survival only lasts as long as the Ring. He literally can’t live without it, which adds another incentive for him to make a last-ditch effort to get it back from Frodo. Yes, Frodo cursed him to fall into the Cracks of Doom if he touched Frodo again, but if he’s going to die anyway…. And Gollum doesn’t have much concept of unselfishness that would allow him to accept sacrificing himself for the sake of a promise.

Gollum’s raw fish-based diet provides both high protein and omega-3 fatty acids. This explains his long lifespan, long health-span and perfect skin complexion!

I think it's because of his diet. Fish are extremely healthy.

I also believe that Bilbo was less affected because he didn't obsess over the ring as constantly like Gollum did. Picture 2 alcoholics, one that has a few shots scattered throughout the day, while the other is Nicholas Cage from Leaving Las Vegas

Listening to you tell the story with all the different voices and drawings makes me go back to the feeling of wonder I had listening to stories as a child.

The Ring seems to literally be like a magical corrupting drug. At first it makes the user more powerful and gifted but in time, even if it takes 100's of years, it eventually makes you more and more sickly and slavish until you're a wraith. One of worst parts of the Ring is that power and charm it bestows to the user seems to never become forgotten. Whoever has wielded it can't forget it's power, and they have a small (or very large in the case of Gollum) lust and yearning for it. It's only when it's destroyed does the psychological grip finally leave the Ringbearers. It wouldn't surprise me if Bilbo felt a huge weight lifted off his spirit at the time of the Ring's destruction, even though there was yet no news that it had been destroyed.

Bilbo didn't really age until the ring was destroyed, something they skipped around in the movies.

I'm envisioning frodo casually dropping the ring into the fire, Gollum standing there and watching. Soon as the ring melts, Gollum just turns into a poof of ash and bone.

Interesting. I had never given the issue much thought before but your thoughts make a lot of sense. And it fits with Tolkien's overarching belief. Also of note of course that Bilbo after giving up the Ring spent seventeen years, or the bulk of it, in Rivendell, a healthy, open air kind of place, where Gollum spent it lurking in underground lakes among the mountains. The Ring prolonged their lives but the look of them was probably due to the environment.

I've never heard this story told so vividly before. Thank you for bringing it to life!

My assumption is that he was in possession of the One Ring for so long that he got overloaded with longevity such that even 60 years later he still had some spare years left

I’m finally early on one of your releases. I have to say I LOVE your channel I have recommended you to several friends. Thank you for the great content keep it up!!!

Thanks for that. Influenced by the films I have to admit my thinking was primarily that Bilbo and Frodo came by the ring without evil, and at least in Bilbo's case gave it up freely. Therefore it held no lasting effect on them. But that's not what the books say at all. Bilbo didn't physically age until the ring was destroyed and Frodo hadn't possessed it long enough to change markedly after it was gone.* *Gollum knew this, as can be seen by his comments on Mt Doom. Being so far past the natural lifespan of a Hobbit, no doubt if he hadn't gone in to the fire with the ring he would have crumbled to dust on the spot.

Well done and thought out. I never questioned Gollum's non-aging before.

Damn. It almost makes me glad that Gollum never fulfilled Frodo's hopes by redeeming himself. Frodo would have been so happy for the wretched old Hobbit, only for Gollum to die and turn to dust right after the One was destroyed.

I hadn’t thought that hard about this before. This was interesting and insightful.