One of the great characters of Western literature. I've always felt that the immense impact of LOTR on its millions of readers rests on two things - Frodo's shocking departure from standard narrative structure (failing to achieve his quest, succumbing to unbearable temptation)... And the character of Gollum - both a stunning character in his own right, and a means of gaining insight into Frodo's inner psychological battle (Gollum as the Evil Angel, Sam as the Good Angel, fighting for Frodo's soul like a medieval morality play).

Debbie, knowing that Tolkien was a devout Catholic, I've often wondered if his inspiration for Gollum was in part Judas Iscariot, another great Trickster character. Both are at times allies, then enemies, Gollum to Frodo, Judas to Jesus. Both played a pivotal part in history. Both betrayed their master. Both committed suicide, albeit Gollum unintentionally. I'm sure there are other characters in literature who influenced Tolkien re Gollum, but I've always been struck by the comparison to Judas.

Debbie, I like your point about the narrative structure. The power of the books also derives from the fact that in a very meaningful sense, Tolkien treated Middle-earth as a real place that he was just exploring, and we feel that. To me, one of the most powerful parts of the LotR story is the fact that Gollum's biting off the Ring in the end is only possible because Frodo resists Sam's simplistic perspective on Gollum, and persists in seeing the good Smeagol inside. Had Frodo listened to Sam instead of remembering Gandalf's words, Gollum wouldn't have been alive for Frodo's moment of weakness.

One of the things you have to be a Middle-earth geek to know is that the Hobbit, Dwarf,and human names we see in the books are actually a sort of translation. And that provides a clue to Tolkien's inspiration for Gollum. If I remember right, the Middle-earth stories Tolkien wrote were intended as an epic mythology for English peoples in way Norse, Greek, Roman, etc. peoples have their own mythologies. And in fact, the idea is that the book Bilbo is writing gets passed down and added to through the ages, and provides the source material for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books. But of course the original languages would be unfamiliar to anyone else, so Tolkien translated a lot of the names using real languages we know. In this case, Smeagol's actual name was Trahald, but Tolkien used the very real Anglo-Saxon word Smeagol, which means the same thing as Trahald (something like "creeper" or "burrower"). According to Tolkien Gateway, Smeagol "was also applied by the Anglo-Saxons to the Biblical Cain, from the story of Cain's murder of his brother Abel in Genesis."