Smeagol is better at Shadow Work than anyone I know.

And here's why.

Here's my spicy take for the week. You know how Return of the King had like 6 endings because there were so many loose ends to tie up? Right, of course you do. So, then, you clearly recall the 'destroy the ring' ending - wherein Gollum/Smeagol and Frodo are dancing around, biting off appendages, fighting over the ring, and Gollum/Smeagol loses his footing and plummets into Mt. Doom destroying the ring and himself?

Gandalf always told us Gollum had a part to play in this story - that's why Frodo/Bilbo couldn't (or didn't) kill him. The obvious conclusion is simple - Gollum's greed would inevitably bring about the destruction of the ring, NOT Frodo's bravery, courage, or Hobbit steadfastness. But what if it's not that simple? Between The Two Towers and Return of the King we meet Smeagol, the shadow to Gollum. Smeagol comes into the light and Gollum becomes the shadow. The wider audience of LOTR, unfamiliar with shadow work, is led to the conclusion that Smeagol banished Gollum. If that's the case, then why did he come back?

Because shadow work advises against banishing your shadow. If a shadow is not serving you, you work to understand that shadow, and you let the shadow decide whether it wants to stay once the conflicts have been resolved. I might be mixing a little parts work in here, but the two are somewhat related. What if Smeagol didn't banish Gollum as we are led to believe? What if Smeagol, between Two Towers and Return of the King, was working to understand a shadow part that had been taking the dominant role? Frodo gave Smeagol his voice back, and Smeagol used that voice to understand Gollum.

My take is that Smeagol understood the only way for Gollum's conflicts to be resolved was for the ring to be destroyed. The shadow of Gollum was created by the malice of the ring and only in its undoing would Gollum be free. Smeagol used this understanding and allowed Gollum to be the dominant part again, knowing Gollum would seek out the ring, and knowing his "masters" were closing in on Mt Doom to destroy it.

Tolkien, in my opinion, is a master at weaving a complete story that still allows the audience to draw alternate conclusions. He writes a little about the difference between Smeagol's eyes and Gollum's. Peter Jackson uses this small bit of writing to do something absolutely, mind-blowingly brilliant. Along with a change in voice, we see a lightness and expressiveness in Smeagol’s eyes. We see colder, darker eyes in Gollum. Now, everybody pull out their copy of Return of the King and fast-forward to the part where the ring is destroyed. Whose eyes do you see as this wretched creature's body is consumed by flame? Smeagol's. And he’s happy. In my opinion, not because the ring is in his possession, but because he and Gollum are finally free.

Smeagol is a master of shadow work. Who else was going to destroy the ring? Frodo wouldn’t have, we know that because he said so. Sam wouldn’t have either, because he would have had to pull a Smeagol to do so, and I don’t think Sam could risk killing his master, whatever we think about Sam’s desire for self-preservation. None of the other races would have destroyed it: The elves knew it’s power wouldn’t allow them, and the humans outright admitted they would rather use it than destroy it.

Smeagol was the only creature who could destroy the ring, because Smeagol was the only creature acting for the good of himself, rather than the good of many.

It breaks me how we’re cautioned against being selfish to the point that we see self-improvement as bad. So many of us struggling today would rather attempt to solve all the world’s problems before looking inward and facing our shadows. We see ourselves as elves, tasked with the choice to save the world or leave it behind, when in reality we’re Smeagol. Smeagol had spent so much time allowing Gollum to take the dominant role that they both had to die in order to be free. Let’s learn from Smeagol before we get to that point.