Posted on 12/18/2004 11:58:21 PM PST by SaltyJoe
Poor diet, inherited disease made Gollum mad
Fri Dec 17, 1:50 PM ET Offbeat - AFP
PARIS (AFP) - The "Lord of the Rings" character Gollum was paranoid and had a split personality but this was because he probably suffered from vitamin deficiency, anaemia, hyperthyroidism and a metabolic disease called porphyria.
That's the conclusion of a group of British doctors who sift through Gollum's symptoms in a tongue-in-cheek diagnosis published this Saturday in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
"Gollum's diet is extremely limited, consisting only of raw fish. Vitamin B-12 deficiency may cause irritability, delusions and paranoia," they say.
"His reduced appetite and loss of hair and weight may be associated with iron deficiency anaemia. He is hypervigilant and does not seem to need much sleep.
"This, accompanied by his bulging eyes and weight loss, suggests hyperthyroidism. Gollum's dislike of sunlight may be induced to the photosensitivity of porphyria. Attacks may be induced by starvation and accompanied by paranoid psychosis."
Porphyria is an inherited disease of the metabolic system.
The "study", lead-authored by psychiatrist Elizabeth Sampson of the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London, describes Gollum as "a single, 587-year-old hobbit-like male of no fixed abode.
"He has presented with anti-social behaviour, increasing aggression and preoccupied with the 'one ring.'... He has no history of substance misuse, although like many young hobbits, he smoked 'pipe weed' in adolescence."
The diagnosis concludes: "Gollum displays pervasive maladaptive behaviour that has been present since childhood with a persistent disease course.
"His odd interests and spiteful behaviour have led to difficulty in forming friendships and have caused distress to others. He fulfills seven of the nine criteria for schizoid personality disorder."
In J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy -- subsequently turned into a trio of Oscar-winning films -- Gollum, a thin, pale, gangrel creature, is enslaved by a magic ring made by the evil Sauron.
In his desperation to retrieve it, his mind persistently fights between a "good" personality, Smeagol, and a nasty one, Gollum.
Heaven forbid that secular psychologists accept the fact that J.R.R. Tolkien was a very devout Catholic! That Smeagol forgot the taste of bread and the sound of trees is nothing short of Grace giving Sacraments that 1) keeps us sane and 2) reconciles us back into the fold should we fall to sin (and we do fall oh so often). But no no! Not that nasty elves' food! Let Smeagol diet on beer and vitamins from things that grow!
I recommend Lt Col Dave Grossman's explanations for those post traumatic stress disorders due to killing/murder. Maybe learning from subjects that dwell and die in combat will rigidly enforce reality into air-conditioned office dwelling doctors & psychologists. There's little time and margin for error for being wrong about questioning God's existence when your existence may very well end without a moment's notice.
http://www.killology.com/
P.S. Aren't psychologists still high on the suicide watch list? I heard it from "The Ninth Configuration".
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081237/
Assigning human spirituality to a made-up world, inhabited by made-up creatures that can do magic (among other things). Almost as silly as the premise of the article.
Uh, Gollum isn't real. Discussing motivations of fictional characters is fine when talking about writing, but dissecting fictional characters is up there with "reality" T.V.
I for one find this "diagnosis" quite amusing -- as it was apparently meant to be. I do find it interesting that they leave out the fact that Gollum carried the Ring around for quite some time. Obviously, the Ring affected everyone who carried it, so how could they leave that out? Perhaps it was radioactive? After all, watches treated with radium, etc. often caused serious problems for people who owned them.
Or maybe it was just clutching Pure Evil to one's breast for so long? Oh, sorry, no, that couldn't be it, could it? And certainly the scientists couldn't mention that!
Ummm, no, it was a powerfully evil magic ring working on his poor little mind that made him the way he was.
It was the ring that drove him mad! The ring!
I'm just waiting for the CDC the AMA and the National Education Association to pronounce that a large, undetermined number of school children are at risk for this condition and must, at the first signs, be administered large doses of Ritalin, Prozac and Zoloft.
(Oh, wait!...They've done that already!)
I dunno. I thought that Sauron's ring had a fair load of bad mojo that baked Smeagol's potato in a very bad way.
It...couldn't have had anything to do with the effect of Sauron's ring of power, now could it?
People.
It's a book.
And a movie.....
Guess the French really are dense....
LOL!
Michael Savage has mentioned this on his show many times, and I believe much of what the DUmmies buy into is based upon this simple deficiency. When he says, "Liberalism is a mental disease", this is IMHO a big part of it. Of course, I think he knows about it because he has experienced it (and seems to every other day), and those out there who haven't felt like a loony Gollum can easily just dismiss it all as "a result of sin", which is wrong.
Gollum didn't do magic. he fell in love with EVIL. See following post to your original post. jesus did in fact use parables. Does this make Jesus irrelevent?
What? Did someone say fish? Fish? We wants it, precious, yesssss...
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit Eternity Road:
http://www.eternityroad.info
Personally I think he was forced to watch CBS for many years with rabbit ears antenna rather than cable and a broken horizontal-hold adjuster.....
I agree with your comments SaltyJoe. Those who have studied Scripture or theology or at least have a relationship with God, probably also find interest in the Lord of the Rings trilogy because of these issues.
Those who don't and haven't are fairly well voiced here,..ranging from those who find the issue irrelevant to those who become occultic.
It's funny how even a presentation of these issues, as though it were fiction, to be as un-imposing as possible, is still met with dismissal by those who are arrogant and have already begun their slide.
you people aren't taking this seriously enough.
they did the same thing when they made a "diagnosis" of Beowulf. I'm still very upset over that one
"He has presented with anti-social behaviour, increasing aggression and preoccupied with the 'one ring.'...
sounds like my meth/crank addict patients...
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