this is one of my favorite gollum moments and unlike the waterfall scene it's short and i can talk about it now before my work email starts functioning again (also, i might forget about it later)
it's such a small thing
small but full of mischief
so this is right after they left faramir's camp; Gollum is really antsy and insisting on moving as quickly as possible.
Gollum often paused, sniffing the air, and then he would mutter to himself and urge them to greater speed.
(All the quotes are from The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien, Chapter 7, Journey to the Cross-roads)
He's saying that they've taken a detour and need to catch up. It's not clear to me why he needs to go so fast and whether it's 'we will be kiled by orcs' or 'there is about to be war everywhere' or 'I need to dump you guys off at my spider gf's cave as quickly as possible because I want to get back to being evil' but it doesn't really matter why, the point is that he's wanting to go as fast as possible and the hobbits have agreed to let him set the route and the pace.
But frodo and sam get tired because they've been walking a whole lot, and insist on resting:
'What shall we do? ' he said. 'We have walked long and far. Shall we look for some place in the woods behind where we can lie hidden? '
'No good hiding in the dark,' said Gollum. 'It's in day that hobbits
must hide now, yes in day.'
`Oh come! ' said Sam. 'We must rest for a bit, even if we get up again in the middle of the night. There'll still be hours of dark then time enough for you to take us a long march, if you know the way.'
FYI: there have been moments all along where gollum goes 'yes we're all tired nice hobbits' and then jets ahead at 'almost a trot' and expects them to follow
Gollum reluctantly agrees to rest but makes them walk farther first:
Gollum reluctantly agreed to this, and he turned back towards the
trees, working eastward for a while along the straggling edges of the wood.
Gollum fights them on where to sleep:
He would not rest on the ground so near the evil road, and after some debate they all climbed up into the crotch of a large holm-oak, whose thick branches springing together from the trunk made a good hiding-place and a fairly comfortable refuge.
Gollum goes to sleep. The hobbits don't.
Frodo and Sam drank a little water and ate some bread and dried fruit, but Gollum at once curled up and went to sleep. The hobbits did not shut their eyes.
Gollum wakes up in an unnecessarily eerie manner
It must have been a little after midnight when Gollum woke up: suddenly they were aware of his pale eyes unlidded gleaming at them. He listened and sniffed, which seemed, as they had noticed before, his usual method of discovering the time of night.
Gollum is fully awake and alert and perky. sméagol had nice nap and beautiful sleep!! and wants to start running full tilt towards mordor immediately
'Are we rested? Have we had beautiful sleep?' he said. 'Let's go!'
Sam and Frodo were the ones who wanted to stop and rest and they didn't get any sleep at all
'We aren't, and we haven't,' growled Sam. 'But we'll go if we must.'
Gollum dropped at once from the branches of the tree on to all fours, and the hobbits followed more slowly.
[LOTS of scrambling through rough terrain later]
At last Gollum turned to the hobbits. 'Day soon,' he said. 'Hobbits
must hurry. Not safe to stay in the open in these places. Make haste! '
He quickened his pace, and they followed him wearily.
in conclusion:
Gollum is the most obnoxious person alive.
Imagine you are traveling with this jerk and you want a nap and he refuses and you have to argue him into it. Then he is picky about the spot you sleep in. then you have to watch him sleep while you have insomnia and then he wakes up and asks you if you had beautiful sleep (he may actually be talking to himself when he says that though, which is worse)
That's not even his fault. It's not Gollum's fault that he has the ability to turn his consciousness off immediately when it's sleepytime (he's done it before and apparently that's just how he functions). he was told to take a nap. he took a nap. He's not trying to antagonize anyone. he's just like that!
edit: Oh oh and he has no idea they didn't sleep because he was asleep and has no idea what they were or were not doing while he was asleep
It's not even his fault that he walks fast! Gollum is driving himself at exactly the same pace as the hobbits, and is not asking them to do anything he's not doing and I don't think it's even unfair! Maybe some of this is easier for him than for them but also Gollum has this horrible warped twisted body and has to move on all fours so it can't be that easy! He's not even rude about it and he's supplying reasons (it's not safe to linger in the area. and I'm sure it isn't)!
He's just so!!!! annoying!
That's why it's so funny, nothing about this interaction is evil or malicious and he is just NATURALLY LIKE THAT. There is no good outcome from interacting with gollum.
How much do you think sam wants to punt him into the sun every time he says 'make haste' (he says it a lot). Mr. Frodo is tired >:(
TL;DR another circle of gollum hell: He's sometimes at his most antagonizing when he's not doing anything wrong and doesn't seem to have any desire to cause problems he's just
he's so awful
I'm not sure he even knows this is annoying
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