The mental health of Tolkien's character Gollum has long been a mystery to Lord of the Rings fans, who have argued the nature of Gollum's ‘mental illness' on over 1300 websites –did he have schizophrenia or was he suffering from multiple personality disorder? UCL scientists now diagnose the famous character in a paper published in this week's British Medical Journal (BMJ).
A group of UCL medical students, led by Dr. Liz Sampson, concludes that Gollum was actually suffering from schizoid personality disorder.
In the paper, Sméagol is described as a single, 587 year old, hobbit-like male of no fixed abode. He displays antisocial behaviour, increasing aggression, and preoccupation with the “one ring.” Gollum was spiteful to others and had only one friend, Deagol, who he later murdered for the ring. He began to detest the outside world and ate only live animals or raw fish. Eventually Sméagol created Gollum, the outsider, who had a more violent personality.
The diagnosis by UCL scientists was reached after a survey of medical students who largely diagnosed Smeagol (Gollum) as having schizophrenia. The authors of the paper asked 30 randomly selected medical students if they thought Gollum had a mental illness. Schizophrenia was the most common diagnosis (25 students), followed by multiple personality disorder (three).