Who's the real hero of "Lord of the Rings"?

[Psycho Kitty]

To which I would add "remember that he deliberately plotted to kill Sam, and to relish the killing". If premeditation of murder and "malicious mischief-making" as azalea put it can be accounted to instinct and raw desire for survival and the Ring, then in the name of Elbereth and of Luthien, what cannot?

to which I would add remember that this ["malicious mischief-making"] happened when he FIRST got the ring. do you really think he put the ring on and bam he was an animal and smeagol was gone? no. thats just dumb. it takes time to corrupt even the weak. and being animal like DOESNT mean losing your brain power. obviously he could still talk and still communicate with people. so obviously he could still think. and feeling pleasure in killing something because you hate it only supports what ive been saying all along. that theres no stupid psychological barriers getting in the way of his basic desires like there is in you and me. sometimes id like to kill people but i dont. cause i worry about stupid things like what other people would think of me and what they would do to me and even the feelings of the poor stupid fool i wanna kill. gollum has had these petty human morals mostly stripped from him and he can act and KILL like an animal would.

Also, don't forget that he hated all Baggins because of Bilbo. Is this what you admire, despisal of a group, because of an individual?

nope i just admire him.

Regarding greed: it's all relative. It's not something so simplistic as "be like Gollum, he only wanted fish." Gollum's greed was merely different from ours.

no its just you were making the argument that gollum is greedy because he wants fish three times a day. my point was in the face of people craving power and gold and all this stuff how can you possibly condem gollum of all people as being greedy. there are better characters in the book to represent the ideal of greed in my opinion.