Let's begin with the distinction we brought up previously about the graphic or gratuitous depiction of violence and how disturbing it is. The two sometimes overlap, but they often do not. Describing a scene as gratuitous shortcuts the process of engaging more critically with the structure and messages of the work in question. Or more to point, by labeling an episode as graphic, we fail to examine the disturbing consequences of violence and what it reveals about a character, his/her choices, and the work's intended message.

Works of fiction are instructive, especially when they focus our attention on moments when characters make decisions, often based on aspects of their personalities they little recognize or control. Those choices may have repercussions that echo across the work as a whole. What are Smeagol's (and Deagol's) motivations? What consequences do their actions have for Smeagol as well as for the narrative?

We assume Smeagol and Deagol are enjoying a quiet day of fishing; it is Smeagol's birthday. We recognize in the first ten seconds of the clip that Smeagol wants to possess even the littlest things (although the lyrical score belies this dangerous personality trait). He is already looking at the wiggling worm as though it was his "precioussss".

However, notice the turning point (at 3:01) in the violence. Once again, if we play without the volume, we can't say for sure if the fight (from 2:30 to 3:00) is going to end in murder. The moment, however, when Deagol reclaims the ring and chokes Smeagol, everything turns. Smeagol's shock and surprise tell us the violence has progressed from playful to harmful and from desperate to life-threatening. The scene displays the full madness and evil the Ring can inflict on those who are vulnerable. Smeagol's loss of control raises questions about the types of conflict depicted in the scene. If the conflict ensues between two hobbits, Human vs. Human, we can conclude that Deagol consciously chose to overpower Smeagol by choking him and he consciously chose to choke Deagol to death. However, if we interpret the conflict as Human vs. Nature, i.e., between a hobbit vs. Sauron the Dark Lord, or Human vs. Self, i.e., Smeagol against his latent, darker self, then we cannot say with certainty if the decision to choke was conscious.

In any case, the violence has far-reaching consequences. The ramifications for Smeagol are depicted in the last 90 seconds of the clip. Smeagol, the murderer, is expelled from his community of River Hobbits, and exiled in caverns under the Misty Mountains, alone and driven mad under the influence of the One Ring. The slow yet relentlessly complete transformation of Smeagol into his split self, Gollum, is the immediate consequence of the murder.

The consequences for the inhabitants of Middle Earth are equally momentous. The One Ring is no longer in the possession of Sauron, so he cannot regain his full power. However, the Ring in the hands of the tormented and enslaved Smeagol-Gollum is subject to discovery and possession by others. Gollum wants to fully own it, and he slowly forgets "the softness of the wind" in his maniacal desire to be one with the Ring's power. Smeagol-Gollum never questions to whom the Ring belongs, nor reflects on the depravity it leads to, nor determines how to end his enslavement. He never considers the consequence that, as long as the Ring remains undestroyed, Middle Earth and all its inhabitants are at the risk of complete perdition and extinction.

5. What perspective(s) does the work offer us about the character engaging in violence, and what roles (aggressor, victim, other) does the protagonist play in the depiction of violence?

Media theorists have defined our degree of identification with a character in a fictional work (Smith 1995). Typically, the more time we spend with a character, the more likely we are to see the world from her point of view. Yet, this is not always the case. We may be asked to observe and judge characters, especially if their actions and values fall outside of the perspective of the work. We may grow close to a character only to be pushed away when the character acts in a way we find reprehensible and unjustifiable. We can distinguish between the point of view and our own moral judgments of a character. What helps us negotiate this distinction is the degree to which we are given access to the thoughts and feelings of the character, and in the case of an audio-visual work, the degree to which we see the world from his or her optical point of view. So it is possible to follow characters but not get inside their heads, and it is possible to have access to characters' thoughts and still not share their moral perspectives.

The case of Smeagol-Gollum is interesting precisely because it raises questions about perspective: do we view the character's actions as emanating from Smeagol, the possessive but tame hobbit, or from Gollum, the murderous, enslaved monster? In the second installment of the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, when we are first introduced to the character, we meet the aggressive Gollum. And though Gollum's actions propel the narrative, we see hints of the more relatable, playful and fearing Smeagol in many scenes of the movies. Does that mean we identify with Smeagol more than we do with Gollum? Once again, we must separate psychological or optical point of view from moral judgement. The distinctions we make about the character are very much related to whether we view the character as Gollum the aggressor or Smeagol the victim. Let's explore this further in relation to the violence depicted in the above scene.

The Ring is a third character in this scene. It has its own life and unmatched power. Recognizing this role of the Ring enables us to understand Smeagol as the victim (i.e, the conflict is Human vs. Nature), but that recognition does not make us identify with Smeagol. All Ringbearers (take Frodo, for instance) were, in a sense, victims of the Ring; but not all Ringbearers murdered to gain its possession. We might see the action from Smeagol's psychological point of view, but we are also led to make moral judgments, as his community does, about Gollum. As viewers, we struggle between wishing solace for the helpless Smeagol and denunciation for the criminally paranoid Gollum. This scene deters sympathizing with the character because Smeagol is not depicted as tame, as he is in other scenes, but as possessive and greedy. At the same time, his suffering and loss of self-identity prevent us from denouncing Smeagol for his morally reprehensible act. Later, though, toward the end of the trilogy, we do form moral judgements about the character. When Frodo is about to destroy the Ring by casting it in the fires of the Sammath Naur, Gollum once again emerges to usurp it, nearly undoing the immense burden Frodo had borne until then. So, we rarely judge fictional characters as aggressors or victims based merely on one scene; rather, we allow depictions of many qualities over the space-time of engaging with media texts to inform our moral judgment.

6. What moral frame (pro-social, antisocial, ambiguous), and what tone does the work take towards the represented violence?

When we examine this scene, we see the work places a pro-social moral frame on Smeagol's actions. He is driven away by members of his community, who see him as a murderer. In the last 90 seconds of the clip, Smeagol suffers because of his actions. He weeps in his loneliness and must eat only raw fish (he forgets the "taste of bread"). His transformation to Gollum is organic, symbolized by a choking cough ("golem, golem") that represents his agony and ecstasy. The scene communicates that his suffering is deserved: bear the Ring, and it takes away your memory, your identity, your being. "Preciousness" is seen as its own antithesis.

By contrast, when we talk of the tone of a work in its depiction of violence, we cannot restrict ourselves to a single scene. We can only elucidate tone in the context of the spectrum of violent actions, episodes and epochs in the entire LotR universe. Tolkien presents a world where violence is common. In LotR, the outcome of violence (in wars, for instance) is earned by struggle, perseverance, intelligence and luck. Smeagol-Gollum's violence triggers actions that affect the destiny of Middle Earth. We respond emotionally not to the violence itself but to the series of choices and perilous circumstances it engenders. Understanding tone in this manner allows us to see that if not Deagol, then somebody else would have chanced upon the Ring. Depending on that person's vulnerability to the Ring, struggle or conflict of some sort would have ensued. Through his tone, Tolkien emphasizes the long term win of good over evil, and seems to condone episodic violence. So the murder of Deagol is neither cathartic nor tragic. The charitable way to gauge it would be to sympathize with Deagol; less generously, we might shrug off the episode as inevitable.