Such a great burden placed on the small shoulders of one Smashing Pumpkins superfan: to chime in on whether or not Gollum is a good or bad guy, a distinction which could decide the fate of a Turkish doctor who tweeted some pictures of the Lord of the Rings character alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Since the physician tweeted said pics last October, he has been the subject of an investigation that could conclude in prison time if he is convicted of insulting the president. This all hinges on whether or not being Gollum-like is a bad thing, which depends on whether or not Gollum is bad.
While the fate of the tweeting doctor will likely rest in the hands of a couple of Tolkien experts, Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson attempted to intervene with a recent statement claiming the pictures were not of the arguably evil Gollum, but of the sweet and generous Smeagol. Elijah Wood weighed in yesterday, with a far less circumspect appeal to plain old justice.
That Bilgin Ciftci faces jail time for comparing Erdogan to Gollum/Smeagol, regardless of wether he's good or bad, is horrifying.
— Elijah Wood (@elijahwood) December 3, 2015Very Frodo of you, Elijah. May your courage not go unrewarded.