What kinda creature was Gollum? Made a bet...

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: jjones

'Long after, but still very long ago, there lived by the banks of the Great River on the edge of Wilderland a clever-handed and quiet-footed little people. I guess they were of hobbit-kind; akin to the fathers of the fathers of the Stoors...'

He was a Hobbit.

Appendix B:

2463 The White Council is formed. About this time Deagol the Stoor finds the One Ring, and is murdered by Smeagol.
2470 About this time Smeagol-Gollum hides in the Misty Mountains.

(Bilbo finds the ring in 2941)

Appendix F on Hobbits:

There is no record of any language peculiar to Hobbits. In ancient days they seem always to have used the language of Men near whom, or among whom, they lived. Thus they quickly adopted the Common Speech after they entered Eriador, and by the time of their settlement at Bree they had already begun to forget their former tongue. This was evidently a Manner language of the upper Anduin, akin to that of the Rohirrim; though the southern Stoors appear to have adopted a language related to Dunlendish before they came north to the Shire. 1

1 The Stoors of the Angle, who returned to Wilderland, had already adopted the Common Speech; but Deagol and Smeagol are names in the Mannish language of the region near Gladden.

Edit: Look in the creature index for 'Gollem', then for 'Sméagol' there. 2 places in the book there, first is where Gandalf explains that Smeagol is a distant relative of hobbits, second is where Gollum says Smeagol is gone and can't come back as "They took his Precious, and he's lost now." (He talks about himself in the third person a lot)

 

[Nemesis77]

Gollum is a hobbit. Before hobbits migrated to Shire, they lived near the Anduin. Some time after Gollum got the ring, the hobbits started to migrate west, eventually arriving to Shire where they settled. It could be that Gollum was a member of a Hobbit "sub-race" (you know, there were different races of hobbits) that doesn't exist anymore, but he was definitely a hobbit.

EDIT: The Encycolopedia of Arda also says that Gollum was a hobbit.

 

[neomits]

Another vote for the whoever said he was a hobbit is right

 

[BigSmooth]

There were three distinct branches of the ancient hobbit-kind, the Fallohides, the Harfoots, and the Stoors (the branch to which Sméagol, later Gollum, belonged). After all three races had come west to Eriador over the Misty Mountains about 1,800 - 2,000 years before the War of the Ring, they began to mix more freely, giving us the hobbits of Bilbo and Frodo's time.

I think Gollum could definitely be considered a hobbit. 2,000 years ago, humans were separated into more distinct races but they were definitely humans. I think Gandalf saying he was a creature "of hobbit-kind" only confirms the fact that he was a hobbit, it does not refute it.