Editing Gríma Wormtongue (section)

== Analysis ==

To the psychologists Deborah and Mark Parker, Wormtongue serves as an [[archetype|archetypal]] [[sycophant]], flatterer, liar, and manipulator.<ref>{{cite web |title=Sycophancy in Middle Earth |url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/sucking/201712/sycophancy-in-middle-earth |last1=Parker |first1=Deborah |last2=Parker |first2=Mark |date=1 December 2017 |website=[[Psychology Today]]}}</ref> 

Tolkien scholars have noted that Wormtongue's interaction with Gandalf in [[Meduseld]] has an Old English counterpart in the epic poem ''[[Beowulf]]'': the account is [[Beowulf and Middle-earth|closely based on the hero Beowulf's]] dealings with [[Unferth]] in [[Heorot]], where Unferth is King [[Hrothgar]]'s "ambiguous"<ref name="H&S"/> spokesman; Unferth is thoroughly discredited by Beowulf, as Wormtongue is by Gandalf.<ref name="H&S">{{cite book |last1=Hammond |first1=Wayne G. |author1-link=Wayne G. Hammond |last2=Scull |first2=Christina |author2-link=Christina Scull |title=The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion |title-link=The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] | year=2005 |isbn=978-0-00-720907-1 |page=405}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Thompson |first1=Ricky L. |title=Tolkien's Word-Hord Onlēac |journal=[[Mythlore]] |date=1994 |volume=20 |issue=1  |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol20/iss1/4}}</ref><ref name="Allard North 2011">{{cite book |last1=Allard |first=Joe |last2=North |first2=Richard |title=Beowulf and Other Stories |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2011 |edition=2nd |isbn=978-1408286036 |pages=45–47}}</ref>

The critic Charles W. Nelson describes Wormtongue's attitude as an example of presumption, behaving "as if he were already on the throne" of Rohan. Nelson notes that Richard Purtill<!--JRRT: Myth, Morality, and Religion, p. 76--> suggests that Tolkien is intentionally embodying the [[seven deadly sins]] in his characters. He quotes from one of Tolkien's letters to this effect: "the encouragement of good morals in this real world, by the ancient device of exemplifying them in unfamiliar embodiments, that may tend to 'bring them home.'"<!--''Letters'', 1981, p. 194--> Clark writes that [[Dwarves in Middle-earth|Dwarves]] exemplify greed, [[Men in Middle-earth|Men]] pride, [[Elves in Middle-earth|Elves]] envy, [[Ent]]s sloth, [[Hobbit]]s gluttony, [[Orc]]s anger, and Wormtongue lechery. That lechery is, Nelson notes, correctly guessed by Gandalf: that he would gain a large share in Meduseld's treasure, and Éowyn's hand in marriage, "on whose person Grima had long cast lecherous eyes and lascivious looks", and indeed in Éomer's words that Grima had "haunted her steps".<ref name="Nelson 2000">{{cite book |last=Clark |first=George |title=J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ES0Hs75IVg0C&pg=PA83 |year=2000 |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] |isbn=978-0-313-30845-1 |pages=84–92}}</ref>

Colleen Donnelly writes that Wormtongue and [[Gollum]] are both distorted characters, and both end up [[Feudal allegiance in The Lord of the Rings|disloyal to their masters]]. Donnelly notes that they are both "eaten up by desire", but comments that where Wormtongue is irredeemably full of treason against his lord, King Théoden of Rohan, Gollum remains open to kindness and can still intend to do good and honest service. Both characters end up unintentionally doing good through what seems to be an evil act: Wormtongue slits his master [[Saruman]]'s throat, helping to end the harm being done to the hobbits' home, [[the Shire]]; while Gollum, desperate to get the [[One Ring]], bites it off his master Frodo's finger and falls to his death, with the Ring, into the fires of [[Mount Doom]], thus destroying the Ring and ending the Dark Lord Sauron's evil reign.<ref name="Donnelly 2007">{{cite journal |last=Donnelly |first=Colleen |title=Feudal Values, Vassalage, and Fealty in ''The Lord of the Rings'' |journal=[[Mythlore]] |volume=25 |issue=3/4 |year=2007 |pages=17-27 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1236&context=mythlore }}</ref>

[[File:BakshiGríma.JPG|thumb|Gríma, as portrayed in [[Ralph Bakshi]]'s ''[[The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'']]