the Stoorish Hobbit Sméagol saw the Ring that his friend Déagol had found in the River Anduin, he killed Déagol to get it, and used the Ring's power of invisibility: The wizard Gandalf explains that Gollum was wholly corrupted by and addicted to the Ring: The Ring's effects A major theme is the corrupting influence of the Ring through the power it offers, especially to those already powerful. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey notes Gandalf's statements about the power and influence of the One Ring in "The Shadow of the Past", and the corrupting influence it has on its bearers. Gandalf rejects the Ring for this reason when Frodo offers it to him; this view of the Ring is reinforced as Elrond, Galadriel, Aragorn, and Faramir in their turn also reject it, fearing that it would overpower them as well. Inversely, the hobbits' good-naturedness and lack of ambition makes them less susceptible to the Ring's promises of power, as in Frodo and Samwise Gamgee, who are able to handle the Ring for extended periods of time. Hobbits are not totally immune to the Ring's effects, however, as shown by the changes it works in Frodo, Bilbo and Gollum. On the other hand, Boromir becomes obsessed with the Ring, but never possesses it, while Sméagol kills his kin Déagol, the first Ring bearer after Isildur, to obtain it. Gollum and Saruman differ from the other characters in submitting willingly to an evil power; the effect, according to the scholar Patricia Spacks, is of gradual destruction, even when the character starts out mainly virtuous. Saruman's case shows, she writes, that "pride and the lust for power", as he strives to get the Ring and to be powerful like Sauron, are enough to destroy him even though he never gets the Ring. When Gandalf comes to the ruins of Isengard to meet Saruman, and offers him freedom in place of slavery to Sauron, Saruman is too thoroughly corrupted to be able to choose any longer. As for Gollum, he is "a far more pitiable creature" as the Ring has taken him from a basically amoral position to one of evil. When Frodo suggests Gollum is not totally evil, Faramir replies "Not wholly, perhaps, but malice eats it like a canker, and the evil is growing". Tolkien vs Plato The theme of a corrupting ring dates back to Plato's Republic, where the Ring of