As far as anyone can tell, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan isn't especially skinny, pale, or obsessed with a small gold ring. However, it will now be up to a court in southern Turkey to decide if comparing him to the Lord of the Rings character Gollum should be considered an insult.
Turkish court hires Gollum witnesses after doctor compares LOTR character to president: https://t.co/syJj6NRq2v pic.twitter.com/BFI8LGVIT5
— Daily Dot Politics (@DotPolitics) December 2, 2015
Doctor Bilgin Ciftci created a meme comparing J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved-but-creepy monster Gollum to Erdoğan in 2014. Because "insulting the head of state" is a crime in Turkey punishable by a prison sentence, experts have been called in to determine if Gollum is in fact an "insulting" character to be compared to. The judge overseeing the case confessed he'd only seen parts of the Lord of the Rings series, so he appointed two academics, two behavioral experts, and an expert on cinema and television productions to better determine Gollum's character.
Ciftci, who lost his job because of the meme and resulting trial, is arguing that Gollum is in fact the hero of Lord of the Rings — Gollum, after all, is the one to ultimately destroy the evil and eponymous Ring — and therefore being compared to him is not actually an insult to the president. Other fans of the series have also made this argument.
And yet, however much you might find the antihero sweet — or at least sympathetic — it will certainly be tough to make the case that Gollum's bug-eyed stares and six-toothed grimaces are a "compliment."