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The Lord of the Rings: Sméagol & Déagol

The moment everything went wrong for Middle-earth, built one riverbank at a time

Brick Rated Score

4.2/5

Set 40761 · 2025

Pieces181

Minifigs2

Year2025

Set number40761

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The verdict

This little scene got under my skin more than I expected from something you can't even buy outright.

It is a gift with purchase tied to the Shire set, which means the only way in is spending on something else first, and I will not pretend that does not sting a little. But if you land one, you get a genuinely lovely fishing vignette with two minifigures you cannot get anywhere else, a hobbit birthday moment turned dark right before your eyes. Get it if you are chasing every corner of the LEGO Lord of the Rings line or you just love a good tragedy told in plastic. Skip the chase if you are not already buying the Shire and cannot stomach paying resale prices for a 181 piece scene.

Best for: Lord of the Rings completists already buying the Shire set who want the exclusive minifigs

The full review

What it is

I did not expect a free-with-purchase add-on to make me feel anything, but this one did. Sméagol and Déagol sit down on the bank of the river with a little boat between them, and you know exactly what happens next if you have seen the films. LEGO built the calm before the storm, the last quiet second before one of them pulls a ring out of the mud and everything about his life changes. That is a strange, brave thing to hand a builder as a bonus item, and I respect that they did not water it down into something cute and safe.

The catch

Here is the honest part. You cannot walk into a store and buy this on its own. It came bundled as a gift with a Shire set purchase through LEGO.com for most of 2025, so unless you were already buying that set, your only way in now is the secondary market, and prices have already climbed past what a 181 piece scene would normally ask. That is a real barrier, and I do not want to pretend it away. The build itself is also modest in scale. It is a vignette, not a diorama you could lose an afternoon in, so if you were hoping for a sprawling riverbank with trees and hills stretching out, you will find the footprint tighter than the concept promises.

Who it's for

I would tell a die hard Lord of the Rings collector to hunt this one down without hesitation, because those two minifigures do not exist anywhere else, and the emotional weight of the scene is worth having on a shelf next to Frodo and Sam. I would tell a casual builder who just likes LEGO Middle-earth sets in general to think twice before paying inflated resale prices for something this size. It rewards the people who already know and love the story it is quietly retelling.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this one feels less like assembling a set and more like staging a small scene for a play. The riverbank comes together first, layered greens and browns built up around a slim brick built tree, and then the little wooden boat gets tucked into the water texture right where the two figures will end up sitting. It is quick, it is calm, and it asks you to pay attention to placement rather than technique, which suits the mood of the story it is telling.

The two minifigures are the real prize here. Sméagol and Déagol are both exclusive to this set, dressed in humble pre-Gollum hobbit style rather than the twisted creature most builders already own from other Middle-earth sets, and that alone makes this worth chasing for anyone building out the full cast. The included display stand with its nameplate turns the whole thing into a proper shelf piece rather than a loose pile of parts, and at 181 pieces for a scene this specific, the part count feels fair for what is really a two figure character study dressed up as a landscape.

Fun facts

01This set was distributed only as a gift with qualifying purchases of 10354 The Lord of the Rings: The Shire, available from April 2 through December 31, 2025
02It depicts the river scene from the prologue of The Return of the King, the moment Déagol finds the One Ring and Sméagol kills him for it
03Both Sméagol and Déagol minifigures are exclusive to this set and do not appear in any other LEGO Lord of the Rings release
04The finished model measures roughly 15 by 14 by 6 centimeters and ships with its own display stand