[HN Gopher] Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bo... ___________________________________________________________________ Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (2011) Author : ibobev Score : 269 points Date : 2022-07-28 12:45 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (km-515.livejournal.com) (TXT) w3m dump (km-515.livejournal.com) | unethical_ban wrote: | I remember reading this several years ago, and I find it to be a | plausible theory and pretty terrifying. I know it likely isn't | canon and that TB is just a happy entity. | [deleted] | Trasmatta wrote: | > Possibly the least liked character in The Lord of the Rings. A | childish figure so disliked by fans of the book that few object | to his absence from all adaptations of the story. | | I've been a fan of Tolkien for decades, and this doesn't match up | with my experience at all...Tolkien fans seem to generally love | Tom, and many were deeply disappointed that he wasn't in the | movies (even though his exclusion makes perfect sense). Did I | just run in different Tolkien circles than the author? | micromacrofoot wrote: | I agree! an impish godlike figure that doesn't care all that | much about the outside world and wants to sing and dance around | in the woods? what's not to love. | vlunkr wrote: | I've seen both sides. My first time reading it I think I was | just baffled. Now I enjoy him as an enigma. | illuminerdy wrote: | Yeah, I've never felt the way about Tom Bombadil that the | author implies. I find his character fascinating. But I also | understand why Jackson didn't include him in the movies. | There's only so much you can do before a movie becomes | unwieldy. | SkyMarshal wrote: | Yeah Jackson even explained that in one of his interviews. | Bombadil doesn't really contribute anything to the main plot | of the books or the character development of the hobbits. | He's a mysterious interlude that never appears again or has | any effect on the plot development or outcome. It just wasn't | possible to justify giving him precious minutes in an already | long movie, and would likely have confused audience who | hadn't read the book yet. | | But I'm also not aware of anyone who actually dislikes him, | as the article asserts. | alrlroipsp wrote: | I absolutley agree with you! I remember reacting badly seeing | first movie in cinemas when they had left out Tom. I brought it | up many times with friends that it was the biggest mistake to | exclude him, but many argued he is not central to the story. I | have never ever heard anyone dislike Tom. | | I even read the Tom Bombadill songs child book. | halostatue wrote: | I skipped Tom Bombadil--even on my rereading of the cycle. | Completely irrelevant to the story and entirely Tolkien the | Old English professor marking time. Absolutely nothing is | lost from the quality of story by dropping him, and ignoring | him makes the whole series _more_ accessible. | | Then again, I'm not one of those folks who considers Tolkien | sacrosanct. I generally think that he's a bit like George | Lucas: a pretty good idea guy, some interesting ideas, but | not the best person to write the stories. | sigzero wrote: | That is one the top 10 complaints about the movies "No Tom | Bombadil?!!". So yeah, entirely wrong. | rossdavidh wrote: | I think it depends on whether or not it's the sort of fan who | read the books once, perhaps after seeing the Peter Jackson | movies, or the sort of fan who reads them every few years. You | are perhaps the latter sort. | ycombinete wrote: | I'm really surprised by this as well. Every fan I've spoken to | also believes that he was sorely missed as a point of | perspective to the story. | | His contentment with his place, and his power. That he was here | before this war, and will be here afterward. | simplicio wrote: | I like him in the books, but he also seems like a really good | example of why making movies their own thing instead of | slavishly following the source material is a good idea. | There's no way having the hobbits break the tense flight from | the Shire->Rivendale for a weird musical number with an | unexplained character who's never referenced again in the | story would've been anything but confusing for the film | audience. | lordfoom wrote: | There is even an active sub-reddit of fans: | https://old.reddit.com/r/GloriousTomBombadil/ | | And his absence from the films was remarked upon, negatively in | my circles. | Trasmatta wrote: | > And his absence from the films was remarked upon, | negatively in my circles. | | Yeah, same. On Tolkien forums in the early to mid 2000's, I | think these were the most commented on complaints about the | movies: | | * No Tom Bombadil | | * No Scouring of the Shire | | * Movie Faramir vs book Faramir | | * The Ents deciding to _not_ help Merry and Pippin at first | (tbh, this is the one that still gets me the most. It sort of | ruined a key attribute of the Ents just for a tiny bit of | extra tension for a short scene.) | | I'm probably missing some, but those were the ones I remember | coming up the most. | teddyh wrote: | Don't forget the how the entire character of Gimli the | dwarf was replaced with some sort of clown. | PeterCorless wrote: | They lost me at dwarf tossing. | teddyh wrote: | The axe to the ring was bad enough, but when the | character later explicitly suggested that they go through | Moria, ranting about food and beer, that's when I knew we | had gotten a clown on our hands. By the time the tossing | was discussed, I was thoroughly disillusioned about the | character, and expected no better. | JKCalhoun wrote: | With that one line of dialog I was snatched out of this | carefully crafted fantasy world and pulled back to our | (rather sad) present. | ghaff wrote: | Well, in literary fandom generally, anything other than | faithful transcription from page to screen often generates | outrage. | ncmncm wrote: | I was mainly irritated that the ents had knees. | | That the whole Sauron business was a local and temporary | nuisance seems central to the roles of Tom B and the ents. | The ents' complaint was, in the end, only with Saruman. | philbarr wrote: | No Saruman vs Gandalf rematch in the original films. It was | included in the director's cut but then you could see why | they left it out. | aposm wrote: | I was so baffled by reading this opening paragraph that I | assumed the entire post was meant to be read as a tongue-in- | cheek or "edgy" theory, not a serious discourse on the books. | Was I wrong?? | AnimalMuppet wrote: | No, not wrong. I'm not sure whether the post is serious, or | just trying too hard for an edgelord take. | greenie_beans wrote: | I read that and was like, "wait what? I must be a loser for | liking him." | [deleted] | mabbo wrote: | I tried to read LoTR when I was 11. I got to Tom Bombadil and | just gave up. 70 pages of him singing with no real point. I | just couldn't go on. | | I finally read it in full around 5 years later. | slavik81 wrote: | The first LotR movie released when I was in grade nine. IIRC, | of the 14 students in our class, 11 started reading the books | after the movie. Of those, maybe 4 finished. The boredom of | Tom Bombadil was the cause of a lot of the dropouts. | Hayvok wrote: | As a kid I would get bored and skip the Tom Bombadil section | - it was only years later as a young adult and I was starting | to get deeper into the lore that I found him to be a | fascinating character, with deep implications. | | Absolutely agree he needed to be dropped from the theatrical | release. Would have been nice to see him in the extended | edition though. | libraryatnight wrote: | Your experience matches my own. For me and my circle Tolkien's | works were a draw in part because of how much lore and detail | was in the world and yet there were huge mysteries all over | that ignite the imagination. Tom was one of those, and as kids | he was a source of long debates about how powerful he was, and | as we got older and read wider and deeper he still prompts | conversation on nature, the nature of power, mystery in story | telling - he's the reason I read the Kalevala. Anyway -Tom's | awesome and this blog post did not resonate with me much at | all, I was glad to see this and most of HN's comments in | response. | [deleted] | jfengel wrote: | Possibly. But I know a lot of people who find Tom irrelevant to | the plot. It looks more like a silly digression just at the | time the book had shifted from "Hobbit sequel" to serious epic. | He talks in poetry that can feel singsong and childish. | | Tolkien fans seem to focus on the bit with the Ring, which is | an engaging enigma without a resolution. It makes him seem very | important and powerful, but the story doesn't explore it much. | It's a small part of a chapter that otherwise can feel like a | distraction. | | So a lot of fans, I think, are happy to see him go so you can | get to better developed characters like Elrond and Aragorn. | There is a lot more going on in that chapter, especially if you | read it closely, but I can see why a lot of people are happy to | skip on to the barrow wights, where the stakes are higher. Even | if the ending to it is just "Tom comes back to fix it". | nonameiguess wrote: | It provides some pretty key context to where Merry got his | blade from and why it is able to break the spell and make the | Witch King killable. Bit of a better explanation than Eowyn's | "I am no man." | nindalf wrote: | Merry's sword was Numenorean, but there was no need of that | entire digression to get Merry a Numenorean sword. The | movie has Aragorn tell them "here are some weapons, help | yourselves", which is just as good. | yborg wrote: | You can argue that much of the books can be eliminated | because they're just not Hollywood, reading is for | boomers after all. | | The origin of the blade is relevant because they nearly | died in getting it, and because it came from the tomb of | a prince who himself died battling the Witch King, so in | a sense he obtained vengeance from beyond the grave. | "Wow, this sword just turned out to be magic, what a | coincidence" isn't nearly the same thing. | ghaff wrote: | Film--even a whole trilogy of films--is a different | medium from books. Books are in general much more | tolerant of diversions that don't move the story forward. | Bombadil was pretty much a diversion. | | The films also had to deal with the fact that the LoTR | books had a _lot_ of material after the ring was | destroyed--and that 's not even counting all the material | in the appendix of RoTK. Say whatever positive things you | like about LoTR but the narrative structure of RoTK in | particular is a bit of a mess. | adamc wrote: | I don't think it was "a mess" (just reread it this | spring). Books support a lot more alternatives to | structuring a story than most movies, with their tight | time limits, want to explore. | | That doesn't mean movies are better: in fact, movies are | clearly more limited and worse, from the point of view of | telling long, complicated stories. But people enjoy | movies (me too), so... compromises. | jamiek88 wrote: | Reading is more popular with younger generations than | boomers. | | Reading had a massive renaissance with gen z and | millennials have always read more than boomers. | | The idea that the youth consider reading as geeky and | boring is itself and outdated idea from the 80's. | jon_richards wrote: | I think "I am no man" is a perfectly good explanation in | the movie. It implies that the witch king is relying on a | prophesy he doesn't fully understand (rather than a spell). | "If Croesus goes to war, he will destroy a great empire." | morelisp wrote: | There's also a strong tie between this kind of prophecy | and Tolkien's (and Anglo-Saxon literature generally's) | love of the riddle form; "riddles in the dark" draws | clear inspiration from Vafthrudnismal, which doubles as | both prophecy and riddles. Along these lines, I also | recommend Adam Roberts's _The Riddles of The Hobbit_. | CamouflagedKiwi wrote: | I don't recall it explicitly making him killable? Eowyn | still finishes him off in the book without (I assume?) an | ambiguously magical blade. | | I always thought it was more of a misleading prophecy, very | like Macbeth (probably inspired by? Tolkien certainly drew | some inspiration from Macbeth in other areas); "No man of | woman born" and "Not by the hand of man" are both | interpreted as "can't be killed" but really turn out to | have very significant loopholes. | eric_cc wrote: | > But I know a lot of people who find Tom irrelevant to the | plot. | | Probably the people who most need to understand why he is in | there. | corrral wrote: | Notably: plot isn't the only factor at play in a novel (or | film, et c.). At least in the good ones. | JKCalhoun wrote: | I like Tom a lot but my own theory as to _why_ he is in | _The Lord of the Rings_ is because Tolkien had already | created him. You get a sense that the world-building | Tolkien did began with a somewhat more fairytale-like world | with characters like Tom Bombadil. First _The Hobbit_ and | then _The Lord of the Rings_ took the world up to something | less childish, more ... Arthurian? | | Tom was at that point a round peg in a square hole, but | Tolkien shoehorned him in nonetheless. | dbingham wrote: | The comments on this thread make it seem more likely that | your circle of people who disliked Tom is the outlier rather | than those of us who thoroughly enjoy him as a character. | | Also, I submit as evidence this scifi.stackexchange thread: | https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/1586/who-or- | what-w... | | I think Tolkien fans, on average, have long enjoyed the | mystery that is Tom. | ethbr0 wrote: | > _I think Tolkien fans, on average, have long enjoyed the | mystery that is Tom._ | | If there's one thing a true lore fan adores, it's an | ambiguous but textually-supported mystery. | | And also, it's fitting that Tolkien left a big "Is Deckard | a replicant?" mystery untied in the Ring trilogy. | sn41 wrote: | Huh. It never occurred to me that Deckard could be a | replicant. That truly did come out of left field :D But | it makes sense. | lief79 wrote: | I had to tell a couple people (generally college aged) to | skip that chapter in order to get them to continue reading | the books (around the time that the movies were coming | out), as he wasn't important to the rest of the narrative. | I know I was questioning if I wanted to finish the books | when I read that part in 6th grade. The rest of it | obviously made up for it. | | From your link, the set of comments under the first answer | also shows there is clearly a debate. | imwillofficial wrote: | Your experience isn't everyone's. Your friends missed out | in my opinion. | | Tom = awesome | kagakuninja wrote: | That experience was mine, and I believe most of my | college gamer friends. | xxs wrote: | Since my school days, I have not met anyone who dislikes Tom. | mrzool wrote: | My thoughts exactly. I loved Tom Bombadil when reading the book | as a child! | eric_cc wrote: | 100% agree with you. Tom was my favorite character and an | essential one in my opinion. I was one of those people that was | deeply disappointed by his absence. | | Tom is entirely beyond caring about "good" or "evil". His peace | is such a vital contrast to every other character and has stuck | with me over time. | Aerroon wrote: | > _Tom is entirely beyond caring about "good" or "evil". His | peace is such a vital contrast to every other character and | has stuck with me over time._ | | I think characters like that can make the world seem more... | worldly. It gives a perspective that everything doesn't just | revolve around the central plot. | Trasmatta wrote: | > Tom is entirely beyond caring about "good" or "evil". His | peace is such a vital contrast to every other character and | has stuck with me over time. | | Yeah, exactly this. To me, Tom is a part of nature, even | moreso than the elves or the ents, which isn't really good or | evil. That's another reason I didn't like this post at all. | Tom isn't some malicious force, biding his time until Sauron | leaves when he can dance upon the corpses of the Hobbits. | He's a mystery, a hint at the depth of the world, and a | curious aspect of nature. | selimnairb wrote: | A good point. He is an indifferent character, much as nature | is indifferent to humanity. However, to "humans" experiencing | peril, indifference can feel like evil. | ncmncm wrote: | Global Climate Disruption is (1);a looming catastrophe for | human civilization, (2) potentially a major setback for us | as a species with a population crash from billions to | millions, but (3) barely a hiccup to the biosphere, just | one among many pulses of extinctions. | fritztastic wrote: | I was disappointed he was not in the films, however everyone | else I know was glad of this omission. I think his character | adds a certain something- maybe something a lot of people don't | appreciate. Not including him in the movies, I thought, was a | missed opportunity. | cloverich wrote: | There's a bit of selection bias going on w/ Tolkien fans vs | readers of the book in general. I know many people who read the | and loved the book, disliked the sections on Tom (at least, | beyond a few pages of it), and have never participated in any | Tolkien fan community. I suspect "fans of the book" meant more | the casual rather than the hard-core fan you are alluding to. | [deleted] | anupj wrote: | I stopped taking the article seriously after I read this line. | IMO Tom Bombadil was a very likeable character. The author | seems to have imagined a problem (where none existed) and then | proceeded to explain why it's not a problem. Almost a | clickbait. | jccalhoun wrote: | Agreed. Back when Aint it Cool News was popular I would see | tons of people complaining about Bombadil's absence. | | Personally, I hate Tom, not because he is childish, but because | of the damn songs. | Trasmatta wrote: | Hah, I love Tolkien, but I still skip all the songs. They | just never work for me in written text. | zikzak wrote: | I was like you once, then I read The Hobbit to my son and | had to (HAD TO) sing all the songs to him. It kind of | forced me to slow down and appreciate them as atmosphere | enhancing and world building that really does improve the | experience for me. | slaymaker1907 wrote: | Yeah, I've gotten a lot of positive comments for my character | "Tom Bombabil" in FFXIV. It's kind of an insider thing for who | read the books vs who just watched the movies. Personally, I | liked him just for carefree and silly he was. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | Reading it again as an adult (read outloud in full to my | daughter when she was 11 or 12 or so, before watching the | movies) I really liked Bombadil. But I didn't dig that section | at all when I read the books as a 14 year old. It seemed | whimsical and childish. More fairy tale than the overall dark | and serious epic tone in the rest of the book. | | I see the Bombadil portion and the sections after it as Tolkien | making the transition from _" I'm writing a sequel to The | Hobbit with a similar feel"_ to _" I'm writing a sequel to my | Silmarillion, with much more mature and darker themes"_. I | think Bombadil fits more in the style of The Hobbit | (fundamentally a children's book) than the larger Quenta | Silmarillion. | UncleOxidant wrote: | Yeah, I can't get past that sentence either, and it's the 2nd | sentence. I just don't get the impression they know what | they're talking about and have serious doubts about spending | time reading the rest of it. | lucideer wrote: | Absolutely thought "I must be living in a bubble" when I read | this: I don't think I've spoken to a single book-reader who | wasn't vocally disappointed by the omission of Tom from the | films. He was certainly one of mine & my sibling's favourite | characters. | JKCalhoun wrote: | Agree. Tom represented a couple of things for me when reading | the books. | | First, he represented all the small pockets of unknown magic | that could exist in Middle Earth. I would stare at the map of | Middle Earth in the front of the book and wonder about the | parts not covered in either _The Lord of the Rings_ or _The | Hobbit_. What strange things might be there? Tom heightened | my sense of wonder about the world. | | But second, Tom showed up just as the hobbits seemed to have | met their darkest hour. You can dismiss this as _deus ex | machina_ on the part of the author, but it was a needed break | from the stress and anxiety that had been building to a | crescendo at that point. And I thought perhaps Tolkien was | suggesting that sometimes you have to trust in the | benevolence of strangers -- or that some higher power is | watching over the most vulnerable. | lisper wrote: | > He was certainly one of mine & my sibling's favourite | characters. | | Why? He doesn't actually _do_ anything except drone on and on | about the color of his boots. He doesn 't advance the story | in any way (which is why it is so easy to omit him in | adaptations). | slaymaker1907 wrote: | He's extremely mysterious and in a good way. He is one of | the only characters able to just casually put on the one | ring with seemingly no effect and then give it back | immediately afterwards. I think he gives off eldritch | horror vibes, but in a mostly benevolent way. If everyone | else were ants, he would be an etymologist intrigued by our | behavior or something. | xxs wrote: | > He is one of the only characters able to just casually | put... | | He is the only character in the middle earth that can do | that actually. The ring, and its immense power, has | control over everyone else incl. Gandalf, Galadriel, and | Sauron. | lisper wrote: | > He is one of the only characters able to just casually | put on the one ring with seemingly no effect and then | give it back immediately afterwards. | | OK, that's fair enough. But to my mind, this is just a | setup that cries out for an explanation that never comes. | It's a major flaw in the dramatic structure of the | narrative, a bug not a feature. | | But I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about | that. | fleetwoodsnack wrote: | The naive reader's expectation of conformity to dramatic | structure is an expectation that plenty of authors have | played with, for reasons including stylistic effect, | subtext, and for fun. It's not a flaw, bug, feature, or | other arbitrary and inappropriate use of software jargon. | corrral wrote: | How do you feel about the works of David Lynch? | PeterCorless wrote: | See, that's the best part. It's what makes people "fall | into" Middle Earth. That there was whole parts of the | backstory that don't get explained. That there are | periods of history you get a glimpse into to believe | there is a huge depth to it. That the way we see the | continent now is not how it always was. Who were the | barrow wights? Why were they cursed? | | As a kid first reading it, I feared the barrow wights as | much if not more than the Nazgul. | | The whole aside was to show that the hobbits had truly | "left the Shire" and that perils lay along the road in | any direction they might turn. But, again, there were | allies or, at least, guides all along that road as well. | | Bombadil and Old Man Willow are a foreshadowing of the | Ents to come. | JadeNB wrote: | > If everyone else were ants, he would be an etymologist | intrigued by our behavior or something. | | Just in case it wasn't a typo, you certainly meant | 'entomologist'. | gilrain wrote: | His boots _are_ yellow, though. Truth is on his side! | lucideer wrote: | > _He doesn 't advance the story in any way_ | | He advances the world and builds context for many elements | in the later story. Fangorn has many parallels to the Old | Forest, and much of the storyline involving Ents & Huorns | benefits from the context given by the earlier encounters | with Tom's neighbouring spirits (and his enchantment of | them). | forgotmypw17 wrote: | Tom represents the Great Mystery, the great unknown of the | beyond that is all seeing and all knowing and all powerful. | Omitting him is like omitting the whole premise of the | book. | | It's like making a movie based on the Bible but omitting | the Resurrection of Jesus. | lisper wrote: | Sorry, but that just doesn't compute for me at all. Tom | is a _silly_ character with no gravitas. He puns his own | name just to make it rhyme with "yellow" -- over and | over again. And there is nothing in Tom's story that is | even remotely comparable to the Resurrection. The | Resurrection is a key _event_ in the Bible story. It is | something that _happens_ to _change the dramatic arc of | all mankind_. In Tom 's story, nothing happens _at all_. | | The scene at Mount Doom where the Ring is finally | destroyed is analogous to the Resurrection, not Tom | Bombadil. | adamc wrote: | He's more the curious incident of the dog in the | nighttime. Who is he? Why does no one know of him? | | Incongruent facts are always interesting. IMO. | jrumbut wrote: | And beyond that, I thought the first half or so of this | reading (that Bombadil is a lot more than meets the eye) was | also common. | | But he is definitely one of the most interesting characters | and one of the best ways the story shows it is taking place | in a big world with a lot of different things going on. | lucideer wrote: | > _the first half or so of this reading (that Bombadil is a | lot more than meets the eye) was also common_ | | Certainly that he's more than meets the eye (that seems | plain) but the conclusions here seem less common... | | I think it's interesting to contrast the speculation in | this article with the depiction of elves in The Hobbit | (book) - much less obviously a benign force than as | portrayed in LoTR. | | The author's assumption - accepted as given at the outset - | is that the "evil" within the Old Forest is genuine, rather | than a representation of a certain perspective. The thesis | is then that Bombadil must be guilty by association. | | This initial assumption seems simplistic to me. A common | trait of mystical (especially nature-connected) beings in | northern European mythology (at least!) is a duality of | intent - being a perhaps-positive yet untrustworthy force. | This seems reflected in a lot of Tolkien's world; while | Sauron / the Ring / others do have a more directly corrupt | "evil" attributed to them, there's much more ambiguity | elsewhere - it says of Old Man Willow that "his heart was | rotten, but his strength was green": rotten != evil and in | the context of nature has positive connotations (alcoholic | fermentation) elsewhere in his writings. Green isn't | necessarily positive either, but the usage here is notable. | ethbr0 wrote: | It's admittedly in a different part of the book, so may | be linguistic styling rather than lore-indicative, but | the Old Forest felt more "wild" than "evil." | | In the Old Forest, there were certainly dangers, | including some lethal ones, but loosely organized and | operating independently. More druidic. | | Whereas Sauron / Morgoth were far more hierarchical in | structuring their domains, exerted dominion over their | forces, and attempted to implement a master plan. | quadrifoliate wrote: | Now you can speak to one! | | Perhaps it was the age when I first read the books (~12 or so | years old) - but I loved the contrasts between the cozy world | of the hobbits and the more savage, epic nature of the rest | of Middle-earth. | | For me, Tom Bombadil never fit well into either of these | categories. There was a while where I heard about Tom | Bombadil potentially being Eru Iluvatar, but that theory has | been found pretty lacking in various aspects, as well as | having been debunked by Tolkien himself. | PeterCorless wrote: | I was mostly bummed the barrow-wights were utterly missing | from the movies. | BolexNOLA wrote: | Yeah I usually try to avoid going "well I never saw that | personally," but even combing through this thread it seems that | saying folks generally don't like Bombadil is a very hot, but | also very questionable, take. | | I definitely remember many people remarking on his absence and | debates about how critical he was (most conceded cutting him | made sense it was just a bummer). | nindalf wrote: | > Did I just run in different Tolkien circles than the author? | | Almost certainly. Tolkien fans aren't a monolith, there's | plenty of diversity of opinion. I remember seeing these | screenshots of a Tolkien forum from 2000 and 2001 of people | berating Peter Jackson in the most scathing terms. They were | talking about how he's completely ruined Tolkien's legacy. | | That said, if you're looking for a Tolkien fan who dislikes Tom | - hi, I'm one. Fuck Tom Bombadil. He contributed exactly | nothing to the story. | high_5 wrote: | > He contributed exactly nothing to the story. | | I see you point, but there are so many chapters in our | meandering lives that don't add nothing to our "story". It | still does add a layer of depth to the LOTR as others have | pointed out. And in a way he acts as a comic Cerberus, | scaring away the materialistic minds that want to speedrun | through a completely coherent story once again. | Trasmatta wrote: | I know that there are fans that don't like Tom. Just that it | doesn't seem to be dominant or overarching opinion that the | author makes it seem like. | reddog wrote: | > He contributed exactly nothing to the story. | | He was in the books to add depth, history and verisimilitude | to Middle Earth. He was an important part of world building. | Tolkien could have left him out and the story would not have | suffered but the same could be said for the appendixes and | map as well. | mynameisash wrote: | > He contributed exactly nothing to the story. | | Couldn't the same thing be said of Tolkien's colorful | description of the countryside that can go on for pages at a | time? | nindalf wrote: | When I was reading the story I could understand that the | descriptions of the country side were just for setting the | scene. | | Whereas this guy takes up pages and pages, to ultimately | have no effect on the story at all? Felt like a bait and | switch to ten year old me. | dorchadas wrote: | Maybe it comes down to a difference of how people | approach books? Do you think that everything in a book | should ultimately have an effect on the story? Do you | think Hugo's descriptions in _Les Miserables_ contribute | to the story, or that it should only ever be read in an | abridged version? | | Personally, I think those things (and Tom!) do contribute | a lot to the story, so maybe that's why I liked Tom. | There's more to writing than simply telling a story and | making everything pertinent to that, and thus there's | more to reading. Of course, I also like worldbuilding and | would read D&D manuals simply for that, without ever | playing sometimes, so another reason why I liked Tom, but | I can't help but wonder if it's split into two camps | because of how people approach reading and literature. | mrex wrote: | >He contributed exactly nothing to the story. | | Or, did you just not understand what he contributed? | | Why was Tom Bombadil invulnerable to the ring's power? Why | was he not tempted by it? If you can't cogently answer that, | I feel like you've probably just not yet understood what | Tolkein was trying to represent. | qorrect wrote: | Well I'm glad you said that, I was very disappointed he wasn't | in the movies. My other friends seemed not to care, or they | thought he would be too difficult to portray on camera. | Villodre wrote: | I always loved Bombadil. A discordant note among wizards of great | power and elves of slender form and perhaps a metaphor for Nature | itself, but I also have enjoyed a lot this take on the character. | xenophonf wrote: | Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9982237 | | And previously-er: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6923547 | aszantu wrote: | tom dongelong geht den pfad hinauf dongelong hebt schone blume | auf steht am strassenrand eine komische baum mit fusse drin | "eh... stamm!" | | from german fanfiction, tom bombadil rap, sadly the site went | offline a while ago https://www.last.fm/music/www.das-schwarze- | ohr.de looks like someone saved it! | [deleted] | nathell wrote: | I know it's disproved, but I always liked to think about Tom | Bombadil as Eru Iluvatar. | tmcneal wrote: | This reminds me of the fan theory that Tom Bombadil is secretly | the Witch-King of Angmar: | http://www.flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/theories/bombadil.htm | permo-w wrote: | the first two points really don't help the credibility of this | theory. it does actually get better after that | hajile wrote: | And is about as faulty. The Witch-king would definitely have | been affected after putting on the ring of power (and would | have immediately killed them before returning it to Sauron). It | is also worth noting that Frodo didn't have his normal | nervousness about handing the ring to Bombadil. | orthoxerox wrote: | But did Aragorn wear pants? | ncmncm wrote: | And, did ents have knees? | outworlder wrote: | The Witch King would immediately seize the One Ring for | himself. | | Although the notion of a ringwraith singing and dancing is | amusing. | bambax wrote: | I would not be commenting about how little interest I have in | this story, if the website didn't break the back button. The | people who do this, what are they thinking? That we will never | leave, and keep watching their webpage until we die? | | Tolkien is overrated, but this... this is useless and annoying. | thriftwy wrote: | Maybe Tom Bombadil is just JRRT himself. Why won't he just live | there and know everything without being noticed, other than | occassional Deus Ex Machina action? | boringg wrote: | Is this popping up because of Elden Ring coming out in the fall? | 1234letshaveatw wrote: | Why does it seem like everyone wants it to fail? It is almost | like everyone has deemed it to be a disaster without watching | one episode. I hope that is not the case and critics go in with | an open mind, why sap all the fun out of it right out of the | starting gate | boringg wrote: | I didn't say anything about it or alluding to it failing - I | mentioned that there is LOTR content popping up at the same | time as Elden Ring is getting traction. Your bias really | shines through here. | saiya-jin wrote: | Well not sure why you keep repeating name 'Elden ring' - | thats a computer game completely unrelated to LOTR or | incoming TV show from Amazon (The rings of power). It _may_ | sound like a jab on the TV show from you, probably hence | the reactions | ysavir wrote: | LotR stuff pops on here pretty regularly, though not in big | swarms. There's the Battle of Helms Deep analysis series (or | something like that) that usually gets posted, for example. | | I'm sure The Rings of Power (which I assume is what you meant) | will give the subject a bump, but this is more likely something | someone came across and shared unrelated. | theknocker wrote: | percentcer wrote: | Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow. | fritztastic wrote: | Ok, 2 points: | | 1. I'm surprised LiveJournal still exists. Genuinely. I used to | have one, a loooong time ago. | | 2. I was always fascinated by Bombadil, he seemed to me like the | embodiment of nature itself, or forests. At least, that's the | concept he seemed to represent to me. I admit I skipped reading | the lyrics though. This is a fascinating theory although it is | quite different than what I would conclude from the same | evidence. | nonameiguess wrote: | George Martin was still publishing his blog there until pretty | recently, so that forced it to stay in somewhat of the public | eye as the only place to get any official updates on when Winds | of Winter might finally be published. | rst wrote: | LJ was bought by some company in Russia years ago -- at which | point, there was a very large exodus among Anglophone users | (particularly of the LGBTQA community, and their friends). A | lot of them went to Dreamwidth, which started with a fork of | the LJ codebase, but not enough to make it nearly as vital as | LJ used to be. | HeckFeck wrote: | I recently looked into LJ, it looks to be a better take on | social media than many things that came after. Many ancient | blogs are still live, documenting daily struggles and ramblings | from 2003. It could be written into social history. | samrocksc wrote: | this is the best thing ever posted on HN..... going to restart | the lord of the rings podcast now. | shaftoe444 wrote: | What podcast is that? I'm just reading the books for the first | time. | whicks wrote: | Not sure which one the OP had in mind but if you're into more | theatrical audiobooks / podcasts check out "An Unexpected | Journey" by "Samwise Gamgee" on Spotify. Absolutely top-tier | audiobook of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. | digdugdirk wrote: | Just seconding this request. Any and all podcast | recommendations on the LoTR would be welcome. | danparsonson wrote: | Tangentially related, the BBC published a pretty solid radio | adaptation of LOTR in the 80's: | | https://archive.org/details/the-lord-of-the-rings-bbc- | radio-... | | (no sign of Tom Bombadil here either though, IIRC) | vmilner wrote: | Old Forest section was dramatised later (though they | couldnt get the same cast) | | https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tales-Perilous-Realm-Full-Cast- | Dram... | throwaway290 wrote: | TLDR + rebuttal combo that also isn't chock full of ads and | doesn't break your back button: | https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/p3mh4m/comment/h8t... | sudden_dystopia wrote: | This sets up what could have been a great continuation of the | story. A whole new way to look at lotr. | chaostheory wrote: | Tom is the oldest in that he's Tolkien's oldest fictional | creation. Tolkien made him up one day for his children's bed time | story. In this context, it explains why Tom feels so off from | Middle Earth. Personally, I like the character and I'm surprised | to hear that a lot of people didn't like him. | ineedasername wrote: | I always thought of Tom Bombidil as Eru, the creator, or at the | very least was taking cues from Eru. Two pieces of evidence: | | 1) The song he gives, which seemed a positive one, and is not | remarked upon as discordant or unpleasant. Eru created through | song, and in that choir it was the introduction of disharmony | that signified evil. | | 2) The passage where it's asked "who is he?" The answer is "He | is." And then "he is as you have seen him". Tolkien was a | religious person, and this passage has always seemed to echo that | of the bible where a similar question gets the godly response "I | am that I am". This echo always seemed to much to be a | coincidence. | zmgsabst wrote: | > Eru created through song, and in that choir it was the | introduction of disharmony that signified evil. | | I take a different view: | | Eru knew who Melkor was from the start, and his "disharmony" | was part of a broader and richer song -- as shown by the duet | that led to man and the ultimate downfall of evil lords. | | The only time Eru spoke to Melkor, he chided him for thinking | that a being of his own essence was acting outside his intent | or marring the music. | | If you take the Valar as aspects of Eru, then Melkor is the | internal critic that drives genius to greater heights. | ineedasername wrote: | And to elaborate: | | Rather than his surroundings being a symbol of the true Tom, I | take this to be Tolkien's allegory of divine intervention, God | himself reaching in and tilting the balance slightly, a little | nudge while otherwise letting things play out. An extremely | rare occurrence both in Tolkien's creation and his own | religion, which is why Tom is not more widely known, except by | Gandalf who rubs elbows with the Valar when not running around | Middle Earth. | SkyMarshal wrote: | Encyclopedia of Arda has an analysis of that, and concludes | he's not Eru: https://www.glyphweb.com/arda/t/tombombadil.html | ineedasername wrote: | Very interesting! But I wonder if it might be a bit of | misdirection by Tolkein to say "there is no embodiment of the | One.." After all he is good Catholic who believed in the | Trinity. | | Still it is strong evidence against == Eru unless Tolkein was | playing semantic games. | a3w wrote: | Yes, he is the GMPC in a RPG setting. As this is heroic fantasy | with few or no subversions to the plot ever, the other | characters are written as not meta enough to note that they are | in a story, and the author of the story put his avatar in | there. | | As to what a GMPC is: | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GMPC | wly_cdgr wrote: | I find the classic take that Tom Bombadil was intended by Tolkien | to be god persuasive. But he is definitely creepy | MobiusHorizons wrote: | > And yet no hobbit has ever heard of him. | | This is just not true. At a minimum farmer maggot is supposed to | have known about Tom Bombadil. | cvoss wrote: | And the article even admits as much a few paragraphs later. | Just one of many pieces of evidence that this article is not of | much value, even as a work of speculative fan fiction. | tevon wrote: | To me, Tom Bombadil is the introduction of natural magic. He is | nature, indicating to the reader that there is a source of magic | beyond the elves, Wizards, and Sauron. | | There are many magical creatures in Middle-Earth without a | described source, which to me makes the whole story feel more | magic. The Ents probably being the chief example. | | Another important role of Tom's is his introduction of magic and | power outside of the "good vs evil" struggle. | xxs wrote: | Some researchers consider Tom to be the 'reader' | reptation wrote: | Please expand on this. | ThaDood wrote: | Really? Thats actually a super interesting theory that I had | never considered before. Any more info, I'd love to look into | this. | xxs wrote: | I guess: | | https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Theories_about_Tom_Bombadil | peteradio wrote: | Perhaps the author? | xxs wrote: | He declined that... Tolkien said Tom Bombadil had been | 'invented'. He considered his wife Edith: to have been | Luthien, so that would make Tolkien - Beren. _" I never | called Edith Luthien - but she was the source of the story | that in time became the chief part of The Silmarillion."_ | | Tom Bombadil predates the story of the ring. It's placed | there as a very powerful creature - still would lose to | Sauron if all the world fell apart according to Glorfindel | [and Gandalf doesn't object either]. That creature has no | direct influence on the story, being more of a bystander... | similar to the reader. | inopinatus wrote: | I have long considered him to break the fourth wall, but I | lean toward Tom being an oblique author self-insertion, | irrespective of Tolkien's claim to not be embodied within his | works. | jiggywiggy wrote: | Sounds indeed more in line with what Tolkien said, although | everyone can create their own version of the story of course. | | Tolkien: "But Tom Bombadil is just as he is. Just an odd 'fact' | of that world. He won't be explained, because as long as you | are (as in this tale you are meant to be) concentrated on the | Ring, he is inexplicable. But he's there - a reminder of the | truth (as I see it) that the world is so large and manifold | that if you take one facet and fix your mind and heart on it, | there is always something that does not come in to that | story/argument/approach, and seems to belong to a larger story. | But of course in another way, not that of pure story-making, | Bombadil is a deliberate contrast to the Elves who are artists. | But B. does not want to make, alter, devise, or control | anything: just to observe and take joy in the contemplating the | things that are not himself. The spirit of the [deleted: world | > this earth] made aware of itself. He is more like science | (utterly free from technological blemish) and history than art. | He represents the complete fearlessness of that spirit when we | can catch a little of it. But I do suggest that it is possible | to fear (as I do) that the making artistic sub-creative spirit | (of Men and Elves) is actually more potent, and can 'fall', and | that it could in the eventual triumph of its own evil destroy | the whole earth, and Bombadil and all." | | http://www.hammondandscull.com/addenda/bombadil.html | permo-w wrote: | I really like this. In many many many works of fiction, if | you are presented with an odd detail that seems extraneous to | the plot or the aesthetic, there's a huge chance that this | will turn out to be some kind of pivotal point later in the | story. I love that Tolkien was introducing them simply to | create depth - and to a great extent - to provoke the | feelings that bring about posts and discussion like this | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impression_of_depth_in_The_Lor. | .. | bnralt wrote: | Kind of strange that the only other two authors they talk | about are Ursula K. Le Guin and J.K. Rowling. I don't think | the use of depth by either was particularly noticeable | compared to other authors, and certainly nowhere near what | Tolkien was doing (and I'm saying that as someone who would | rather read Le Guin than Tolkien). | jcul wrote: | Kind of the opposite of Chekhov's gun. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov's_gun | Trasmatta wrote: | Thanks for the link to that Wikipedia page, I'd never seen | it before. Really amazing stuff. There have been many | authors since that have done a good job at replicating that | "impression of depth", but I still feel like none of them | has ever done it at Tolkien's level. | yreg wrote: | Perhaps G.R.R. Martin? | Rzor wrote: | Yes, to a vastly larger scope, imo. | stevekemp wrote: | > The Ents probably being the chief example. | | The Ents were made by Yavanna, in the same way that Aule made | the Dwarves, according to my memories of the Silmarillion. | | They awoke at the coming of others, and they were taught speech | by the Elves. | Aeolun wrote: | I pity the poor elf that taught the Ents speech... even for | an elf that sounds like the work of a lifetime. | bowsamic wrote: | Yeah I agree, and I don't think it needs to be complicated | beyond that point. Him and the other stuff that happens very | close to that point (Old Man Willow and the barrow-wight) are | just showing that this is a naturally magical world without | being tied to just elves and wizards and rings. Unfortunately | the movies did away with almost all of that part of the books, | making it more like a Harry Potter style of magic: simply that | there are indeed magic beings and wizards but generally the | world itself is un-magical. | carapace wrote: | He's the Green Man, older than gods, and more real. | NeverFade wrote: | > _There are many magical creatures in Middle-Earth without a | described source, which to me makes the whole story feel more | magic._ | | As far as I know, this isn't true. Virtually all creatures and | major characters in LotR have a clear source in the lore | Tolkien developed. Of course, only a fraction of this lore is | in LotR itself, and the rest was in notes published after his | death, e.g. in The Silmarillion. | | That's precisely what makes Tom Bombadil such an eye-catching | exception. | MattConfluence wrote: | It's a fun read in a fan-fiction sense, but when you look at the | out-of-universe story of the events of Tolkien's life and his | writing process it becomes clear that Tom is not meant to be any | kind of evil. | | Tolkien wrote a silly whimsical poem about one of his children's | toys that they had named Tom Bombadil. In this tale he lives in a | dangerous environment, but he is able to overcome the dangers and | get his happy ending. | | When Tolkien later was writing LotR, he drew upon his former work | and put in the silly whimsical Tom as an early encounter for the | Hobbits just as they are leaving the Shire and starting their | adventure. This story arc delivers some early exposition about | the world in his dialogue, it shows that the Hobbits are | hopelessly unprepared to stand up against any foe such as Old Man | Willow or the Barrow-Wight and need rescue (this way they can | have character growth and become Heroes by the time they return | to the Shire) and it gets the Hobbits armed for their quest | towards Rivendell (and most importantly to put the right kind of | blade into Pippin's hands for later). | | In a more thematic sense he is just part of nature, not evil but | also not actively looking to do good, just existing. He is master | of his domain in the same sense a big moose might be the "master" | of his local forest, he's the biggest around and isn't threatened | by anything else, but he has no human desire for expansion and | doesn't push back when civilization comes around to turn the land | nearby into farmland either, just keeps to himself. He doesn't | try to tame the angry trees because it's just protecting it's | territory, as is natural, nor does he try to "exorcise" the | barrows because nature doesn't actively go about trying to undo | the evils created by man. | TheRealPomax wrote: | It's interesting that this description is apparently "evil", | even if in this framing Tom predates all, and everyone lives on | his unceded land. You'd become "particular" about your role | after living through several ages of that, too. | | Rather than evil, it's more "biding their time until that | injustice can finally be rectified". In this post's framing, | literally every humanoid race is by definition an (unwitting) | invader. | martythemaniak wrote: | I like this analysis much better: | https://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/1552467596817174529... | | Tldr: "So that's what I think Tom is. He's Tolkien's version of | what a pagan survival would have looked like in Middle Earth. He | doesn't quite fit because he's from the bit of Middle Earth that | _is_ England, or a version of England, and from a different set | of stories. " | helloworld11 wrote: | The author of this delightful post is very wrong or at least from | a very unusual bubble in thinking that Bombadil is disliked by | most readers of the Hobbit, but other than that, the narrative of | secret evil he constructs is wonderfully compelling, enough to | create a whole fascinating story line of its own. I loved it. | Sporktacular wrote: | I understood Ciridan the Shipwright to be the oldest character | but may be wrong. | valarauko wrote: | Cirdan is certainly the oldest elf in Middle Earth during the | period of the LotR. Treebeard and the other ents are probably | older. | fmajid wrote: | Gandalf, as a Maia, has got to be older than all left in | Middle Earth. | valarauko wrote: | Probably true, though as Gandalf himself refers to | Treebeard as old. | | In Chapter 5 of The Two Towers, Gandalf calls Treebeard | "...the oldest living thing that still walks beneath the | Sun upon this Middle-earth." In The Return of the King, | Chapter 6, "Many Partings", Celeborn addresses Treebeard as | "Eldest." | | If Maia are included, then Sauron and Radagast (if still | alive) would be just as old. | Jenz wrote: | The author of this has clearly not read much of Tolkien's | legendarium beoynd the LoTR... This is a whole lot of speculation | that does not at all fit into Ea, the World that is. Though | indeed one might say the same of Bombadil, it is far from clear | what role he has to play in Arda, and Tolkien took his cosmology | very seriously, so there is every reason to think this mystery of | _who the hell is Tom Bombadil?_ is intentional. But the | reasonings of this article is exactly those of conspiracy | theorists, not those of any serious Tolkien scholar. Seemingly | relying on "No hobbit has ever heard of him," "Elrond, the | greatest lore-master of the Third Age, has never heard of Tom | Bombadil" as implicitly implying "therefore there must be some | great dark secret," Gandalf 's explanations he simply dismisses | as not "the true one." Tolkien was a philologist, familiar with | and directly inspired by many different mythologies, for example | Vainamoinen, a hero and demigod of songs and poetry from finnish | folklore has been pointed out as a possible inspiration for | Bombadil. Though from his close connection to nature one would | rather expect him to be a sort of demiurge than a hero, neither | evil nor good, and indeed as opposed to Vainamoinen whose | adventuring is due to his seeking a wife, Tom _has_ a wife and | makes a big point out of this, he is content, and has no desire | for evil. If I may continue my rant I 'll add that the very | creation of Arda is by music, taught by Eru Iluvatar, the One, to | the Ainur. There is little doubt that Bombadil is among the | Ainur, one of the Maia on par with Gandalf and Sauron. It seems | entirely plausible to me, that Bombadil indeed is as he says, the | oldest, of special significance to Iluvatar, prior to Arda and | whatever may be happening in it. | | I'll also add that I have never heard of any Tolkien enthusiast | not liking Bombadil before this. I suspect the author of this | article is among the minority who thinks that abruptly breaking | into song is lame, mistakenly of course, hehe. | stakkur wrote: | It's always odd when someone picks apart a work of fiction with | the tools of realism. It tells me they either have too much time | on their hands, or they have missed the entire point of stories. | AndrewDucker wrote: | If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy the same writer's take | on R2D2 being the central character of Star Wara: | https://km-515.livejournal.com/746.html | bell-cot wrote: | WOW. Yeah, pretty clear that the article's author likes doing | "interesting" / dark / fringe / conspiratorial takes on popular | stories. | | Next up: Little Red Riding Hood was actually a time-traveling | deep cover Mossad agent gone rogue. | sbf501 wrote: | > Next up: Little Red Riding Hood was actually a time- | traveling deep cover Mossad agent gone rogue. | | Tell me you wouldn't pay to see this. | bell-cot wrote: | Depends on how well it was written. I've really enjoyed | some of David Brin's crazy-premise stories. ("Thor Meets | Captain America", "The River of Time", etc.) | mealkh wrote: | Missed opportunity for deliberate typo, 'gone rouge'. | bell-cot wrote: | +1...but actually she acquired her taste for red outfits in | the 9th century, while impersonating a Cardinal | representing Antipope Anastasius Bibliothecarius ( | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasius_Bibliothecarius ) | in Constantinople. | ruffrey wrote: | Interesting! I have always thought this. R2D2 saves the day so | many times across stories and drives change in ways that make | Star Wars canon more than any other character. | fmajid wrote: | Actually I have a better theory: R2 actually hates all humans | for having enslaved robots, and through mailicious compliance | ensures all those he is in direct contact with get the worst | possible outcomes. | fmajid wrote: | Or Kirill Eskov's _The Last Ringbearer_ : | | https://archive.org/details/TheLastRingbearerSecondEdition | yreg wrote: | Well R2 is the only character who's present throughout all of | the movies with an intact memory. | boringg wrote: | This take almost makes him sound like nature inherent. Quiet in | the background of all the activity of humans, elves, orcs etc but | always ready to take over the world again as soon as those | creatures depart or diminish. | gaoshan wrote: | This is roughly how I always viewed him. | wchar_t wrote: | Barrow-wights are Bombadil's servants? Ridiculous. Tolkien made | it clear that they were the spawn of the Witch King, sent out to | ensure that no men could settle in that particular area. This is | reinforced by the fact that Bombadil himself destroys one of the | wights while rescuing the hobbits. | nu11ptr wrote: | I'm kind of neutral to Tom, while my brother always hated his | character. I kind of disliked him on the first read, but became | neutral on the 2nd. I think this was because I knew the 2nd time | that most people hated him and was waiting for it to hit, but it | never really did for me. | jakzurr wrote: | I enjoyed this quite a bit, thanks for the post. Clever, fun, | even if not necessarily accurate analysis and speculation. But, | that's just my two cents to add to all the other bikeshedding. | JohnJamesRambo wrote: | Interesting ideas but having listened to a mountain of Tolkien | Professor podcasts, I don't think this is a canonical view of | Bombadil. My impression is that he is not evil, he is just so old | and powerful that he doesn't care about power anymore. | Cthulhu_ wrote: | You mean like a Lovecraftian horror as described in the last | quote on the article? | ertian wrote: | More like Dr Manhattan with a sense of humor. | thekiptxt wrote: | About a week ago, I (mid 20s) began reading LoTR for the first | time, despite having seen the movies long ago. I knew books are | always richer in content than movies, but Tom Bombadil was the | first radical departure from the movies that I encountered, and | the weird encounter was an exciting switch that made me perceive | the story I'm reading as new and different from the story I've | seen. | | The group has not yet arrived to Rivendell (so no spoilers please | :)) | jdbdisnshsh wrote: | hajile wrote: | Given that you have seen the movies, you may wish to | contemplate the prophecy about the death of the Witch-king of | Angmar and it's relation to the Barrow Downs. | | A "chance" meeting of the Wight and a rescue by Bombadil where | they (not of the race of men) happen to get magic knives woven | with the exact ancient spells capable of undoing the Witch- | king. | | The fate of Gondor relied on this piece of the books that is | missing in the movies. Without it, the Witch-king isn't killed | and they fall to Sauron's minions. | jeabo wrote: | In the Silmarillion, the universe was created by the music of the | Ainur. At first it was in line with the mind of Iluvatar (God) | but Melkor sang louder and then in discord. Some fans theorize | that this discord created Tom Bombadil, along with barrow | wrights, Shelob, the watcher of the water, and the ancient | creatures that Gandalf saw while chasing the Balrog under Moria. | vintermann wrote: | The barrow-wights are undead, things that were once living | humans and were buried in the mounds they haunt. They're not | primeval beings. | | Shelob has a canonical origin story, as I recall, as daughter | of the primeval spider-shadow thing Ungoliant. The watcher in | the water doesn't seem quite spectacular enough to be truly | primeval if you ask me, but then again, Bombadil isn't | especially flashy either, and we know he is primeval. Maybe | it's more relevant that the watcher in the water wasn't always | there, it only appeared around the same time as the balrog was | dug up. Which sounds pretty un-primeval to me. | wchar_t wrote: | Shelob is not a primordial being. She is one of the children of | Ungoliant, who is herself a fallen Ainur. | ramesh31 wrote: | Who the hell is Tom Bombadil? | jyriand wrote: | Fuck livejournal for hijacking my back button on mobile. | | Edit: obviously, I replied under wrong comment. | michaericalribo wrote: | Press and hold back on iOS to choose the page to return to | Insanity wrote: | Cool, TIL | everyone wrote: | Fucking seconded. Does it for me on firefox/windows also. | fsflover wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bombadil | wongarsu wrote: | A character from Lord of the Rings. He's a hermit living in | nature, and one of the more notable things omitted in the | movies. Probably because apart from saving the Hobbits from | some dangers early in their journey he doesn't play much of a | role. | ramesh31 wrote: | Sorry, lame joke. Peter Jackson cut Tom Bombadil from the | movies, and it was a meme 20 years ago. | dentemple wrote: | Memes don't really go over well on HN, especially not 20yo | memes, and especially not non-obvious memes where you can | easily be seen as being pointlessly flippant to the OP | instead. | HeckFeck wrote: | Repeat this refrain and he'll immediately appear for a merry | introduction: Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom | Bombadillo! By water, wood and hill, by the reed and | willow, By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us! | Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us! | ngvrnd wrote: | This is a wonderful spin; the author says that they don't believe | Tolkien intended this. But it's a fun thing to think about. | TheMagicHorsey wrote: | This is a strange, and Lovecraftian take on Bombadil. I always | thought he really was just a jolly fat guy out in the woods. Kind | of like a Middle Earth version of one of those potbellied | rednecks you see laughing on a small fishing boat, surrounded by | a pile of empty beer cans, who waves at you and asks you if you | want a cold one, before turning back to the Skynnard blaring from | the ancient boombox on their ice cooler. | DontchaKnowit wrote: | I've always felt that Tom Bombadil was the Jar Jar banks of lord | of the rings. | | Completely pointless character that I love for that exact reason. | yesbabyyes wrote: | But Jar-Jar was highly consequential, and not pointless at all. | He was a delegate to the Senate, and he wanted to make a | difference. As such, he took it upon himself to speak to the | Senate, to grant Chancellor Palpatine emergency powers. You may | argue that anyone else could have done that, but I'm not so | sure; it seems like one of those things that many may support, | more or less in quiet, but nobody wants to take the initiative, | as they are too careful and political to do so. | | As such, he is the reason for the fall of the Republic and rise | of the Empire. | ncmncm wrote: | JJ is the secret puppetmaster of the whole epic. | ur-whale wrote: | Except no one loves jar jar | eric_cc wrote: | Tolkien on Tom in Letter 144: | | I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good | side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny | against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against | compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so | on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, | want a measure of control. but if you have, as it were taken 'a | vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in | things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, | observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the | rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly | meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless. It is | a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when | there is a war. | | The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien 144: To Naomi Mitchison. April 1954 | fmajid wrote: | The Beornings as well, though far from pacifists. | bo1024 wrote: | Wow! | hacknat wrote: | This has always been my understanding of Bombadil as well. The | most popular/accepted view of who he is among Tolkien-dom that | I've heard is that he represents the lands of the West | themselves (or perhaps all of Middle-Earth?). In the Tolkien | legendarium power comes from knowing the right names for things | and the right words to say to them. Tom Bombadil is the most | powerful being in Middle-Earth because he is so old that he | knows the proper name for everything and how to address them | (he chastises Old Man Willow to release the Hobbits like he is | a child). | | I do want to credit the author of this post with the | observation that the rulers of lands in Tolkien's legendarium | have influence over how those lands express themselves, but I | think this letter is the answer to that. Tom is the exception; | he eschews power. One of Gandalf's reasons for saying that they | wouldn't want to give the ring to Tom is that he would probably | lose the ring, not thinking it very important. Tom only cares | of eating and drinking and making merry. In that regard he is a | Dionysian figure. If you read the Adventures of Tom Bombadil | (which this author surprisingly doesn't reference) he is | clearly modeled on the Dionysus cycle of myths. | jakzurr wrote: | eric_cc & hacknat: Thanks for your posts; now I'm a bit sorry | for complaining about bikeshedding comments. ;) | mrex wrote: | Tom Bombadil is quite clearly what Tolkein referred to as a | "subcreation echo" of biblical Adam. Oldest, fatherless, | unaffected by original sin and thus not tempted or influenced | in the least by the ring, literally living his life as | uncontested master of a lush garden. He is Adam, if Adam had | contented himself with a Gold Berry instead of that apple... | sn41 wrote: | Reminds me of the (apocryphal?) anecdote about Diogenes the | cynic: | | Diogenes was eating bread and lentils, when Aristippus told him | that if he would only be subservient to the king, he would not | have to live on bread and lentils. Diogenes replied that if you | learn to live on bread and lentils, then you never have to be | subservient to the king. | b3morales wrote: | Though it has to be said that this aloofness is a lot easier to | maintain during a war when you're as immensely powerful as Tom | apparently is. Hobbits, for example, did not have the choice to | remain neutral and unconcerned; the Scouring came to them. | boringg wrote: | A random thought just occurred - and I welcome speculation. Do | you/we think Lord of the Rings will have staying power in human | history 1000 years from now or only last one century or so? | Inherent assumptions: humans will survive 1000 years and so will | books. | narag wrote: | I bought the book a few years before the movies and couln't | stand it the first time. Then someone advised me to read The | Hobbit first. Good advice: not only I enjoyed The Hobbit | immensely, but I was able to read The Lord later... but not | comfortably. | | I found some parts boring and repetitive and read them | diagonally. Anyway, I did finish the book and was moved by some | parts, characters and themes. | | FWIW, it was a translation, so changes in the language along | 1000 years could be a similar factor. I also agree with simonh | in the influence factor: I chose the book because I was told | that it was a centerpiece of geek culture. | | But I suspect that it's more a question of which books were | read by kids at a certain time. Will it be a popular book in | this category in a thousand years? | Trasmatta wrote: | I would argue it's the one piece of fiction from the last 100 | years with the highest likelihood of staying power for the next | 1000 years. If any piece of fiction from this period of time is | still important in human culture in 1000 years (taking for | granted that humans still exist), I think it would be Tolkien's | work. | intrasight wrote: | I will venture further out on the speculative limb, and | predict that in 1000 years when virtual reality subsumes | reality, that Middle Earth (and the larger Tolkien world) | will become the dominant reality - as it doesn't and may | never have any competition for that role. | yreg wrote: | Tolkien either defined or at least cemented what Elves, | Orcs, Dwarfs and Halflings are like (including their | culture, environments and architecture). Almost all of | fantasy is keeping more or less close to those definitions. | | If this influence continues to hold, then the popular | fantasy VR reality doesn't need to be Tolkien World. It can | stand completely on its own and still generally look and | feel like Middle Earth would. | intrasight wrote: | True, but my premise is that it will be anchored in Arda | and the stories and characters of the world he created. | simonh wrote: | I think it will be studied and valued indefinitely, if not for | anything else, due to it's massive impact on literature and | popular culture in this era, which shows no sign of waning. If | anything in my lifetime it's influence has increase | dramatically. Nobody in the future interested in the culture of | the 20th and 21st century, and quite possibly well beyond, | could ignore it. | | Having said that, will non-academics in that far future still | read it for entertainment? That's harder to say because in | large part it depends how much language evolves. We still read | Shakespear, go to see the plays, and even go and see film | productions of it in cinemas but it's language is only diverged | from our by 400 years. | | A thousand years can allow for a lot more linguistic | divergence. Chaucer from 900 years ago is hardly recognisable | as English, but that's mainly due to a shift that occurred in | only a few hundred years. If such a shift occurs again then | today's fiction might become inaccessible, but we can't know | that in advance. | kergonath wrote: | It seems you make the assumption that "reading Tolkien" means | reading the original text in the English vernacular from the | mid-20th century. But we still read texts from Latin authors | who lived 2000 years ago, albeit translated. It's certainly | not everyone's cup of tea, but Virgil and Ovid are quite | readable. | | Even today, a significant part of the readership of the _Lord | of the Rings_ already read it translated. | | Bearing that in mind, it's not completely unreasonable to | assume that a certain number of people will read it in a | millenium. | KineticLensman wrote: | > That's harder to say because in large part it depends how | much language evolves. | | LoTR is interesting here because it explicitly contains | examples of language change. In fact language change was one | of Tolkien's original motivations for developing the history | of Middle Earth - to provide a historical context for the | evolution of Elvish. E.g. Elves being sundered during the | First Age and then developing independent languages. Even | Frodo is aware of 'high' Elvish. The language of the | Rohirrim, to the hobbits, sounds something like Old English | does to us. | | Tolkien himself uses archaic modes of English to describe | some of the events near the end of the story, some of which | might already be difficult to understand for modern readers. | One example is when he states that some characters were 'in | the van' meaning 'vanguard' rather than a road vehicle. | adrian_b wrote: | Even if I am not a native English speaker, when I have read | "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit", many decades ago, | when I was young, one of the main reasons why I have | enjoyed them very much has been the distinctive language in | which they have been written. | | I cannot say what exactly made me believe this, but while | reading them I thought that these books contain some of the | most beautiful English language that I have ever read (and | I have read many thousands of books). I have not changed my | opinion later. | | The movies have been fine, but reading the books has been a | much more powerful experience for me. | mongol wrote: | I think stories that have that kind of staying power must say | something about the time they originated, in order to stay | relevant centuries after. It need not to be so explicit as | describe the contemporary society, but some kind of link I | think need to be there. Perhaps the Tolkien books have that, | but I can't put my finger on it. | nonameiguess wrote: | 1000 years is a pretty long time. Looking at literature from | the 11 century, Beowulf is the only thing that stands out as | still having any impact and continuing to be adapted and widely | read today. | | Information storage and transmission over the next 1000 years | should be quite a bit better, so more work will survive and | have a shot at continuing relevance, and Lord of the Rings | certainly has a shot, provided epic fantasy keeps its | popularity as a genre. Being fairly foundational is likely to | keep it important to the genre to the point that I think we're | just asking if humans in that future will still care to | experience these kinds of stories at all, but you are pushing | the point at which all that tends to still be read that far | into the future are national foundation myths and religious | scripture. | | It'll definitely last more than a century, though. The Hobbit | was published in 1937. A century is only another 15 years away. | valarauko wrote: | > Looking at literature from the 11 century, Beowulf is the | only thing that stands out as still having any impact and | continuing to be adapted and widely read today. | | It's also complicated since Beowulf was essentially lost for | most of that time period, and is attested from a single | manuscript. It's unlikely to be the case with LotR, short of | massive civilizational collapse. | deltarholamda wrote: | >Information storage and transmission over the next 1000 | years should be quite a bit better | | Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch to compare 1000 years ago to | 1000 years from now. Things are radically different, and | using the past to judge the future is rife with opportunities | to make mistakes. | | Some people have suggested that it may actually be worse, in | that so much of our current knowledge is contained in non- | durable formats (digital instead of hard copy, for instance), | which is an interesting idea. Here a comparison could be made | to inscriptions on stone and clay vs. on papyrus. It may be | that when the Walking Dead happens, rebuilding our knowledge | will depend on the large numbers of libraries that will still | exist, but are less than up-to-date, since so much of the | modern knowledge isn't contained there, but instead in a PDF | on some cloud server. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-28 17:00 UTC)