To the author's credit, there's a disclosure that the article is a teaser for deep dive for paid-subscribers only. That's probably why it's light on details.
But I would say that Bombadil is hugely important to understanding Middle-earth as a crafted mythos. He gives us valuable insight into Tolkien's ideas about self-satisfaction (the Ring has no sway over Tom because he is his own master), relationships with the land (Bombadil is married to a river spirit), being gentlehearted but stern (accepts the Hobbits gracefully, but defends them from Old Man Willow ardently), and a host of other things. He's like a distillation of what The Lord of the Rings is "about", in a sense, without having much direct impact on the story proper. He also serves to give depth to the world: we are introduced to him as just this sort of enigmatic fellow who deus-ex-machinas our protagonists out of a tight spot and then we move on, but then half a book later we find out the the most learned of the Elves hold Tom in such incredibly high esteem they consider whether to send the Ring to him (and, if I recall, doesn't Treebeard make mention of Bombadil at some point, too? further suggesting his importance to the world at large).
But he is not important to the plot, nor does he really serve to move our characters along their respective arcs in any meaningful way. His chapters really establish, with respect to these elements of the narrative, just a few important things:
- He demonstrates that the Ring's power can be resisted, but it does not come easily.
- He arms our Hobbits, which of course comes in handy at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
- The calm of his house nestled in the chaos of the world gives rise to Frodo's foresight of his travel to Valinor: "the grey rain-curtain [...] rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise."
I don't recall him having any impact on the story. The movie didn't lose anything by omitting the detour. To me it's like hedonistic gods in Buddhism--all powerful but not practically consequential to humans.
> I don't recall him having any impact on the story.
Well, he did rescue the hobbits from the Barrow Downs, and gave Merry Brandybuck one of the swords of Westernesse with which Merry ultimately wounded the Lord of the Nazgûl and thus permitted Eowyn to slay him in the battle of the Pelennor Fields...
And Bombadil’s old forest, with a testy but not ultimately evil Willow tree is the heart of Tolkien’s vision of English wilderness - not tamed but not horrific either. The movie does a bit of violence to the complexities of the world - reducing the snow in Caradhras from an independent agent hostile to human affairs to Saruman, and removing the non-Sauron hostility of Old Man Willow. In Tolkien’s world, humans are not the sole or primary story, it involves ancient entities with differing interests woven into the fabric of existence, which we participate in but the story is larger than us.
I mean, he's really not part of the story. There's a reason he's not in the film trilogy. Nothing wrong with that but he really is a side quest or whatever you want to call it.
I'm ok with him being omitted from the film, but I'm glad the novel could afford more space for someone like him, a foil to the mood of impending doom, and also just plain fun. He rescued them and equipped them, and one of the weapons he supplied played a pivotal role later. Merry would not have been successful without that blade, and Tom is a believable source for such immense help. There's a book of Tolkien's letters and in letter 144 he explicitly says he intended Tom to be an enigma because he felt there should be some in the mythical age of the story.
"Old knives are long enough as swords for hobbit-people," he said. "Sharp blades are good to have, if Shire-folk go walking, east, south, or far away into dark and danger." Then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dûm in the Land of Angmar.
I don't disagree with him not being in the film. (Perhaps more controversially, I think the scouring of the Shire properly appropriately didn't belong there either.) Great as The Lord of the Rings is, IMO it has structural problems as books.
But I don't really disagree with your comment in general.
He marks the transition between the world of _The Hobbit_ and that of the new world without magic which _The Lord of the Ring_ presages --- c.f., Lord Dunsany's _The Charwoman's Shadow_ which JRRT certainly had in the back of his mind as the manuscript grew from "Hobbit Sequel" (w/ a Hobbit named "Trotter" as the first iteration of the Ranger named "Strider" whose name in Eldar is not so ill, _Telcontar_).
Moreover, his removal reduces the work of the unnamed smith who wrought the blade of Westernesse whose work came to fruition in its small part in the undoing of the Witch King of Angmar to a mere clattering of cutlery on a bed in a Bree.
A better way to handle it would've been a fade to black as the Hobbits pass into The Old Forest, and their then awaking on a hill w/ swords menacingly arrayed around them (across their neck would be a bit much w/o someone to actively remove them), some jewelry glittering on a nearby stump, their ponies neatly tied up nearby, and a song fading off into the distance as a man in bright blue jacket, leather pants, yellow boots, and a hat w/ a feather in it rode into the Old Forest.
I have no idea if this is AI or not.
I tried reading it, and was doubting every sentence.
Damn.
At this point I am not sure it matters.
Few years ago I would've read it with joy.
This article claims that Tom Bombadil is under-appreciated and then promptly gives no reasons to appreciate him more. We just get a brief description of who he is and what he does in Lord of the Rings.
I honestly don't remember much about the Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings but I'm pretty sure Tom Bombadil has a van and you don't want to get in it.
The article is the "Chad Tom Bombdadil" meme from reddit, but somehow watered down to multiple pages of text.
>Barges into the narrative.
>Sings a song about how he's older than the world.
>Puts on and takes off the Ring with no effect.
>Refuses to elaborate.
>Leaves.
To the author's credit, there's a disclosure that the article is a teaser for deep dive for paid-subscribers only. That's probably why it's light on details.
> overlooked by a huge swathe of readers
I think there is no one who read LoTR and ignored Tom Bombadil. If anything, they give him too much importance.
I think I agree with you, overall.
But I would say that Bombadil is hugely important to understanding Middle-earth as a crafted mythos. He gives us valuable insight into Tolkien's ideas about self-satisfaction (the Ring has no sway over Tom because he is his own master), relationships with the land (Bombadil is married to a river spirit), being gentlehearted but stern (accepts the Hobbits gracefully, but defends them from Old Man Willow ardently), and a host of other things. He's like a distillation of what The Lord of the Rings is "about", in a sense, without having much direct impact on the story proper. He also serves to give depth to the world: we are introduced to him as just this sort of enigmatic fellow who deus-ex-machinas our protagonists out of a tight spot and then we move on, but then half a book later we find out the the most learned of the Elves hold Tom in such incredibly high esteem they consider whether to send the Ring to him (and, if I recall, doesn't Treebeard make mention of Bombadil at some point, too? further suggesting his importance to the world at large).
But he is not important to the plot, nor does he really serve to move our characters along their respective arcs in any meaningful way. His chapters really establish, with respect to these elements of the narrative, just a few important things:
- He demonstrates that the Ring's power can be resisted, but it does not come easily.
- He arms our Hobbits, which of course comes in handy at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
- The calm of his house nestled in the chaos of the world gives rise to Frodo's foresight of his travel to Valinor: "the grey rain-curtain [...] rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise."
I don't recall him having any impact on the story. The movie didn't lose anything by omitting the detour. To me it's like hedonistic gods in Buddhism--all powerful but not practically consequential to humans.
I thought it was going say Samwise.
> I don't recall him having any impact on the story.
Well, he did rescue the hobbits from the Barrow Downs, and gave Merry Brandybuck one of the swords of Westernesse with which Merry ultimately wounded the Lord of the Nazgûl and thus permitted Eowyn to slay him in the battle of the Pelennor Fields...
The barrow wights and old man willow are kind of cool.
And Bombadil’s old forest, with a testy but not ultimately evil Willow tree is the heart of Tolkien’s vision of English wilderness - not tamed but not horrific either. The movie does a bit of violence to the complexities of the world - reducing the snow in Caradhras from an independent agent hostile to human affairs to Saruman, and removing the non-Sauron hostility of Old Man Willow. In Tolkien’s world, humans are not the sole or primary story, it involves ancient entities with differing interests woven into the fabric of existence, which we participate in but the story is larger than us.
Sam is the unsung hero. Tom however did hook them up with weapons iirc.
I mean, he's really not part of the story. There's a reason he's not in the film trilogy. Nothing wrong with that but he really is a side quest or whatever you want to call it.
I'm ok with him being omitted from the film, but I'm glad the novel could afford more space for someone like him, a foil to the mood of impending doom, and also just plain fun. He rescued them and equipped them, and one of the weapons he supplied played a pivotal role later. Merry would not have been successful without that blade, and Tom is a believable source for such immense help. There's a book of Tolkien's letters and in letter 144 he explicitly says he intended Tom to be an enigma because he felt there should be some in the mythical age of the story.
"Old knives are long enough as swords for hobbit-people," he said. "Sharp blades are good to have, if Shire-folk go walking, east, south, or far away into dark and danger." Then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dûm in the Land of Angmar.
"Few now remember them," Tom murmured...
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_144
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_153
https://tolkienessays.com/tom.html
I don't disagree with him not being in the film. (Perhaps more controversially, I think the scouring of the Shire properly appropriately didn't belong there either.) Great as The Lord of the Rings is, IMO it has structural problems as books.
But I don't really disagree with your comment in general.
He marks the transition between the world of _The Hobbit_ and that of the new world without magic which _The Lord of the Ring_ presages --- c.f., Lord Dunsany's _The Charwoman's Shadow_ which JRRT certainly had in the back of his mind as the manuscript grew from "Hobbit Sequel" (w/ a Hobbit named "Trotter" as the first iteration of the Ranger named "Strider" whose name in Eldar is not so ill, _Telcontar_).
Moreover, his removal reduces the work of the unnamed smith who wrought the blade of Westernesse whose work came to fruition in its small part in the undoing of the Witch King of Angmar to a mere clattering of cutlery on a bed in a Bree.
A better way to handle it would've been a fade to black as the Hobbits pass into The Old Forest, and their then awaking on a hill w/ swords menacingly arrayed around them (across their neck would be a bit much w/o someone to actively remove them), some jewelry glittering on a nearby stump, their ponies neatly tied up nearby, and a song fading off into the distance as a man in bright blue jacket, leather pants, yellow boots, and a hat w/ a feather in it rode into the Old Forest.
I have no idea if this is AI or not. I tried reading it, and was doubting every sentence. Damn. At this point I am not sure it matters. Few years ago I would've read it with joy.
I love Tom Bombadil, Tolkien's ghost.
This article claims that Tom Bombadil is under-appreciated and then promptly gives no reasons to appreciate him more. We just get a brief description of who he is and what he does in Lord of the Rings.
I found his character a bit weird, in The Rings of Power. I suspect we'll be seeing more of him, if they ever get around to releasing another season.
I enjoyed Tim Benzedrine, and Hashberry, from Bored of the Rings.
Extremely low-effort article, here it is without the paywall if you wanna see for yourself: https://archive.ph/BjWiM
He may be the unsung hero, but I reread it a few years ago and found the whole scene unbearably twee.
Click bait title.
Fatty Bolger?
It’s easy to be a hero if you risk nothing. Fatty Bolger risked it all!
Saved you a click: Tom Bombadil is who they're referring to
I honestly don't remember much about the Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings but I'm pretty sure Tom Bombadil has a van and you don't want to get in it.
see also (which is a much better writing): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32263535
Really? No.
[dead]
My uncle who lent young me his copy of LOTR advised me to skip the Tom Bombadil chapters entirely, it was good advice.
how do you know if you skipped?
You are right to push back. I read it later.