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Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (2011)

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Re: Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (2011)

#281

Post by pozdnyshev »

NeverFade wrote: post #64
tevon wrote: post #3

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…

> 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 precis…

I disagree. Tolkien leaves plenty to the imagination and often alludes to histories or events which he doesn't bother explaining elsewhere.

>'We cannot go further tonight,' said Boromir. `Let those call it the wind who will; there are fell voices on the air; and these stones are aimed at us.' `I do call it the wind,' said Aragorn. `But that does not make what you say untrue. There are many evil and unfriendly things in the world that have little love for those that go on two legs, and yet are not in league with Sauron, but have purposes of their own. Some have been in this world longer than he.' 'Caradhras was called the Cruel, and had an ill name, said Gimli, `long years ago, when rumour of Sauron had not been heard in these lands.'

Aragorn explains that there are evils older than Sauron and we get the sense that the mountain itself may hold a prejudice against the company but this is never explained or developed elsewhere. Caradhras the Cruel doesn't appear elsewhere either. I'll add that the film unfortunately dispels this uncertainty from the original novel.

Re: Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (2011)

#282

Post by antupis »

throwaway_4ever wrote: post #249
sn41 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Stories of Diogenes are always entertaining. 'He destroyed the single wooden bowl he possessed on seeing a peasant boy drink from the hollow of his hands. He then exclaimed: "Fool that I am, to have been carrying superfluous baggage all this time!"' 'while Diogenes was relaxing in the morning sunlight, Alexander the Great, thrilled to meet the famous philosopher, asked if there was any favour he might do for him. Dio…

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/alexa... is kinda modern version.

Re: Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (2011)

#283

Post by bitwize »

kbelder wrote: post #279
tablespoon wrote: post #237

This particular article may be old, but by now I'm kind of tired of the "forced reinterpretation of X as sinister and evil" trope.

And its cousin, the "forced reinterpretation of villain Y as misunderstood and justified".

Obligatory: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/unused-audio-commentary-...

Re: Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (2011)

#284

Post by ethbr0 »

jrumbut wrote: post #272
ethbr0 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's possible to have a disorganized evil! Maybe I just like a secret villain. I always assumed a component of the forest was a way to keep Hobbits at home and home with the Hobbits.

Definitely #iRestockYaoiInTheBibleSection #chaoticEvil

Re: Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (2011)

#285

Post by ethbr0 »

sn41 wrote: post #231
ethbr0 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

Scott was unusually-for-a-movie subtle about it, and it's easily lost in the atmosphere. More or less, depending on which film cut. Makes re-watching even more fun though!

Re: Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (2011)

#286

Post by 7thaccount »

lisper wrote: post #169
slaymaker1907 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

The goal to some is the journey and not the destination. I wish I had a link, but there's a TikTok of some woman that always thought the Lord of the Rings looked stupid, but then her partner mentioned that it had all this backstory lore like the family trees and she then read all the books in like a week. She didn't care about the ring or Sauron, just the fun world building. I'm fairly similar.

Re: Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (2011)

#288

Post by jfengel »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #205
eric_cc wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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,…

The History of Middle Earth gives an almost unprecedented insight into how an author works. Which is fortunate, since Tolkien himself is an unprecedented writer.

He had a singular way of revising, almost pathologically, holding some key points utterly fixed and revamping everything else to make them fit. It's why he never finalized The Silmarillion, and why when his son finally did publish it, he discarded a lot of the work done post-Lord of the Rings.

I believe you are correct: Tom was one of those fixed points, for no reason he could explain. He later said that Tom was left as a deliberate mystery. Which is a bit disingenuous, but that's fine. Tolkien worked by instinct, and his works are extraordinary. If his instinct tells him that Tom needed to be in the narrative, that's fine by me.

If other readers are perplexed by it, they will hopefully forgive it long enough to get through the book and read it again. It's very much the kind of book that you won't fully understand in a single reading, if ever.

Re: Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (2011)

#289

Post by joe_the_user »

MattConfluence wrote: post #118

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 end…

The thing about Tolkien (and I think good story telling in general), is he gives a feeling of consistency, depth and complex choices. But that's completely different from needing fine-grained consistency between chapters of a long book. I'm not a Tolkien expert but I think are a whole variety of "plot holes" one can point to but these don't particularly matter for the development of the story, where the main thing is the suffering and redemption of the main characters which only has to feel real and as well as feeling dramatic.

I think Elrond hadn't heard of Tom just because that made the council scene more dramatic, for instance.

Re: Oldest and Fatherless: The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil (2011)

#290

Post by gumby »

thehappypm wrote: post #259
mrex wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

That doesn’t explain why nobody has heard of him for thousands and thousands of years, and yet the Hobbits stray right into his path Willy-nilly

IIRC Gandalf knew who old Tom was.

That being said, I thought that his appearance in the book was just a contrivance to introduce the sense that this was all middle earth, successor to an older earth older than the "old" things of Middle Earth, perhaps a purer and less subtle place.

We have such a brief time with him in the books but he's one of my favorite characters because of his hints of depth in the narrative and in himself. I think his carelessness is partially an act: sure he's old, and sure he just lives for the moment, but perhaps he knows some deeper sins he's trying to drown out with drink? Or maybe it's simply that his perspective is so long -- so much longer than, say, the elves -- that anything he encounters seems transient.

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