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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)

#331

Post by jrumbut »

WJW wrote: post #313
jrumbut wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting, because I've always seen the hobbits as being so insular that they wouldn't need any conspiracy forest to keep them inside the Shire: it was such a paradise (and most hobbits so "boring") that nobody felt any desire to venture outside. Bilbo and Frodo were very much viewed with suspicion for their world-wandering ways, after all.

The surrounding dangers are the mechanism for preserving the coziness and insulation. That's my view anyway!

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

#332

Post by IlliOnato »

mabbo wrote: post #114
Trasmatta wrote: post #29

> 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 se…

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.

I think a lot of kids just don't like (or get) poetry in general, and there are lots of verses in LoTR. I guess in most cases they are easy to skip, but not in the Bombadil chapters.

Myself I enjoyed the poetry, but my first reading of Tolkien at the age of 12 was in Russian translation. The poetry was translated absolutely beautifully, and I memorized several poems from the book. But I don't know how I would like the original poetry if English was my first language.

I think the Tolkien's books are very poetic overall, not just the verses, and it's much subtler than just an adventure story of the fight between good and evil. These days, when I re-read LoTR, I do it for this "poetic" value, for impressions, rather than for the story (which I know so well, it becomes just a background)...

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

#333

Post by IlliOnato »

boringg wrote: post #26

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.

Homer's works have survived for far longer than that...

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

#334

Post by imwillofficial »

kagakuninja wrote: post #141
imwillofficial wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience isn’t everyone’s. Your friends missed out in my opinion. Tom = awesome

That experience was mine, and I believe most of my college gamer friends.

You need new friends

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

#335

Post by lisper »

corrral wrote: post #271
lisper wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a system that I use to rate movies: "Must see", "Worthwhile", "Wait for the video" and "Don't waste your time." After watching Mulholland Drive I had to invent a fifth rating: "I want those two hours of my life back." Does that answer your question?

> Does that answer your question? Ha! Yeah. At least you're consistent :-) Lynch fills his works with characters and scenes that are—at best—plot-adjacent, whimsical/incongruous/uncanny, and full of often-unexplained and apparently-metaphysical mystery or magic. He's as likely to let mood or theme drive the content of and editorial-decision-to-include a scene or a shot or an entire character(!), as plot. It makes sen…

It's both. I like a story to go somewhere, to have a point. I want it to at least be possible to figure out what the fuck is going on, even if it requires some effort and isn't obvious on a first reading (or viewing in the case of movies). In fact, the best stories are the ones where you have to do some work (The Godfather is my poster child). But if I put in the work, I want it to at least be possible that I could figure it out.

LOTR is mostly like that. Most of the events make sense in the context of the overall arc of the narrative. If you ask, "Why is this scene here?" there is usually an answer.

Except Tom. He appears, puts on the ring, fails to disappear -- which is quite extraordinary! --- and that's it. The end. Toodle-oo. Vanishes entirely from the story without so much as a by-your-leave. Why was he introduced? To this day I have no idea. And that is why Tom bothers me particularly. With Lynch you know what you're getting. Tom seems like a bit of a bait-and-switch.

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

#336

Post by alrlroipsp »

halostatue wrote: post #173
alrlroipsp wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

How would you know when you skipped it?

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

#337

Post by ycombinete »

simplicio wrote: post #135
ycombinete wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I agree, the story would have had to go:

Shire -> Buckland -> Old Forest (Tom) -> Bree -> Rivendell

Instead of:

Shire -> Bree -> Rivendell

Part of me still wished he featured; or at least the spirit of Bombadil's relationship to the ring was embodied by something/someone in the story.

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

#338

Post by samrocksc »

shaftoe444 wrote: post #22
samrocksc wrote: post #15

this is the best thing ever posted on HN..... going to restart the lord of the rings podcast now.

What podcast is that? I'm just reading the books for the first time.

Sorry about that!!! The Prancing Pony podcast.....literally an episode per chapter starting at the silmarillion

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

#339

Post by hacknat »

mrex wrote: post #152
hacknat wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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...

I get that Tolkien was a staunch Catholic, but he was also a preeminent philologist trained in a way that few people today are. He was deeply familiar with all forms of human myth. To blindly assume that all characters in LotR must have a Biblical corollary is lazy. Tom Bombadil "rapes" Goldberry (in the ancient sense of the word[1]) in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil that comports nicely with other myth cycles and not very well with the idea of the "first Man" or "Adam" (it's not even clear that Bombadil is Eru's direct creation). I think if you actually read the secondary Tolkien texts you might see it differently. They are almost all worth it.

But one day Tom, he went and caught the River-daughter,

in green gown, flowing hair, sitting in the rushes,

singing old water-songs to birds upon the bushes.

He caught her, held her fast! Water rats went scuttering

reeds hissed, herons cried, and her heart was fluttering.

Said Tom Bombadil: "Here's my pretty maiden!

You shall come home with me! The table is laden...

[1]https://www.etymonline.com/word/rape#:~:text=rape%20(v.),abd....

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

#340

Post by mistrial9 »

JohnBooty wrote: post #327
mistrial9 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe argument maps will improve the debate score on this topic?

Maybe accepting definitive statements from primary sources will improve your knowledge on this topic?

Tolkien's statement there, I take as a nod towards universal spirit.. basically accepting some validity in the Christian mythos, kindly, into his own unique realms.. but as said "only later" ..well after the invention and initial drawing.

This confirms, not contradicts, my own statement about Christianity "absorbing" all other mythos As If It Were Actually Christian. The acknowledgement from Tolkien is kind and generous, while the Christian theologians are somewhere in the middle, and the daily practice of socialized education is simply the opposite " no one is saved but through Christ"

pedantic, nagging insistence on "accepting primary sources" is exactly the closed-minded approach that is inevitable in lowest-common-denominator reading of the texts. unimpressive and unenlightening.. Is there really no other source of Truth than the Bible ? ask yourself

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