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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)

#111

Post by zmgsabst »

ineedasername wrote: post #94

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…

> 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.

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

#112

Post by bell-cot »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #59

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

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.

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

#113

Post by Trasmatta »

nindalf wrote: post #105
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…

> 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…

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.

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

#114

Post by mabbo »

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.

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

#115

Post by valarauko »

nonameiguess wrote: post #75
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.

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 fanta…

> 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.

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

#116

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#117

Post by jon_richards »

nonameiguess wrote: post #69
jfengel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expl…

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."

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.”

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

#118

Post by MattConfluence »

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.

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

#119

Post by mynameisash »

nindalf wrote: post #105
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…

> 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…

> 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?

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

#120

Post by helloworld11 »

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.
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