Earlier quoted context omitted.
how do you know if you skipped?
You are right to push back. I read it later.
after you read it, why did you find it was good advice?
The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)
31–40 of 44 posts
Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)
#32we could go with Bombadill is an "awakened being", in the Buddhist sense. Which is supposedly better than a god. And it's hallmark power is self-control and resistance to temptation.
Basically Neo.
Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)
#33I 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.
Fun book. Short read, and probably worth it.
In that book, he was “Tim Benzedrine,” and his wife was “Hashberry.”
They were over-the-top hippie archetypes.
Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are right to push back. I read it later.
after you read it, why did you find it was good advice?
I was about 8 or 9 on my first reading, those chapters are just slow and don't advance the plot, probably would have bounced me out of the book.
As an adult I found the author's horny depiction of Goldberry kind of off putting.
Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)
#35Bombadil represents the secret to resisting evil (vice, temptation to power, desire to dominate).
Why is Bombadil completely unaffected by the ring? Bombadil represents pure being - existence without the will to power. Note the biblical echo to the immortal godhead in Goldberry’s statement “He is” ("I am").
Bombadil doesn’t resist the ring because he’s stronger than it. He resists it because he delights in creation rather than possessing it. The ring can only corrupt what desires power. Bombadil desires nothing, so the ring has nothing to latch onto.
The key to overcoming evil in Tolkien's world isn’t military strength, strategy, nor political authority, but detachment
Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)
#36[deleted]
Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)
#37Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)
#38He may be the unsung hero, but I reread it a few years ago and found the whole scene unbearably twee.
For the non British:
Twee: affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint.
Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)
#39we could go with Bombadill is an "awakened being", in the Buddhist sense. Which is supposedly better than a god. And it's hallmark power is self-control and resistance to temptation. Basically Neo.
Neo wasn't an elightened being, he just escalated privileges.
Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)
#40I 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.
Hey I read that twice when I was a kid. We had that ragged paperback floating around the house. It's good. And Doon too.