The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)

#41

Post by analog8374 » Fri, Jun 12, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #12

My uncle who lent young me his copy of LOTR advised me to skip the Tom Bombadil chapters entirely, it was good advice.

It was cool. He Dunsany'd out there.

Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)

#42

Post by jswelker » Fri, Jun 12, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

Really? Bill the Pony is higher in my ranking of heroes than Bombadil.

Bombadil is low low on the list along with other insufferable dicks who could have fixed the entire conflict in 5 seconds like Gandalf and the giant eagles.

Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)

#43

Post by antisol » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:46 AM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #30

stephenhuey wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lette…

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.

"It is an essential part of the plot, foreseen from the outset"

Re: The Unsung Hero of the Lord of the Rings (2025)

#44

Post by junior44660 » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 6:03 AM UTC

karmakaze wrote: post #6

riffraff wrote: post #5

> 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 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.

> To me it's like hedonistic gods in Buddhism--all powerful but not practically consequential to humans.

I thought Buddhist dieties are adapted Indo-Aryan / Vedic (and some post-IA) dieties which indeed have an effect on real world.