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Comment by eric_cc | Hacker News Reader

Tolkien on Tom in Letter 144:

I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. but if you have, as it were taken 'a vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless. It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war.

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien 144: To Naomi Mitchison. April 1954

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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 that he knows the proper name for everything and how to address them (he chastises Old Man Willow to release the Hobbits like he is a child).

I do want to credit the author of this post with the observation that the rulers of lands in Tolkien's legendarium have influence over how those lands express themselves, but I think this letter is the answer to that. Tom is the exception; he eschews power. One of Gandalf's reasons for saying that they wouldn't want to give the ring to Tom is that he would probably lose the ring, not thinking it very important. Tom only cares of eating and drinking and making merry. In that regard he is a Dionysian figure. If you read the Adventures of Tom Bombadil (which this author surprisingly doesn't reference) he is clearly modeled on the Dionysus cycle of myths.

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

"He appeared already to know much about them and all their families, and indeed to know much of all the history and doings of the Shire down from days hardly remembered among the hobbits themselves. It no longer surprised them; but he made no secret that he owed his recent knowledge largely to Farmer Maggot, whom he seemed to regard as a person of more importance than they had imagined. ‘There’s earth under his old feet, and clay on his fingers; wisdom in his bones, and both his eyes are open,’ said Tom. It was also clear that Tom had dealings with the Elves, and it seemed that in some fashion, news had reached him from Gildor concerning the flight of Frodo."

Tom maybe knew Farmer Maggot and Gildor, but is there any evidence that Maggot or Gildor knew Tom?

I like to think so, after all:

> there's wisdom in his bones, and both his eyes are open

No proof whatsoever, of course, but just the existence of Tom Bombadil reminds us that there are people in the world (perhaps even the majority) who actually care very little about this whole "Ring" business and just go about living their lives.

What a strange way to look at it, when most of the inhabitants of Middle Earth had no choice in the matter of whether they were involved in the business of the Ring, as catastrophe came to them regardless as to their interest, as evidenced by the return to the Shire at the end of the trilogy, the ending left out of the movies. Frodo even laments his own role at one point, and says he wishes that he did not live in a time with these events, and Gandalf assures him that is how all who live through historic events feel.

It was only because of the selfless sacrifice of Frodo and Sam that any may have been able to live a life untouched by the turmoil of the reawakening of Sauron. If they had failed, nobody would have had a choice whether or not to "care" about the Ring -- they'd simply be oppressed by it.

I think there is some "fortuitous things just keep happening to these people" in much fiction, and certainly the LOTR series, right? If you or I was given a knife that glowed when trolls were around, that would probably be the most amazing thing that ever happened to us. To Frodo it's a footnote, right along with "met and was rended minor aid by the oldest corporeal creature in the universe".

Ultimately, I can only offer conjecture, but given what we know of Tolkein's deeply religious personal perspective, it's not difficult to imagine that his fantastic universe is pervaded by an overwhelming force of goodness that seeks to bring events to their right conclusion through divine providence.

> his fantastic universe is pervaded by an overwhelming force of goodness that seeks to bring events to their right conclusion through divine providence.

That is, in fact, explicitly stated in The Silmarillion.

"Then Ilúvatar (the God/Yahweh creator spirit) spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur (the angels), and mightiest among them is Melkor (Satan / the fallen angel); but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined."

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.

Gandalf, being older than Arda itself, has certain advantages even Galadriel does not in terms of "knowing about things" - his vows might limit him in terms of what he can do or say, but sometimes the rules can be bent.

    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

Yes. On a nuts and bolts level, he has a single purpose: so that the reader knows there are things older than elves; things that elves (and maybe even wizards) don't know about.

I see why many people hate Tom, particularly many engineer-types who want their fantasy worlds to be meticulously detailed and explained.

And from a traditional storytelling standpoint, he's a total dead-end with zero effect on anything else in the story.

Yet, I love him. It added to the sense of wonder and mystery in the world. Even Elrond doesn't know about this guy? Bonkers.

He is the reason why they can kill the witch king

with much study over time, I have come to see one of the resiliant aspects of Christianity is an eagerness to consume all myth and lore and recast it as some story from the desert lands. There is no Adam and no Old Testament g*d in Tolkien, despite thousands of hours of Sunday school and preachers and AA meetings encouraging us to look more superficially at old stories and just resign ourselves to "yes, actually this is told in the Bible"

Tom Bombadil does not need your story of the Garden of Eden and you are invited to take it elsewhere, today.

Tolkien's words on Lord of the Rings:

> The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Middle-earth

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

Sure, I mean, go for it. You are free to fully embrace "death of the author" and believe what you like, irrespective of Tolkien's direct statements.

Tolkien's direct statements carry a fair bit of weight with me. His private writings were extensive, consistent, and deeply introspective.

It's as you say: primary sources aren't everything. But they're not nothing. In Tolkien's case, they're really something.

Tolkien may have said that, but it is difficult to find much convincing similarity between his world and Christianity - even less so between the LotR trilogy specifically and Christianity. Most of the the Wikipedia article is a real reach. Some of it would even be contradictory: for instance if Varda corresponds to the Virgin Mary, she would co-exist with Mary in the present age as a separate entity. Surely Elbereth is exactly what she is presented as: a female Vala, wedded to Manwë since before the creation of Arda.

And what are the Valar? In the mythos, they are sub-creators. In Christianity God alone is the creator: angels have no part in creation.

The article draws similarity between the resurrection of Jesus and of Gandalf: but in Christianity, Jesus is literally one of the three persons of God, while Gandalf is a Maia, one of the lesser Ainur.

There are a lot of parallels drawn in that article, and I will not go through every one, but as far as I can see they are all contrived. The closest parallel is that of the rebellion of Morgoth - but there is no real equivalent of Sauron in Christianity.

It is also worth thinking about one thing that is missing. The fall of Adam would have taken place long before most of the sections of the Silmarillion, and yet there is no hint of this foundational event.

Not sure about Adam (he'd probably be an Elf as they were the first created) but Eru Iluvatar seems very akin to the God of the Abrahamic religions to me tbh. They're both all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful yet simultaneously mostly passive deities of their respective universes. Malkor is a very thinly disguised devil-character too, being one of the angels who has turned to evil.

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....

>To blindly assume that all characters in LotR must have a Biblical corollary is lazy.

Why do you deem my post "blind assumption", when it contained quite a bit beyond that?

eric_cc & hacknat: Thanks for your posts; now I'm a bit sorry for complaining about bikeshedding comments. ;)

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. Diogenes replied, "Yes, stand out of my sunlight." Alexander then declared, "If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes." "If I were not Diogenes, I would still wish to be Diogenes," Diogenes replied.'

'Some one took him into a magnificent house and warned him not to spit, whereupon having cleared his throat he discharged the phlegm into the man's face, being unable, he said, to find a meaner receptacle.'

The dude was a modern lunatic homeless man venerated into legend status for thousands of years.

Interestingly similar to Lao-Zhe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi

A later poet Bai Juyi [1], criticizing Lao-Zhe for inconsistency:

> Those who speak do not know, those who know are silent,

> I heard this saying from the old gentleman.

> If the old gentleman was one who knew the way,

> Why did he feel able to write five thousand words?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bai_Juyi

> The dude was a modern lunatic homeless man venerated into legend status for thousands of years.

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” It's funny, but if you visit some of the vagabond subreddits you can read some very Diogenes-esque philosophies. I don't think they're all crazy - there's a subset who chose that life, and I think some of them have chosen well. Diogenes wasn't mad; he could just hear the music we can't.

It's romantic in a way to imagine that these sorts of people have deeper wisdom than we do, but I think it's better to say that we can't tell for sure from the outside if they're listening to music we can't hear or are just crazy. In practice there's almost certainly some of both.

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

Not gonna lie I'd watch his unhinged YouTube videos.

I was amused to read in his review of Fellowship that one of C.S. Lewis' favorite characters was Tom Bombadil:

But there is more in the book still. Every now and then, risen from sources we can only conjecture and almost alien (one would think) to the author’s habitual imagination, figures meet us so brimming with life (not human life) that they make our sort of anguish and our sort of exaltation seem unimportant. Such is Tom Bombadil, such the unforgettable Ents. This is surely the utmost reach of invention, when an author produces what seems to be not even his own, much less anyone else’s. Is mythopoeia, after all, not the most, but the least, subjective of activities?

https://epistleofdude.wordpress.com/2018/11/17/c-s-lewis-rev...

Though it has to be said that this aloofness is a lot easier to maintain during a war when you're as immensely powerful as Tom apparently is. Hobbits, for example, did not have the choice to remain neutral and unconcerned; the Scouring came to them.

A Zen teacher I know gave a dharma talk titled “The Absence of Tom Bombadil”, centered around his nonappearance in the movies, interpreting it in terms of how when we dramatize we tend to omit elements that aren’t good or evil, and so beyond Hollywood we also in our minds tend to forget what Zen lore calls “the original mind that you had before your parents were born.”

The Beornings as well, though far from pacifists.

Wow!

The Tolkien letters, the J.K. Rowling tweets of the ‘50s.

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