Tom Bombadil is the most mysterious character in The Lord of the Rings.
He's the oldest being in Middle-earth and completely immune to the Ring's power — but why?
Bombadil is the key to the underlying ethics of the entire story, and to resisting evil yourself...
Tom Bombadil is an enigmatic, merry hermit of the countryside, known as "oldest and fatherless" by the Elves. He is truly ancient, and claims he was "here before the river and the trees." He's so confounding that Peter Jackson left him out of the films entirely.
This is understandable, since he's unimportant to the development of the plot. Tolkien, however, saw fit to include him anyway, because Tom reveals a lot about the underlying ethics of Middle-earth, and how to shield yourself from evil.
The hobbits meet Bombadil early on in their quest, before they reach Bree and the Prancing Pony Inn. He rescues Merry and Pippin from Old Man Willow, and invites the hobbits to stay at his house in the Old Forest.
There, the hobbits realize something strange about him: the Ring has no power over Bombadil whatsoever.
When he wears it, he remains visible. He treats it as a plaything, making it disappear with a magic trick. Indeed, at the Council of Elrond, Gandalf rejects the idea of giving the Ring to Tom, for he would likely misplace it or forget about it entirely.
So just who is he, exactly?
When Frodo asks this very question to Tom's wife Goldberry, she simply responds "He is." It's a cryptic answer that echoes God's famous answer to Moses in the Book of Exodus: "I am who I am."
Thus, many theorize that Bombadil is God, some kind of angelic being, or even the spirit of the Music of the Ainur (due to the fact that he is constantly singing). But Tolkien's letters reveal something considerably more interesting…
In April 1954, Tolkien wrote:
"The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship… 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… then the questions of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless…"
So, Bombadil is a representation of what it means to take pure delight in the world around you — to experience people and things simply as they are, without any thought for what they could be or how you could use them. And this is why the Ring has no power over him.
To Bombadil, the One Ring is simply a ring, and the possibilities of what can be achieved through its power are of no importance. He is able to resist its evil precisely because he is entirely content with the world around him.
At the end of the story, having accomplished what he set out to do in Middle-earth, Gandalf pays Tom a visit before returning to the Undying Lands:
"I am going to have a long talk with Bombadil: such a talk as I have not had in all my time."
If Bombadil is the epitome of simply enjoying life and being, Gandalf is the epitome of doing. He guides the hobbits, fights the Balrog, and runs up and down Middle-earth to help destroy the One Ring.
But now that he's finally liberated from doing, he immediately heads to Bombadil's. He does so with a sense of relief, as if he's at last able to access a purer and higher mode of being — a sort of innocence that cannot be fully experienced by those consumed by doing.
Of course, by this Tolkien doesn't disparage the value of action. The entirety of LOTR displays the importance of rising up against evil, even in the face of all odds. But with the inclusion of Bombadil, he does remind readers that fighting isn't all there is.
Bombadil reminds us that while it's important to strive and *do*, it is just as important to occasionally step back and *be*. Indeed, your ability to do so plays a crucial role in helping you resist the allure of evil…
Read the full piece here:
https://t.co/aqK2daehIL
The unsung hero of The Lord of the Rings...
I saw someone posted that the Knicks game was a "who's who of the zionist elite" and then it was Ben Stiller, Jerry Seinfeld, the Haim sisters, Adam Sandler.
For all the "zionist doesn't mean jew" people, it sure seems to always mean jew.
Karmelo’s parents left him alone during sentencing and the victim impact statements.
They abandoned their own son and made him sit there by himself.
It is very obvious why Karmelo turned out the way he did. Sad.
Actually crazy how every single major IP has been destroyed by the people put in charge of stewarding them, and all mainly for the same reason of giving the finger to fans and using them as vehicles for social messaging
Seinfeld is successful enough to be untouchable so he doesn’t have to play the stupid “Free Palestine” game other people in Hollywood think they have to and I love that for him.
lolol Trump cracks me up with his work arounds. California SOS has been blocking our voter rolls from the DOJ for a solid year!
And Newsom passed a law two weeks ago making fed probe into voter rolls illegal. We’ll see if this gets upheld in court, but it’d be huge.
Keep in mind LA county voter rolls increased by around 700k since 2018. Yet, since then we’ve *lost* over 350K residents. 🤔
It's hard to beat Israeli technology!
TEL AVIV, Israel - The Israelis are developing an airport security device that eliminates the privacy concerns that come with full-body scanners.
It's an armoured booth you step into that will not X-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may have on your person.
Israel sees this as a win-win situation for everyone, with none of this crap about racial profiling.
It will also eliminate the costs of long and expensive trials.
You're in the airport terminal and you hear a muffled explosion. Shortly thereafter, an announcement:
"Attention to all standby passengers,
El Al is pleased to announce a seat available on flight 670 to London.
Shalom!
Exactly right. Eric Swalwell spent three years on TV claiming that Trump was a secret agent for Russia. The MSM didn't call him a conspiracy theorist, they just let him lie to the American people. Many Democrats still believe this garbage.