“The only way he knows how to resolve conflict is with those damn Eagles,” is one of the most persistent complaints about Tolkien. “They’re such a deus ex machina,” the complainer will add if he wants to make it absolutely clear that he went to college.

As a storyteller, Tolkien was no flailing amateur, hurling his characters into conflicts that he could not extract them from. Whether or not you like his style of resolution, it was quite intentional. He even coined a word – “eucatastrophe” – to refer to this type of sudden deliverance, which he detailed in his essay “On Fairy Stories”:

The consolation of fairy stories…the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially “escapist,” nor “fugitive.” In its fairy-tale or otherworld setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

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The day-to-day operation of the website, and the events we host, require a lot more resources than when we first started nearly 15 years ago. We sometimes find it hard to ask our readers for the help we need to keep running, so we began discussing what it is that makes TheOneRing.net worth helping out. It started out as a search for the Top Ten Moments of TORn, but the list got so long because each staff member had their own idea of important moments in TORn history. Here, instead, is something more encompassing: Ten Ways TORn helps serve Tolkien and Lord of the Rings fandom (listed in no specific order).

And, if you enjoy what we do, consider a donation (no amount too small, because every bit does help!) to keep us running!

If you can’t, that’s fine as well — keep reading, commenting and contributing. Because TORn is as much you as it is us!

If you’ve ever sent in an article, submitted a photo or report, posted on our messageboards, visited our chat, or commented on our twitter, facebook or g+, you’re the reason TheOneRing.net is among the largest and most-respected pillars of the Tolkien community on the web.

• Spy Reports

• Spy reports were a big part of our content when the website first started. From casting announcements to secret location pictures to leaked images of important plot points, spy reports were our bread and butter stories. Some of the reports were from random, anonymous sources, while others were official leaks from cast and crew. In fact, there were many production members who said they used TheOneRing.net to keep track of what some of the other filming units were doing. Other spy reports were just someone stumbling upon a film location and sending in a story or images and then we’d all try and guess what location it actually was. Some of our biggest spy reports were of Arwen at Helm’s Deep (which subsequently didn’t happen), Saruman’s prone body on a spiky wheel (which did happen), and TheOneRing.net was given the honor of introducing Thorin to the world. And very soon, we will be seeing stories from MrCere’s visit to the set from his Production Embed last year.

• Hall of Fire Chats and the Message Boards

• Literary discussions on the message boards and Hall of Fire chats – From the very beginning of TheOneRing.net, discussions of the books, chapter by chapter, has been a hallmark. After all, while we waited for news on who would be cast, where filming would take place, and rumors of what might be cut out, we had the books to talk about. Discussions worked by talking about one chapter at a time, and luckily, there are enough books with enough chapters, to keep those discussions going on for a long while. Since the beginning, we’ve looped through the books several times, but luckily, there are always new readers joining the discussion, and new interpretations to be had. And for something a little more dynamic, there are the Hall of Fire chats in Barlimans. Sometimes the talk is about a specific chapter, or a certain character, and sometimes it is about current events, such as new character images or reviews of a recently released trailer. No matter which forum you use, there is always someone to talk to about some aspect of Tolkien, the books or our fandom.

• TORns Live Videos

• We began with TORn Live, which consisted of Red Carpet interviews at premieres, awards ceremonies and special events like Cannes 2001 and SDCC. These would be recorded, edited and released online a few days or weeks later. But technology now allows for live streaming interviews and vlogs and the like. Quickbeam hosts a weekly TORn Tuesday event with interviews and discussions, while he interacts with a live chatroom. The Happy Hobbit ladies record and post their vlogs and post them within a day or two of their recordings, for a much quicker turnaround on video content. And right now we have the Road to DragonCon in full swing with live streaming from across the country.

• Conventions

• Convention appearances – Calisuri and Quickbeam hosted a panel at San Diego Comic Con in 2001, before the release of FOTR, and since then barely a year has gone by that TORn hasn’t had a presence at at least one convention. At many of the conventions we appear at we also have a presence on the exhibit hall floor where we have sold some of our classic TORn shirts. We love it when we get up on stage for a panel and half the people in the audience are wearing some of our older shirts.

•  

  

  Baggins Birthday Party sign

  Line Parties and Fan Events

• Line Parties and other fan hosted events – TheOneRing.net has always been a grass roots type of fan-site and that is no more apparent then looking at the Line Parties of years past. Whether it is just a few friends, or some hundreds of people signing up on the website to attend, fans like you all over the world hosted Line Parties. A few even took place over several days, and included costume contests and trivia games for prizes. Other fan hosted events over the years have been the Hobbit Day/Baggins Birthday Bash events on Sept. 22, the Tolkien Toast on Jan. 3 and the Tolkien Reading Day on March 25. TORn staff in Los Angeles have been hosting a Baggins Birthday Bash party for 11 years now, but there are fan groups around the world that have hosted similar events. Smaller moots happen around the world all the time, there is a very active group in Wellington and one in Croatia. If you are hosting a fan event in the next year or two, please feel free to tell us about it.

• The Oscar Parties

• Originally conceived as a fan event to help raise funds to buy TORn a new server, who could have imagined the Cast and Crew actually showing up to the FOTR oscar party? Even more surprising, who could have imagined the ROTK sweep and all those Oscars on stage at a fan hosted party?

• O.R.C and E.L.F.

• TheOneRing.net hosted conventions – The One Ring Celebration on the West Coast (O.R.C.) and the Eastern Lord of the Rings Festival on the East Coast (E.L.F.) were co-productions with a professional convention company, but they definitely had a TORn stamp on them. The conventions allowed us to combine our love of the films by interacting with cast and crew with our love of the books through academic discussions, the art shows and costume displays. We really did break the mold on how a commercial scifi convention is run and hope everyone who attended had a blast.

• Academic essays and editorials

• TORn has long standing relationships with many in the academic community who have posted guest essays and editorials. Over the year several staffers have posted in depth analysis to fan questions on the site as well. In fact, we have a whole section on the ‘old TORn’ (pre-crash) called Green Books for academic posts. This section had so much good stuff in it, we published a book called “The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien” and a sequel book as well.

• Driving fan initiatives

• After Return of the King was done and Peter Jackson moved on to do King Kong, the fans waited to see what would happen with The Hobbit afterwards. Months turned to years and still no word while studios went bankrupt, copyrights issues got tangled up and various lawsuits were filed for missing payments. Finally, a few fans decided they had had enough and started a petition to ‘Make the Hobbit Happen’. They brought it to TORn and we got thousands of you to sign so that a big pile of names was delivered to TPTB. A similar thing happened when there was talk that the production would be moved out of New Zealand. The fans could see no where else as Middle-earth, so the ‘Keep the Hobbit in NZ’ campaign was born, but this time on Social Media. And most recently, there was an explosion of Tolkien fan love over the #Votebilbo twitter event prompted by an MTV Audience Award.

• TORn Community

• This list compiles many of the things that TheOneRing.net does to keep you informed, entertained and engaged, but there is really just one thing that makes TheOneRing.net so important to keep around. And that is the community of fans that convene on our message boards, in Barliman’s chat, on Facebook and Twitter.

This site was built by fans getting together to discuss what they hoped for from Peter Jackson long before FOTR ever saw the light of day. The fact that a long existing fan-base gathered here meant engaged and informed discussion began from day one, including analyzing all the spy reports about casting and location details. We didn’t have to wait for the release of the films, or for several episodes of a new show to take off before we could discuss the minutia of every detail because our fan base was already well established.

And what is ‘fandom’ if not a community of like minded people passionate about the same thing. Sure, everyone has their own opinions, so every time a new image was released, or a new trailer appeared, the message boards and chatroom erupted into heated discussions. But as the years wore on friendships were made, some turning into marriage, and we all began meeting up at various moots, conventions, concerts, premiere events, trips to New Zealand or just coffee and a movie. How many of you newer fans were galvanized by the #Votebilbo campaign and now have a wider array of Twitter friends because of it? The fact that TORn was able to continue to exist during all those lean years between film productions is due mostly to you, the readers, sticking around to discuss anything and everything to do with Tolkien, and sometimes other bits of pop culture. We know that after the release of The Hobbit: There and Back Again we will see another decline of readership, but we also know that the community is strong, the friendships have been forged and all of you take that fandom with you where ever you go next.

So again, if you are so inclined to help support us and keep the website going, please do make a pledge or bid on one of the many cool auction items we’ve been posting about the past few days. On behalf of the All Volunteer Staff at TheOneRing.net, you have our deepest gratitude for all the support over the years.

Azog the Defiler

In particular, he examines whether persistent criticism of this key villain might be a result of flaws inadvertently introduced by the relatively late switch from two films to three.

Did Azog defile An Unexpected Journey?

By Rud the Spud

Azog is an aspect of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey that has perturbed me for some time now.

Did he or didn’t he work in An Unexpected Journey? And, if not, was he the victim of the late change from two to three films?

I don’t know if it was the massive hype (which I’m glad there is less of for Desolation of Smaug), the huge expectations off the back of The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy or whether it was simply the basic love for the book itself, but I found An Unexpected Journey mildly disappointing.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it and I loved so many aspects of it but there remains an uneasy feeling that I’ve only recently been able to define.

And that is Azog.

AZOG IN THE TOLKIEN’S LEGENDARIUM

The Battle of Azanulbizar.

In Tolkien’s Legendarium, the Battle of Azanulbizar was fought in retaliation for this dishonour.

In An Unexpected Journey, the battle is condensed into Thrór’s large-scale attempt to retake Moria. It is during this battle that Azog decapitates him in the film. Events are altered: in the book it was Náin, father of Dáin Ironfoot, who Azog slew. And it was Dáin (who will be played by Billy Connolly in There and Back Again) who leapt after Azog and hewed off his head before Moria’s East Gate.

At Azanulbizar, Thorin did fight off several orcs with an oak branch, but Tolkien does not report that he went near Azog. But the upshot is that Azog was truly slain in the battle. He does not return; it is his son, Bolg, who nurses the grudge against Dáin and the dwarves. And it is Bolg who leads the wargs and goblins into the Battle of the Five Armies. Bolg’s role in the movies is yet to unfold.

The alteration of events for the sake of making a concise screenplay is understandable and acceptable. The filmmakers instead use the Azanulbizar to emphasise the heroism of our central character Thorin and establish back stories for Balin and Dwalin. Even the survival of Azog wasn’t a major issue for me initially. It was a little contrived how Thorin believed him to be dead (doesn’t he know how movies work?) but even that was acceptable.

It was the depiction of Azog that irks me the most.

Costumes are encouraged, and we may have a prize or two for the most beautifully or most creatively attired lads and ladies. There will also be fun and games, as usual, and …maybe even the traditional impersonation contest (I WOULD LIKE TO ENCOURAGE ATTENDEES TO LEARN SOME HOBBIT QUOTES!). And because it was such a success last year, we will have the Reading Corner again, so bring your books and bring your reading voice. We do have some Hobbit Activity books to share with children, families of all sizes and ages are more than welcome.

The picnic is potluck so bring something to share. RSVP by leaving a note on the Facebook Event Page, or send an email to Garfeimao@theonering.net. Please let me know how many are coming with you and what you plan to bring so I can make sure we’ve got all bases covered for a good, Hobbity meal. I will have a list of items brought and items needed on the Facebook Event page, so it will be easy for everyone to keep track.

DIRECTIONS:

From the South: Take the 5 north to the Griffith Park exit. At the first stop sign you reach, turn right onto Crystal Springs Drive and follow it into the park. When you reach the big stop sign where the road splits into Crystal Springs Drive and Griffith Park Drive, follow the road to the left (towards the Old Zoo and the Harding Golf Course). Stay on Griffith Park Drive past the Old Zoo and the Harding Golf Course. The road will fork again after the golf course at Mineral Wells. Keep on the road to the left, and you will find parking for the picnic area along the road.

From the North: Take the 5 south to Los Feliz Blvd West. At the intersection with Riverside Drive, turn right. Riverside Drive will turn into Crystal Springs Drive. Follow Crystal Springs into the park. When you reach the big stop sign where the road splits into Crystal Springs Drive and Griffith Park Drive, follow the road to the left (towards the Old Zoo and the Harding Golf Course). Stay on Griffith Park Drive past the Old Zoo and the Harding Golf Course. The road will fork again after the golf course at Mineral Wells. Keep on the road to the left, and you will find parking for the picnic area along the road.

From Hollywood/LA: Take Western Ave north. It will turn into Los Feliz Blvd. When you reach the intersection with Riverside Drive, turn left. Riverside Drive will turn into Crystal Springs Drive. Follow Crystal Springs into the park. When you reach the big stop sign where the road splits into Crystal Springs Drive and Griffith Park Drive, follow the road to the left (towards the Old Zoo and the Harding Golf Course). Stay on Griffith Park Drive past the Old Zoo and the Harding Golf Course. The road will fork again after the golf course at Mineral Wells. Keep on the road to the left, and you will find parking for the picnic area along the road.

Here is a Map of Griffith Park

As always, the actual location won’t be fully confirmed until the day of the party when our location scout reports from the park, but we will update the Facebook Event page on the morning of the event in case of last minute changes in location.

On the Main board this week, Ethel Duath invited us all to create an anthem for the fictional country of Tolkenia.

Whilst in the Reading Room, noWizardme wants to know which Tolkien book character would you have lunch with, and why? 

The Hobbit board is buzzing over why we haven’t seen any major images of Bolg, Dain or Beorn (apart from the blurry Sonic Hedgehog image of Beorn and a toy of Bolg).

In Off Topic we’ve been checking up on our friends in the Wellington area after the big earthquake last week.

And in the Pollantir, Maciliel wants to know how many books we have in our personal libraries.

We’ll share more topics next week. We hope you’ll come and join in the conversations!  Don’t forget, TheOneRing.net’s message boards have over 9,950 registered Tolkien fans, just like you.  Let your voice be heard!

Also, this weekend (Saturday August 17 at 6pm EDT (New York time)) we’ll be focusing on a movie topic — Beorn. That’s right, the shapeshifter of the Vales of the Anduin and hero of the Battle of the Five Armies. What do you think of Mikael Persbrandt, what are your thoughts on Beorn’s demense and hall so far, and what do you think of the spy image that we revealed last Friday? Those are just a few of the questions we’ll touch on, so don’t miss it!

In last week’s article, I started with a simple question: how do book lengths, as measures by word count, compare to their adapted movie run times, as measured by seconds? I was mostly looking for a statistical basis to express my displeasure at The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (and by extension, parts 2 and 3 of this unnecessary trilogy), but I wound up comparing the density of the Hobbit movies, as measured in Words in Book per Second of Movie (WIBPSOM), to other prominent movie adaptations of books: The Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, and the Twilight franchises.

The findings were interesting in and of themselves (TL;DR: The Hobbit Books have way smaller WIBPSOM values than the other franchises), but they begged for a larger scale analysis, both in size of dataset and scope of inquiry. To address the size of the dataset, I found all of the (English language) entries on this list of best-selling books that have theatrically-released, non-silent movie adaptations. After including multiple movie adaptations of the same movie and excluding movies where I couldn’t find any data on book length as measured by word count, I came up with a dataset of 59 movie adaptations of best selling books.

As for scope of inquiry, well, let’s get down to brass tacks: is there any relationship between the density of a book’s movie adaptation, as measured by WIBPSOM, and the quality of the movie, as measured by its IMDB rating?

In a word, the answer to this intriguing question is an emphatic “no.”

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Also, this coming weekend (Saturday August 17 at 6pm EDT (New York time)) we’ll be focusing on a movie topic — Beorn. That’s right, the shapeshifter of the Vales of the Anduin and hero of the Battle of the Five Armies. What do you think of Mikael Persbrandt, what are your thoughts on Beorn’s demense and hall so far, and what do you think of the spy image that we revealed last Friday? Those are just a few of the questions we’ll touch on, so don’t miss it!

John Rhys-Davies is Welsh and a screen actor and voice actor. He is perhaps best known for playing the dwarf Gimli and Treebeard in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the charismatic Arab excavator Sallah in the Indiana Jones films. He also played Agent Michael Malone in the 1993 remake of the 1950s television series The Untouchables, Pilot Vasco Rodrigues in the mini-series Shōgun, Professor Maximillian Arturo in Sliders, King Richard I in Robin of Sherwood, General Leonid Pushkin in the James Bond film The Living Daylights, and Macro in I, Claudius. Additionally, he provided the voices of Cassim in Disney’s Aladdin and the King of Thieves.

Tom Bombadil – Master and Mystery

By Tedoras

            Mention the name of Tom Bombadil around Tolkien fans and you are likely to spark a debate: a debate which, in Tolkien fandom, remains one of the most controversial and longest-argued of them all. This is perhaps because even the most fundamental questions surrounding Tom Bombadil are hard to answer; certainly, he is the most enigmatic character in The Lord of the Rings. Because of his uncanny nature, Tom Bombadil remains unique among all of Tolkien’s characters: as readers, we have the same understanding of him today as readers did when they first discovered him—that is to say, while scholarly works on Aragorn and Frodo abound, we are no closer to uncovering the true Tom Bombadil today than we were almost sixty years ago. In writing this article, I hope to accomplish a few goals: first, to present a thorough character study of Tom Bombadil (i.e. to lay out what we know); second, to discuss the main or popular theories in the debate (i.e. to lay out what we think); and third, to draw a conclusion (or, rather, an inference) as to the true nature of Tom Bombadil. Whether you are a veteran of this debate or are just now being exposed to it, I hope you will join me on a journey of herculean proportions to answer the most testing of all questions: who (or what) is Tom Bombadil?

As Saruman coldly says in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: “Let us examine what we know.” Well, in this instance, that is very apt advice, indeed. Tom Bombadil, as many of you already know, stumbles upon the hobbits in the Old Forest in September of the Third Age 3018; he proceeds to rescue them from Old Man Willow, and then brings them along to his home deep in the Forest where he lives with his (also rather enigmatic) wife Goldberry. Tom is marked throughout these episodes with a light and cheery tone: from his colorful attire to his seemingly continual singing (and his ring a dong dillo’s). Yet Tom’s light-hearted nature—while ostensibly unwarranted, considering where he lives—is, in fact, well-attributed: he is a very, very old and wise man (or rather, being that looks like a man). We will, in time, return to look more closely at the importance and uniqueness of Tom’s personality, but for now, let us focus on his age.

Readers quickly become aware that Tom is a special character, even from our very first meeting with him. One of the reasons for this is his fantastic age. And while it may not surprise us that Tom is indeed old, just how old may. Frodo, who appears just as confused about Tom as we are as readers, asks him repeatedly, “Who are you?” (Tolkien 129). Tom replies that he is “eldest,” and then he proceeds to explain:

“Tom was here before the river and the trees…He made paths before the Big People, and saw the Little People arriving…When the Elves passed westward, Tom was already here, before the seas were bent…before the Dark Lord came from Outside.” (129)

Since Tom’s own information is arguably the most accurate about him, let us use the above quotation to determine just how old he is. First, we know Tom has lived in Arda since “before the river and the trees,” a reference to the Spring of Arda. The Spring of Arda is the period from 1900 to 3450 (in Valian Years, not solar years, mind you—though we will return to this soon) of the Years of the Lamps, in which the world was populated with living things. Secondly, he has been in Middle-earth since year 1 of the First Age, when Men awoke; additionally, he saw the hobbits migrating west around T.A. 1300. Tom also saw the Elves pass west: this refers to the Sundering of the Elves and, more precisely, to the First and Second Sunderings in the Years of the Trees 1105 and 1115, respectively. The “seas were bent” in F.A. 587 following the War of Wrath. Most interestingly, though, is that Tom was in Arda before Morgoth (and, in turn, all the Valar) came there during the First War, from year 1 to about 1499 of the Years of the Lamps. Thus, we know that Tom Bombadil was one of the first—if not the very first—inhabitants of Arda following the Music of the Ainur and the creation of Eä.

Now, knowing that Tom has existed (it is, as yet, impossible to say that he was born or created, or even that he entered Arda) since year 1 of the Years of the Lamps, we can calculate his exact age. We must note, however, the sort of ripple that exists in time in Tolkien’s works: each year in the Years of the Lamps and Years of the Trees is a Valian year (about 9.582 solar years). The First Age, with the rising of the Sun, marks the use of solar years in counting. So, we can use the range from 1 Years of the Lamps to T.A. 3018 (when Tom meets the hobbits) to calculate his age. We simply multiply 3500 (the number of Valian years in the Years of the Lamps) by 9.582 (3500 x 9.582 = 33,537), repeat this process for the Years of the Trees (~1500 x 9.582 = 14,373), and add the total number of solar years from all the Ages up until T.A. 3018 (590 + 3,441 + 3018 = 7049). So, by T.A. 3018 Tom Bombadil is already some 54,959 (solar) years old!

Beyond his age, Tom is characterized by a few other unique traits. First is his reaction (or lack thereof) to the Ring. “Show me the Ring!” he says to Frodo, who, surprisingly, hands it right over without any qualms (much in contrast to the very protective, hesitant Frodo we see later on). Tom proceeds to “put it to his eye and laugh[s]” (130). Yes, the reaction of Tom Bombadil to the One Ring, the most powerful and dangerous object in the world, is laughter—not worry nor despair, and certainly not fear. Then, when Tom puts the Ring on his finger, there is “no sign of [him] disappearing” (130). And how does Tom react to this instance? You’ve got it right: he laughs and, to further show how little he cares for the Ring, he does what appears to be a little sleight of hand with it before returning it to Frodo “with a smile” (130).

Not only is Tom unaffected by the Ring himself, but he notices its effects on others. When Frodo slips on the Ring (to check that is, in fact the Ring after lending it to Tom), Tom immediately notices the invisible hobbit sneaking off:

“‘Hey there!’ cried Tom, glancing towards [Frodo] with a most seeing look in his shining eyes. ‘Hey! Come Frodo, there! Where be you a-going? Old Tom Bombadil’s not as blind as that yet. Take off your golden ring!” (131)

Clearly, Tom is unaffected, personally or otherwise, by the Ring. And he is the only character in the whole of the novel to have this ostensible immunity to the Ring. It is certainly a powerful being that holds this trait.

Yet what do we typically associate with power and wisdom? Perhaps visions of age-worn, rather tough and callous individuals spring to mind—yet this is not the case with Tom Bombadil. As I noted before, Tom has a rather affable, light-hearted personality. He is certainly not a man of affectation: no matter the circumstance nor the people involved, Tom is always in a joyous mood, singing and bouncing around (or at least disposed to do so). Tom is so happy-go-lucky because he has no concept of fear. Take the following examples: (1) he rescues the hobbits from the clutches of Old Man Willow as if he were reprimanding a child, not challenging a great evil; (2) he lives in the Old Forest, a place ripe with fearful beasts and about which tales of fright abound; (3) he saves the hobbits from a barrow-wight, coming with song and a spring in his step to one of the most dreadful and dangerous mishaps in the story. Take this quotation from “Fog on the Barrow-Downs,” for example:

“’You won’t find your clothes again,’ said Tom, bounding down from the mound, and laughing as he danced round them in the sunlight. One would have thought that nothing dangerous or dreadful had happened; and indeed the horror faded out of their hearts as they looked at him, and saw the merry glint in his eyes.” (140)

It is plain to note: where others would fear, Tom Bombadil does not. It is not even that Tom is simply not afraid, nor that he has overcome his fear; rather, he has no concept, no idea whatsoever, of fear. He is entirely composed of the good-natured, light-hearted fibers that render him capable of laughing in the very face of the One Ring.

And this lack of fear (especially with regards to the Ring) is unique. Gandalf certainly shows a sense of fear on many occasions: from his fear of entering Moria, to his fear of the Ring and the Enemy. Galadriel and Elrond both fear the Ring, for in either using it or keeping it hidden they know it will bring about their ruin. Even the Enemy is not free from the grasp of fear: when he learns of Aragorn’s return and the possibility of united opposition to him, Sauron begins to feel afraid. While the fear that all of these characters experience may differ in many ways, fear it is nonetheless. And it is exactly this sense of fear that Tom Bombadil does not possess.

There remains now just one last point regarding Tom’s character that I believe is worth noting: his repeated association with the earth. Frodo, the night the hobbits spend in Tom Bombadil’s house, has a vivid dream of

“a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.” (132)

This dream—a clear reference to Valinor—is interrupted: Frodo awakens to see “Tom whistling like a tree-full of birds” and he notes “the sun was already slanting down the hill…Outside everything was green and pale gold” (132). Here, we note Tom’s stark association with the earth or, perhaps more prominently, his dissociation from Valinor. Tom interrupts this dream (in essence, the thought that he may be associated with Valinor), and he immediately brings Frodo back to the earth: to the birds, trees, and green of the living, mortal earth. The notion that Tom is more an earthly, temporal being is quite important: it is vindicated by what we have learned of his age, and it will greatly help us in deciding what Tom is and isn’t.

Knowing what we do about Tom Bombadil now, we can move on to the second half of this task: discovering who Tom truly is. We will be looking at the main and other popular theories of this debate, and one by one, we will see which, if any of the pre-proposed categories, Tom fits. After thoroughly examining all options, then—and only then—will we be able to make a final conclusion. (And, if we are lucky, such a conclusion may not be that we will simply never know the answer.)

Is Tom…

A Man, Elf, Hobbit, Dwarf, etc?

Tom is decidedly not a member of any of the races or kindreds of Middle-earth. We can most certainly eliminate him from all such groups (especially from Men and Elves, which would be the two most likely groups) by noting his age (i.e. he was around before them), his physical characteristics (size, beard, etc.), and how the Ring does not affect him.

A Vala?

It is certainly difficult to claim that Tom is one of the great Powers of the World for many reasons. First, all fourteen of the Valar are accounted for, and Tom is not named among them. Second, as we noted before, Tom was living in Arda before the Valar (led by Morgoth) entered the world. Third, Tom refers to himself as “Eldest,” a title to which all the Valar are beholding, not just he (if indeed he were a Vala). Lastly, we know that Tom calls Morgoth “the Dark Lord” (as quoted above). It is hard to imagine any of the Valar referring to their greatest rival, the embodiment of Evil, by this name: certainly, the Valar reserved such reverence in the title “Lord” for Manwe alone. Additionally, fans over at The Encyclopedia of Arda have noted that characterize we would expect to note that Tom is a Vala (such as Gandalf, one of the Maiar), do not.

A Maiar?

This theory is, in some ways, a rather attractive one. We know, first of all, that not all of the Maiar were named by Tolkien—this, of course, allows for hypothesizing that Tom is indeed one of them. However, some good counterpoints contest this argument. First, Tom is unaffected by the Ring. We know for certain that other Maiar, from Gandalf to Sauron, were affected by the power and draw of the One Ring. Additionally, remember the total lack of a sense of fear we discussed before? Well, a sense of fear regarding the Ring (or its fate, for the Enemy) pervades the Maiar involved with this struggle. Yet such is not the case with Tom. Also, it is interesting to note how these Maiar are all allied, with one side or another, while Tom remains independent from the conflict.

The One?

Some have even pushed the idea that Tom is The One, Eru Ilúvatar. Yet for all the auspicious remarks made about Tom (how he is “eldest,” etc.), this theory does not hold water either. At the Council of Elrond, we learn many of the reasons why this theory is false. Gandalf states that “he cannot alter the Ring itself, nor break its power over others,” a trait that we would assume the mightiest being of them all, the creator himself, would possess (259). Glorfindel also comments on the idea of giving Tom the Ring to keep safe: “in the end, if all else is conquered, Bombadil will fall, Last as he was First” (259). The notion that Sauron and his folk could defeat Eru (indeed, the notion that Eru is even capable of being killed, defeated, or otherwise harmed) seems rather ridiculous. Furthermore, evidence from Tolkien himself puts a final end to this theory: in Letter 181, Tolkien explicitly states that there is no embodiment of Eru, who exists apart from the World entirely.

A Spirit?

In many of his earlier writings on what would become The Silmarillion (as collected by Christopher Tolkien in The Book of Lost Tales), Tolkien had a concept of Middle-earth as much more similar to his idea of Faerie. Originally, many spirits and sprites (of all kinds and names) entered the World just as the Ainur did—and this notion was not entirely lost in the final published form of The Silmarillion. It is an attractive theory (for many reasons) to say that Tom is a sort of spirit.

The best route to take within this theory is to propose that Tom is a “nature spirit” (perhaps even a “Father Nature,” if you like). First, it makes sense that Tom would come from the Music of the Ainur—this is in accord with his inhabiting Arda from the very beginning. Second, the notion that spirits exist in nature is evident in Middle-earth: from Ents to Old Man Willow to the great prevalence of personification, nature is much more “alive” in Middle-earth than we take it to be. As noted before, Tom is starkly associated with nature and the earth. The way he lives so harmoniously with bird and beast (and how he seems to command nature in his dealings with Old Man Willow) certainly supports this theory. Additionally, we know that Tom is not concerned with the Ring (Gandalf notes that “he would not have come” to the Council of Elrond, and we noted before how remains “unallied” despite the times). He, actually, shows a total disconnect from the affairs of all other human-like beings; he is, rather, concerned only with the natural world. Tom’s neutrality greatly parallels the neutrality that we prescribe to nature. Since we, as fans, do accept the existence and the role of Ents such as Treebeard, I believe making the jump from a natural “spirit of nature” to a man embodying the “spirit of nature” is not so difficult nor controversial. Yet still, we must ask ourselves why, then, does the Ring not affect Tom, when it can certainly affect other aspects of the natural order?

An Incarnation of the Music of Ainur?

This theory is rather unique, and more recently developed than the others. Basically, we know that of all the above theories, only the notion that Tom is a “nature spirit” is relatively sound; branching from that theory, a fan known only as “Ranger from the North” developed a theory in which he posits Tom is “the incarnated spirit of the Music of the Ainur.” The “Ranger” notes two flaws with the basic “nature spirit” argument: first, Tom is not most closely associated with nature (he, personally, shows this discord by fighting against Old Man Willow and the darkness of the Forest); second, Tom is, however, associated with song and music throughout (the way in which he fights nature, for example, is with song). So, it is agreed upon by many (and I am of the same opinion) that Tom is, in fact, a spirit (an incarnate/embodiment) of sorts (i.e. that he has some relation to the Music). The question now becomes whether or not you believe he is more closely related to nature or to the Music itself.

“Ranger from the North” makes a stellar case for the latter. First, he works with the evidence from the “nature spirit” theory, showing how entirely probable the existence of other, extraneous spirits/beings is in Tolkien’s cosmology. Second, he shows how Arda itself is not the incarnation of the Music, distinguishing Middle-earth from the means by which it was created. Then, the “Ranger” makes a very clever comparison between Ungoliant and Bombadil: he notes how, since Ungoliant exists in many ways as an incarnation of the discord of the Music, she parallels Tom; these two are, he says, antitheses, and should be considered in the same way. Just as Ungoliant embodies the evil and darkness with which she was made, so too does Tom embody the light and happiness of the source of his creation. The “Ranger,” additionally, notes a detail of paramount importance: Tom’s name is not all it appears. Certainly, we hear “Tom” and think of our odd uncle or younger brother—yet such is not the case, says the “Ranger.” He notes the story of the great gong Tombo in the Unfinished Tales—coincidence that “t-o-m-b-o” are the first six letters of Tom Bombadil? Is it also coincidental that we find yet another association between Tom and music here? I think not.

The “Ranger from the North” has written extensively on his theory, and I seek not to describe all of his arguments. If you would like a much more detailed and thorough examination of the Music of the Ainur theory, I highly recommend reading what the “Ranger” himself has written here: http://www.whoistombombadil.blogspot.com/

So, we have reached the end of our journey through the “Bombadil Problem.” We have examined the arguments, waded through confusion, sorted out messes, and procured evidence. It is, in my opinion, certain that we must continue to think of Tom as unique, that we must give credit to the enigma that he (intentionally) is. The true “Master” here is perhaps the Professor himself: the truly contradictory nature of this enigma—his simplicity in character and simultaneous complexity in literature—was well crafted. The mystery of Tom reaches far back into the deeps of Tolkien’s mythology, and roots may be found stretching back to the Professor’s first tales of Faerie. While the “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” that we call Tom Bombadil will continue to challenge us, so too will it excite us. For through continued debate and discussion, we return time and again to the tales and stories we hold so dear, pouring of pages for hours, scouring word-by-word for some secret hint, trying to piece the puzzle back together. We know that the mystery about Tom was intentionally crafted, and that the Professor may have taken the truth about this character and his own motives in designing him to the grave, yet our drive to uncover more about this most enigmatic of beings is not diminished—why? Perhaps it is precisely because of Tom’s nature that we are fascinated by him: in a Middle-earth so divided by light and dark, good and evil (i.e. clear answers to the “who” and “what”), Tom exists as an uncommitted, uncategorized blank slate. He is the one being so open to interpretation, so predisposed to our imagination, so designed for our wondering. It is not surprising that we love Tom so much, that we pursue this debate so tirelessly, because we each craft our very own Tom Bombadil in our minds—and it is the Professor who intentionally left Tom open to such interpretation. Perhaps we can accept that Tom is simply a mystery—though, no doubt, we will continue discussing and searching for the “truth.”

All references to the text from:

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, single-volume edition, Houghton Mifflin (HarperCollins), 2001 (1994 edition of the text)

More information about Tom Bombadil, as well as links to other arguments, can be found below:

1)      http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Tom_Bombadil/Nature

2)      http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/t/tombombadil.html