Vanity Fair revealed earlier this week that Prime Video’s second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power would have a very particular magic, with British actor Rory Kinnear taking on the iconic role of Tom Bombadil. We provided some speculation as to how Master Tom might contribute to the continuing Second Age saga here, and we are also feeling pretty good about our speculations last January around Tom’s potential appearance this coming season, which premiers on August 29.
Along with this article, VF and Prime Video also offered some early images of Middle-earth’s Eldest in an apparently dry and barren land of Rhûn. Fan reactions to the photos have been predictably mixed, from “perfect!” to (in kinder iterations) “huh?”. That’s nearly always the case whenever a favorite character gets distilled to a single look, costume, or actor (even with the initial Peter Jackson trilogy). Here at TheOneRing, we love some spirited debate, especially when we all remember to be kind.
We also love to take closer looks at these kinds of announcements, in this case, of the four photos included in the Vanity Fair article. There are some details which caught our attention!
Tom Bombadil in The Rings of Power played by Rory Kinnear
Jolly Tom Sports Some Iconic Costuming
“So where are the yellow boots?” was one of the most widespread expectations, and reactions, to the Vanity Fair reveal. Many of VF’s photos involved strong backlighting and darker shadows, and it was challenging to nail the true hue of Tom’s footwear. We did get one exterior shot, though, which indeed displayed a dusty yellow tinge on those iconic boots: maybe not canary yellow, but certainly in the same spirit as the classic Hildebrandt Brothers illustration from their 1976 calendar.
We also got a blue jacket, though perhaps not as “bright” as Old Forest Tom sings about along the Withywindle. Remember, this is Second Age Tom, and perhaps he’ll acquire more than one coat for his closet. We’re not even sure whether he’s taken up residence yet on the border of the someday-Shire, nor met his lifelong love and likely fashion consultant Goldberry.
Interestingly, there are some costuming details which already hint at Bombadil’s deep connection to nature, including tree-like embroidery on his tunic, and a be-flowered belt, fashioned seemingly in the shape of stars. That resonates with the same stellar theme which drove Season One’s Stranger to travel eastward.
And then there’s Tom’s hat. Besides the fact that it sports a muted suggestion of a dark, and hardly flamboyantly placed feather (is it peacock – a notion which Tolkien abandoned – swan, “blue”, or something else entirely?), Second Age Tom’s hat seems strikingly wizard-like: wide-brimmed and fittingly pointy. Might we be seeing a further Gandalf-like embellishment, should Tom choose to offer his headgear as a gift to a certain visiting Stranger?
We See Some Curious Environmental Embellishments
It’s also worth taking a closer look at the location where we find this budding Council of the Wise. There are a few things that stand out:
The environment is largely bone-dry and desolate. The surrounding hills seem treeless, and even the cactus houseplants are withering. The interior floors are dusty enough to scream thirst. This is the anti-Old Forest, and about the most non-Bombadillian landscape one can imagine. That’s probably why Tom is looking pretty sober in these stills. It’s a situation demanding intervention, not celebration.
And yet, there are still hints of a potential oasis. Just as we saw the Stranger restore a fruit tree to life in Season One, perhaps Tom’s work has already begun here with the flourishing of flowers and a lemon tree in the exterior shot we’ve been given. Or maybe Tom is simply a limoncello fan. And perhaps as a nod to another refuge long in the future, or simply to fans of the Hobbit, we even see that Tom is a beekeeper! Plus his furniture looks like it would match well with the Beorn aesthetic.
It’s clear that Tom’s house in Rhûn has been lived in for a long time. The candles are melted down to near nubs, and the pottery and furnishings seem well-worn. This is not Tom’s first rodeo in Rhûn, even if he’s been wandering as far and wide around Middle-earth as your friendly Harfoots.
Probably most mysterious of all, there appear to be star and/or planetary maps embellishing the ceilings in the Second House of Tom Bombadil. These constellation symbols have been central to numerous story lines in Season One – for the Harfoots, the Stranger, and the Three Mystics seemingly banished in last season’s final episode. Perhaps Tom will shed a bit more light on exactly what these star signs mean.
It’s useful to remember that we’ve only seen these four pictures, and know precious little about the full extent for how and where Tom Bombadil will be integrated into the second season of the Rings of Power. We each bring personal expectations for this story line. For some, Tom has been somewhere between a complete mystery and an annoying speed bump in the larger LotR saga. For others, he looms large on our list of favorite characters, which increases the risk, of course, should he be mishandled. We’ll simply have to wait another 13 or so weeks for a the full Bombadil experience.
Hey dol! Merry dol! This will be a challenge!
For those that may have missed it, here’s the Bombadil-focused content from Prime Video’s press release on May 29. You can find the entire release here.
CULVER CITY, California—May 29, 2024 — Today, Prime Video revealed that Laurence Olivier Award-winning actor Rory Kinnear (James Bond films, The Imitation Game), who, as previously announced, joined the Season Two cast of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, will portray the fan-favorite J.R.R. Tolkien character Tom Bombadil. The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will premiere exclusively on Prime Video on August 29, 2024.
This announcement comes after much online speculation, as the timeless, mysterious, and jovial Tom Bombadil has been beloved by Tolkien fans for decades. Given his hand in so many key moments of the larger story, the character’s absence from other on-screen depictions of Middle-earth has often been the topic of robust conversation. The news was revealed through brand-new images from the series, and an interview in Vanity Fair that was released online earlier today.
The series’ showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay are excited to bring this new element to the story, and are thrilled that the gifted Kinnear is bringing this iconic character to life. “He’s whimsical and magical, and almost verging on silly. But also has the wisdom of the ages and the music of the spheres and deep emotional wells of ancient history and myth, and his conception and function are tied to Norse myths and have deep roots in European fairy tale,” McKay says. “So weirdly, he’s kind of the mostLord of the Rings thing in Lord of the Rings.” Payne adds, “Tom is sort of a curiosity within that structure because while it is darker, Tom Bombadil is singing and saying lines that could be nursery rhymes from children’s poems. So, he sort of defies the tonal shift of the rest of the season and is a real point of light amidst an otherwise sea of darkness.”
Kinnear embraced the opportunity to jump into the famed yellow boots, elaborating that while the description of Tom Bombadil was well-known to readers, he relished the opportunity to portray the voice and mannerisms of the enigmatic being for the first time in a filmed iteration of Tolkien’s work. “There’s this sense of huge experience, huge openness, huge empathy, and having gone through so much that he [Bombadil] knows it’s the small things that are important. That felt actually quite domestic, felt quite reachable in terms of my understanding of who he was.”
Character Description:
Rory Kinnear plays “Tom Bombadil” a figure of unknown origin in Tolkien’s works who projects a timeless wisdom, often propelling characters in a direction to see things more clearly and helping them better understand the wide world around them. In the lore, he claims to be as old as Middle-earth itself, possessing wisdom far beyond the reaches of others. Essential to the spirit of discovery and of the search for meaning, Bombadil is famously clad in yellow boots, blue jacket, and a feathered hat, and prone to enigmatic expressions in singsong verse.
Additionally, Chris Smith, Tolkien Publishing Director at HarperCollins, revealed in Vanity Fair that the book titled The Adventures of Tom Bombadil will be re-released in paperback by HarperCollins on August 20, 2024, just ahead of the streaming series’ return to Prime Video. Smith said, “It’s my hope that, with the introduction of Rory Kinnear’s portrayal of Tom Bombadil in The Rings of Power, audiences are inspired to learn more about this unique character beloved of generations of readers around the world, and will delight in sharing in his many adventures in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth.”
Vanity Fair have today revealed that one of Tolkien’s most beloved characters to ever hit the cutting room floor will finally make his on-screen debut, courtesy of Prime Video’s second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
The Age of Iarwain Ben-Adar, Oraid, and Forn is finally upon us!
Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow! Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow! Now let his song begin! But what is he after? Fighting off some barrow-wights? Or a masked ring crafter?
Tom Bombadil in The Rings of Power played by Rory Kinnear
To this point, Jolly Tom’s fandom footprints have been largely limited to readers’ imaginations, audio book embellishments, an iconic Hildebrandt Brothers 1976 calendar (seen below), and an occasional illustration on collectible card games. He’s even made a Weta-crafted live action appearance that only made it as far as a long out-of-print Decipher CCG card.
All of that is about to change as Rory Kinnear steps into the role of Middle-earth’s Eldest and Master. An Olivier Award-winning English actor and playwright, Kinnear is perhaps best known for his roles in the Imitation Game, Penny Dreadful, the Daniel Craig era of James Bond movies, and most recently as Churchill in the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Vanity Fair’s article also includes an interview with the man about to fill these large yellow boots.
Our good friends at Volante Opera have been in touch with very exciting news! You may remember, in 2022 and 2023 we brought you news of their work with composer Paul Corfield Godfrey, to bring to life his operas of stories from The Silmarillion.
Godfrey had for many years been working on operatic excerpts from The Lord of the Rings – and during lockdown, he and the Volante Opera folks had even begun recording excerpts, ‘just in case’; but the Tolkien Estate had not granted permission for those works to be released.
We can now exclusively reveal that Godfrey and Volante Opera Productions have been granted permission to release recordings and scores of these works.
There are thirty ‘chapters’, intended to be performed over six evenings. The text is (of course) abridged, but uses as closely as possible Tolkien’s own words; and fans can even look forward to an appearance by that most elusive of characters in adaptations, Tom Bombadil!
The fifteen CD set should be available in 2025. Meanwhile, you can enjoy Volante’s previous recordings of Godfrey’s Silmarillion settings, available to purchase on their website; and here’s a trailer, with aural ‘glimpses’ of what treats we have in store.
Here’s the official press release from Volante Opera:
AT LAST – AN OPERATIC TREATMENT OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS
For many years the Tolkien Estate has refused to allow any musical treatment of the works of the author which employed his own words. Now they have agreed to make a concession in respect of the music of Paul Corfield Godfrey, whose cycle of “epic scenes from The Silmarillion” was finally completed in 2023 with the issue of a ten-CD series of recordings from Volante Opera and Prima Facie Records.
Ever since the 1960s the composer has been working on sketches, fragments and episodes of what was envisaged as a cycle of musical works based upon The Lord of the Rings. Following on from the success of the recordings of The Silmarillion Paul was persuaded to go back to these beginnings and fully explore, expand and complete the work which has now evolved as “musical chapters from The Lord of the Rings”. This fully operatic setting has now become a companion work on the same scale as The Silmarillion. This adaptation takes place over thirty “chapters” designed to be performed over six evenings – over fifteen hours of music.
This work is currently in the process of recording by Volante Opera and it is anticipated that Prima Facie will release a demo recording of the complete cycle, in the same manner as their Silmarillion recordings, in 2025.
Cast
The professional singers, some thirty in number, come mainly from Welsh National Opera. Returning artists from The Silmarillion include: Simon Crosby Buttle as Frodo, Julian Boyce as Sam, Philip Lloyd-Evans as Gandalf, Stephen Wells as Aragorn, Michael Clifton-Thompson as Gollum, Helen Jarmany as Éowyn, Huw Llywelyn as Bilbo, Emma Mary Llewellyn as Arwen, Laurence Cole as Boromir/Denethor, Martin Lloyd as Treebeard/Herb Master, Helen Greenaway as Lobelia/Ioreth, Rosie Hay as Gwaihir, Sophie Yelland as the Barrow-wight, Louise Ratcliffe as Lindir, with George Newton-Fitzgerald and Jasey Hall taking on a plethora of roles. Angharad Morgan will also be reprising her role as Galadriel from The Silmarillion. Our new cast members and their characters will be introduced as the recording process continues.
Those who have enjoyed the composer’s large-scale setting of The Silmarillion will be pleased to discover that the music inhabits the same musical world as before, with many ideas and themes continued and expanded into The Lord of the Rings. The “musical chapters” also incorporate other works by the composer such as his earlier Tolkien songs (already available on CD) which now assume greater significance in the course of the whole structure.
Although the text is inevitably abridged, it adheres without any but the most minor alterations to the author’s original words, and the original plot development remains unchanged – including such elements as Tom Bombadil, the Barrow-wight and the ‘scouring of the Shire’. And some other passages, such as the coronation and wedding of Aragorn, are given expanded musical treatment.
Further tales from Tolkien in music
Also coming early 2025, a complete recording of Paul Corfield Godfrey’s solo piano works played by renowned British concert pianist Duncan Honeybourne. This will include, amongst other works, the epic piano rondo Akallabêth, a solo piano version of the Wedding March from The Fall of Gondolin, and a new work composed specifically for Duncan and this album – ‘The Passing of Arwen’.
For more information about the work please visit: www.paulcorfieldgodfrey.co.uk For more information about the recording by Volante Opera Productions please visit: www.volanteopera.wales Updates about the recording process will be posted to our social media feeds: DISCORD: https://discord.gg/J6bQFHygr7 FACEBOOK: Volante Opera Productions, The Music of Paul Corfield Godfrey INSTAGRAM/THREADS: @volanteopera TWITTER/X: @OperaVolante, @TheCorfield Recordings and scores of Epic Scenes from The Silmarillion and Akallabêth and other Tolkien Works are available from Volante Opera Productions’ website.
Check out Volante’s website for lots more information, including more details on casting/characters, chapter breakdown, and synopsis. So much to look forward to; we can’t wait to hear these pieces in full. Now we hope they may be brought to the stage one day… Meanwhile here’s Godfrey’s ‘Lament for Boromir’ – enjoy!
Texts by J.R.R. Tolkien from The Lord of the Rings and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by permission of the Estate of the author, HarperCollins Publishers and Middle-earth Enterprises.
Recent SPY REPORTS for Season 2 of Prime Video’s The Rings of Power series sourced from anonymous but now-deleted posts on internet messageboard 4Chan are currently prompting a wave of discussion about their veracity and implications across Discord and Reddit .
WARNING: potential SPOILERS for Season 2 abound below.
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Last chance to not be spoiled by significant story leaks for The Rings of Power.
Without further ado, here’s the potentially explosive leak about the story direction for Season 2 of The Rings of Power. While TheOneRing.net has no way of confirming this, the sources are allegedly people close to the series Producers.
Hey dol! Merry dol! The rumour-mill for Rings of Power Season Two has just thrown up a crazy one — Tom Bombadil has supposedly been sighted on the set.
TORn Tuesday’s source “Green Dragon Gossip” said that the actor was — in the diagloue — being called Tom.
Quickbeam: Tom? Hmmm. Do you think that’s a possible Tom Bombadil coming to visit the show?
Staffer Justin: It’s 100 per cent Tom Bombadil. That’s what they’re [the source] saying. Tom Bombadil has been cast and will show up in Season Two.
Fellowship of the Fans recently tweeted what appears to be a cast codename list. We’re unsure whether this is related to our new Bombadil-sized rumour, however Tom Bombadil would have a codename to help keep his identity secret. However, Green Dragon Gossip states that people on set are hearing dialogue of characters talking to him and using the name “Tom”.
TORn Tuesday has not been able to independently verify this rumour. However, DrNosy, one of TORn’s Discord mods, has heard the self-same rumour in recent days from a source close to the production and clarifies that the code-name for the character is “Errol Pram”.
This is certainly some powerful fan catnip. One speculates that — if true — the existing storyline that it would make the most sense to append a Tom Bombadil appearance (a one-episode cameo, perhaps?) would be that of The Stranger and Nori.
That might seem at odds with the stay-at-home nature of Tom that we see in The Lord of the Rings where he declines to step beyond the self-defined borders of his own country, but the Council of Elrond infers that this was not always the case.
And now [emphasis added] he is withdrawn into a little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting perhaps for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them.
Gandalf at The Council of Elrond, The Lord of the Rings
Enormous debates are springing up on the TORn Discord about whether including Tom Bombadil — even as a cameo — is a good idea in an alrerady-weighty production. If you’d like to join our chat, come to Discord.gg/theonering.
‘We come to it at last – the great battle of our time.’ Or – in this case – the great battle of the Ages! On Tuesday 22nd March we’ll kick off this year’s Middle-earth March Madness; and the theme is A Battle of the Ages.
Each of the four brackets this year represents an Age in Tolkien’s Middle-earth. This is the perfect opportunity to brush up on your history, as we get ready for Amazon’s Rings of Power – and the events of the Second Age – in September.
Over the coming weeks, we’ll have some posts to explore these brackets in more depth. What happened in the time of the Two Trees? Who conquered Glaurung in the First Age? And just when were those rings forged in the Second Age? Get ready to explore some History of Middle-earth together, as we vote to decide fandom’s favourite event from thousands of years.
How does it work, you ask? Simple! Staffers at TORn already voted to narrow down the many, many happenings to their top 64, and instead of seeding this year, the events appear in chronological order in each bracket. For each round, we will have a poll, where you vote for your choice in each match-up. Is Gandalf falling to the Balrog more significant than the Last March of the Ents? Are you more interested in when Beren first sees Luthien, or when they recover a Silmaril together? Which is more terrible – the destruction of the Two Trees, or the Elven Kinslaying? You decide!
Join us on Tuesday to kick off the Middle-earth March Madness tournament for 2022. 64 events will start out – but only one will be crowned Champion!
