I had heard that Tom Bombadil was somebody else entirely.
I knew that. It was an joke.
Damn if that doesn’t hold up.
I think it was the right decision. In order to make the books into movies, it was necessary to compress them significantly. While I love Bombadil as much as the next fan, that segment was relatively easy to cut out without significant impact on any of the rest of the plot, which spared some other more integrated segment from cutting.
Qadgop the Mercotan, your Umbar link does not work for me.
Where did you get that other map, from a scan or web site? Either way I’d love to get some more maps like that and print them for reference. I just got The Children of Hurin, and it has a map of Beleriand but it’s not as nice as the one you linked to. Got any other maps (particularily First Age)?
Tons of maps available via googling. Google umbar, google beleriand, mirkwood, etc. etc.
Or just muck around at the encyclopedia of Arda, they’ve a decent map section.
Fonstad’s “atlas of Middle Earth” is still my fave.
Seeing as how JRRT doesn’t have much to say about it, I’m going with one of the Ainur on extended holiday. They did sing the universe into existence, one would assume their language would be quite different. It would totally explain his indifference and immunity to the ring and some other stuff, I’m sure.
Personally, I maintain that Tom Bombadil is not a maia nor a fey, but a member of the category “Persons who are Tom Bombadil”. There’s nothing else like him.
Well, we know there’s one group that spoke in an a-lalla-lalla-rumba style, and that one of their members described himself like Tom Bombadil: as being “the oldest living thing that still walks beneath the Sun upon this Middle-earth.”
I always saw the character of Tom Bombadil as a forgotten (or simply unused) chess piece. I was greatly disappointed he wasn’t used as a plot twist to move the ring forward in some way.
But he did - as he protected the group and provided shelter/comfort for a period of time.
Interesting idea… though it’s known that JRRT wrote himself into the stories as Beren (a First Age guy) and his wife Edith as Lúthien (daughter of an Elf king and a demigoddess, and an ancestor of several important characters in LOTR).
We know from Sauron’s blog that Tom Bombadil’s language hasn’t changed much since the first age:
http://www.sauronsblog.com/?p=16
make that since before sun and moon
I have had that Sauron’s blog bookmarked for a while, very funny site.
Once again, Qadgop the Mercotan I am in your debt. That encyclopedia of Arda was exactly what I was looking for. I spent about 2 hours last night looking through the site. Thank you!
Encyclopedia of Arda is an EXCELLENT site; I use it as reference whenever I need some fiddling details that I don’t remember for one of these discussions.
true but I was thinking more in line with his power over the ring. I thought of him as a bigger chess piece that would pop up later.
TB had no power over the ring. But also the ring had no power over TB.
If the ring of power had no effect on him then I’d say he held a great advantage as it’s owner.
JRRT didn’t think so. The council of Elrond chapter in FOTR explains why TB would have made a lousy ringbearer.
Do I recall correctly it boiled down to: “He doesn’t recognize the ideas of good/evil”? So conceivable Sauron could just knock on his door and say, “Hey, I hear you have a ring that has this fire-letter inscription? Yeah, that’s mine. Can I have it?” and then the story gets a lot shorter?