I am not really a fan of that sort of thing. Neither of these are even done well.
Originally I didn’t like Tom Bombadil (especially after reading Bored of the Rings), but later, tonally, I came to feel that the visit to Tom and Goldberry was the last bit of pure sunshine left from being near the Shire before they begin the dissent into the darker story. So I did grow to like it.
Hey, they weren’t commoners, Pippin was the eldest son of the Thain and Merry was the Eldest son of the Master of Buckland. They were probably the highest ranked young Hobbits in the Shire in fact.
But I agree with the 0 level to 10th level part.
Well, he was. Being trapped and slowly crushed inside Old Man Willow is a pretty gnarly prospect. The guy who makes a song about it ? Creepier.
Yeah, Aristocrats, but level 1.
I never got that. Was the Witch King killed by the power of semantics?
How could they be “outmatched”? I thought they were immortal. You don’t need to be particularly powerful physically or skilled with a sword if you can’t be killed by conventional weapons.
Well, Tolkien was an English Professor…
They couldn’t be killed, but they could be discorporated. They’ll come back, but in the short term it amounts to the same thing.
It’s a virtual death sentence on whomever strikes effectively at one. (Well, okay, hitting them with a river is probably safe.)
Who among us is immune to the power of some antics?
So, some hobbits go into an agent’s office, and they say, “we’ve got this act we want to tell you about…”
My thoughts exactly. I liked Tom … I didn’t like his singing all that much but I liked him. He was a hint of greater mysteries about this world.
No. People always get that one ass-backwards. The prophecy isn’t that he can’t be killed by man - but that he* won’t*. It’s not a “if you do A, then B will happen” prophecy, it’s a “B is what’s gonna happen” prophecy, in the Greek mold - inexorable, inescapable fate.
Of course, I can’t blame people for missing the difference - the Witch-King didn’t get it, either 
[QUOTE=Glorfindel]
He will not return to this land. Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall.
[/QUOTE]
So, why and how does Eowyn gets to frag him, and specifically her ? Well, one theory is that Merry’s magic knife weakened him enough for a full kill, but my own opinion is that she really didn’t. She merely destroyed his corporeal form temporarily, same as with any Nazgul “kill”.
And then the Ring blew up before he could reform again, and the Nazgûl along with it.
No, his dagger was wrought with spells especially for the overthrow of Angmar. Merry’s magic dagger weakened his bond, and then Eowyn could kill him. As Kobal2 put it, it was a prophecy and one the Witch King relied upon.
The Bored of the Rings versions were sure hippies. What where their names? Tim Benzedrine and Hashbrownie?
Hashbury…as in Haight-Ashbury.
I’ve never before come across – or conceived of – speculation about Tom Bombadil as an evil being, who just puts on a show of benevolence and jollity. The “He’s the Witch-King” piece would seem, for sure, to be tongue-in-cheek; but the piece linked-to in Merneith’s post #17, gave me some pause for thought – without my being anywhere near sold on the theory. There’s an interesting angle mentioned in both, on Galdalf’s parting with the hobbits on the final leg of the homeward journey, for his desired long talk with Bombadil. I’d always seen this as a friendly affair, with the two – at great length – comparing notes and chewing the fat over millennia of history; but if Bombadil is evil, then the scenario of a showdown, with Gandalf possibly casting him down or out, is appropriate.
I’ve seen on another board, a further non-standard “take” on Bombadil – the suggestion that although he’s benign, he is in fact not completely all-powerful in his realm of creepy things: he has to be proactive and wary in maintaining his position, and can at times be vulnerable to the “nasties” (presumably his house is a safe zone). Suggested evidence for this, was drawn from one of his sayings:
“None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master:
His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster.”
The inference drawn, being the possibility of evil things actually catching Tom unawares and accomplishing his undoing: hence the “None has ever caught him”, etc. Not merely Tom spouting rhyming nonsense, as is often his wont: and shedding light on his perpetually rushing around as though in a great hurry, and making lots of noise. An interesting perspective on the T.B. enigma…
I tend to the view that LOTR – as with a good many works in the “fantasy” ballpark – too-rigorous searching for logic / consistency is unlikely to have a very happy outcome for the searcher: rather, a case to make, for disbelief-suspension apparatus to be put on to working overtime. Examples, a couple of things mentioned in this thread. For one, the hobbits being unlikely to make it to Bree, with the Riders in pursuit, if it were not for their deviation through the Old Forest, and Bombadil’s help (my feeling would be, if there had been no Bombadil / spooky forest, the author would have found some other means of getting the party where they needed to go, un-annihilated). Or: the unlikelihood of Bombadil (there and in place, for countless ages before hobbits settled in the Shire) being totally unknown and unheard-of by the hobbits – even the Bucklanders, who at times venture into the Old Forest. Re this last, I for one would be inclined to think, “In the scheme of the whole epic, minor details – let ‘em go.”
It wasn’t that the dagger was designed to destroy him. It’s just that like so much of the magic in Middle Earth, the dagger had an affinity for/with it’s old owner, the long-dead mortal enemy of the Witch King. As such, the dagger was anathematic to its masters’ old foe. It was unbearable to the WK in the same way that elven rope burned Gollum or elven food was nasty to orcs and Gollum.
And it’s totally awesome detail for the story. My favorite in the whole trilogy. Revenge from beyond the grave in the form of one’s enemy’s weapon.
Oh, absolutely; it’s just a dumb game, like the Sherlock Holmes game (which has drawn some people to the degree of reading period newspapers to study train schedules and weather reports!)
(I wish I could find it again; I once read an essay where the writer deduces who “Mycroft Holmes” really was, some real-life civic functionary – a permanent-under-secretary? – who had immense behind-the-scenes power. It wasn’t wholly convincing, but was definitely worth contemplating.)
Some of these Bombadil objections, I’ll trow, none of us ever actually thought of when we first read the chapters in question. We have to work to come up with objections this picayune!
Merry had something for the witch king, Pippin had something to impress Denethor with, Sam’s sword helped confuse Sauron when it was taken from Frodo. Bombadil was also an important talking point during the Council of Elrond.