Tom Bombadil

Tom Bombadil (Iarwain ben-adar in Sindarin, meaning 'the oldest and the fatherless one') is an enigmatic character literary created by J. R. R. Tolkien in the poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", published in the collection of poems of the same name, where he is described as follows:

Old Tom Bombadil was a happy subject,
Bright blue jacket and yellow boots,
He wore a swan wing pen on his top hat.

- The Adventures of Tom BombadilJ. R. R. Tolkien

He appears later in Book I of The Lord of the Rings, where he assists Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin on their journey out of the Shire. Here we are given a description of his physical appearance:

He had a blue jacket and long chestnut beard, his eyes were blue and shiny and the red face like a mature apple, but folded in hundreds of laughter wrinkles.

- The Lord of the RingsJ. R. R. Tolkien

History

Nature

While the origin and nature of Tom Bombadil remain a mystery, one thing is clear: Tom Bombadil has a very close and special relationship with nature. In appearance, Tom Bombadil is nothing more than a rather short man wearing a blue coat, large yellow boots, and a hat adorned with a blue feather. His reddish face is framed by a long brown beard and bright blue eyes. Tom lived with his wife, Goldberry, in a house on the hill between Old Forest and Barrow Downs. Tom called this area 'my country', and he did not often cross its borders, although we know that he left there to visit Farmer Maggot in the Shire and to catch up with Fattenbutter at the inn." The Prancing Pony” by Bree.

Before the War of the Ring

Tom's origin is uncertain, but according to himself he was already living in Middle-earth before Melkor came to it and Beleriand disappeared under the seas. This means that he was already in it before the arrival of the Valar, among whom Melkor was the first to reach Arda.

The Ancient, that's what I am. Pay attention, my friends: Tom was here before the river and trees. Tom remembers the first drop of rain and the first acorn. He opened trails before the Great People appeared, and saw the Little People come. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Tumularies. When the Elves marched westward, Tom was already here, before the seas were replenished. He knew the darkness under the stars before fear appeared, before the Dark Lord came from Out.

- The Lord of the RingsJ. R. R. Tolkien

It is not very well known what role and importance he had in the battles of the First and Second Ages, but he was a witness, or at least contemporary, of them. He also witnessed the destruction of most of the forests that once covered most of Middle-earth. The level of his interaction with the peoples of Middle-earth is also not very well known, but at some point he became a folkloric icon of elves, men and dwarves.

During the War of the Ring

As every year at the end of summer, Tom collected lilies for his wife, Goldberry, and it was on one of these outings in September of the year 3018 of the Third Age that he met Frodo and Sam and helped them rescue to Merry and Pippin of the Old Man-Willow. After getting the Willow Man to release the Hobbits with a song, Tom invites them to his house, where they spend a couple of nights. Normally, he always sang or spoke in the form of verses, which made him seem like an absurd being, but within the Old Forest his power was absolute and there was no evil powerful enough to reach him. One of those days, in his house, Tom put on the One Ring and, to everyone's astonishment, he did not become invisible, returning it with a smile to its wearer.

Tom Bombadil advised them before they set out to head for the Great Eastern Road, but the Hobbits became lost in the mist. After being captured by the Wights, Frodo sang the song that Tom Bombadil taught him and Bombadil came to his aid. After freeing the Hobbits, Tom provided them with Wight weapons and chose for Goldberry a brooch with a large blue stone.

When Merry's ponies disappeared from the Prancing Pony's stables, they ended up reuniting with Tom's pony, Fat Lumpy, and were left in Bombadil's care until he sent them back with Butterweed. Many elves from Rivendell, such as Elrond or Erestor, or other beings from Middle-earth, such as Gandalf, wanted Tom to attend the Council of Elrond, but they did not invite him because they assumed that he would not travel beyond their borders.

During the Council of Elrond one suggested option was to give the ring to Tom, but this idea was rejected, as although the ring had no power over him, Tom might not have enough power to protect him from Sauron or to destroy him, and in any case he didn't look like he was going to be a very attentive guardian. After the War of the Ring, Gandalf went to visit Tom Bombadil and enjoyed long walks with him. No one knows for sure what happened on these walks and what they talked about.

Origin

Of unknown origin, older than the earth itself, he loves nature above all things and can control it thanks to poetry. His nature is a matter of discussion among followers of the book series:

• There is a possibility that it is a Valar, since Tolkien explains that the Valars respond to many names, and it seems likely that the power of one of them was sufficient that the Ring had no influence on it. Some believe that it could be Oromë, the Valar that relates to the earth and enjoys taking walks along the Middle Earth as Tom himself does, another point in favor of this theory is the appearance of the wife of Tom Bombadil, Baya de Oro, who holds the attributes of Vána, the Valar wife of Oromë. While others speculate that it is Aulë, the Valar maker of the dwarves. Tom's appearance recalls that of the dwarfs, and also as in the case of Oromë, the appearance of his wife Baya de Oro, reminds Yavanna, wife of Aulë and sister of Vána the wife of Oromë. It would seem logical for Aulë to help in the case against two Maiars who were once in charge, which would be both Sauron and Saruman. A counter-argument to this theory, however, is that Bombadil claims to have lived on the Middle Earth before Melkor, which contradicts Tolkien's writings that speak of Melkor as the first Ainur that descended to Arda.
• It is considered, as a derivative of the previous theory, as one of the Maiars, primordial spirits of less power than the Valars. This theory has sometimes been accepted almost as an official fact, since the nature of the Maiars, significantly powerful and without a known number, welcomes the possibility that Tom could be one of them. However, along with the difficulties raised in the first theory, the fact that the Unique Ring does not seem to affect it opens up a new problem in the explanation, as others Maiar as Gandalf, Saruman and even Sauron himself are somewhat subordinate to the power of the Ring. This could be explained if Tom was a more powerful Maia than Sauron, but Eönwë is the only one of them explicitly described as such, and it is remarkable the absence in the texts of any other Maia that could share its importance and have Tom's attributes. Likewise, it is found in the council of Elrond that even Bombadil would not resist the power of a restored Sauron, so its superiority over it ceases to be a probable option.
• The fact that his name in elphic is translated as "the oldest" and "the one who has no father", coupled with his apparent omnipotence within the territory he himself self-imposes, has led some to consider the possibility that he is actually the very Eru Iluvatar, the creator of the world. The curious response of Baya de Oro to Frodo’s question of who Tom is, “he is”, as a reference to Yahweh’s biblical quote “I am the one I am”. However, this theory was formally refuted by Tolkien, who denied that there was any incarnation of Eru within the Middle Earth, and also denied that the phrase was such a reference.
• It is also possible, according to the Lost Tales, to be a spirit that does not belong to the world, such as the "Nermir and the Tavari, Nandini and Orossi, goblins, fairies, naughty spirits, leprawns, among other names; however, it is necessary not to confuse them with the Eldar because they have been born before the world and are older than what it has of older, and it does not give them much. The ethereal nature of these beings could allow him not to be affected by the powers of the Ring, and his condition as not belonging to the world could metaphysically marry Tom's claim to have lived before any other being on the Middle Earth. However, some have questioned these notions.
• Another theory argues that Bombadil is some kind of personified spirit or representation of the same Middle Earth. The fact that your figure remains commonly associated with the earth and that Baya de Oro has attributes linked to the rivers and forests makes us think that both could be the living spirits of these environments. This theory would explain the characteristics of Bombadil to be older than the mountain and the forest (interpreting this as having existed when Arda was just a mass report as described in the Ainulindalë) and not having a father (not being the Middle Earth a "son" or Iluvatar vástago as the Ainur or the elves, but a material creation, made also not only by Eru) Likewise, this would align with Elrond's assertion that even Bombadil would not resist all of Sauron's power, since a recurring theme in Tolkien's imaginary is the manifest ability of evil to violent the earth and its natural environment. Tolkien himself called Bombadil on one occasion "the spirit of the fields of Oxford and Berkshire," and always sat down the presence of spirits in the fields and stones of the Middle Earth.
• One last theory defends the possibility of Tom Bombadil representing the same J. R. R. Tolkien. The description of Bombadil of being the oldest would reflect that Tolkien is older than the lands of the fictitious world he devised, and his country character would correspond to the idealized image that Tolkien had of life in the countryside, one of the most common themes in his writings, which is reflected, for example, in the Hobbits region. Tom Bombadil could thus be a personification of his personal tastes or ideas, or a reflection of himself or whom he wished to be.

Probably the character is, as Tolkien himself suggested, an intentional enigma, unclassifiable within the imaginary world of Middle-earth. Thus, it becomes clear that Tom is a unique presence in Middle-earth.

Character conception

Within the family of J. R. R. Tolkien, Tom Bombadil was originally a Dutch doll belonging to Tolkien's childhood. Tolkien later wrote a poem about him called "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", published in the Oxford Magazine in 1934, long before he began writing The Lord of the Rings. In letter 19, dated December 16, 1937, Tolkien says to the editor of The Hobbit: "Do you think Tom Bombadil, the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside, could become the hero of a story? Or is he, as I suspect, entirely enshrined in the verses I enclose? (“The Adventures of Tom Bombadil”). Even so, he could enlarge the portrait ». And of course he did.

When Tolkien decided to introduce Tom into the trilogy, he needed to be changed quite a bit from him or his poem, except for the feather in his hat - it was changed from a peacock to a swan, because peacocks they did not live in Middle-earth. In volume one of the History of the Lord of the Rings, thanks to Christopher Tolkien, we can read how Tolkien was configuring it. In a letter written to the original editor of the Trilogy in 1954, Tolkien reveals a little about Tom's literary role or what his role might be. At the beginning of the letter, he writes that "even in a mythological Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are." Tom Bombadil is one of them (intentionally)".

In an early draft Tom doesn't even appear, he saves the hobbits by singing from afar. He then saves them again in the Mounds and there he takes them to his house. In later entries, the story is more like it is now, but Tom's nature wasn't safe, just ideas. He even wanted Farmer Maggot to be a relative of Tom's, he says referring to the farmer: “that he be not a hobbit, but another creature; not a dwarf, but someone related to Tom Bombadil." Even in this scheme, the hobbits only stayed one night in Tom's house and left, so Tom didn't matter much until then. Later, with time, re-readings and corrections, he would give more importance to the character, turning him each time into a more enigmatic and neutral being.

Names

Gandalf calls Tom Bombadil the oldest in existence; this is reaffirmed by his name in Sindarin which is "Iarwain Ben-adar", which means "oldest and fatherless". The dwarves call it 'Forn', which in Scandinavian means 'ancient' and 'belonging to the past'. Men call him "Orald", in German it can be translated as 'very old'. They all have in common that they apparently mean 'old'. All this can be simplified in that surely Tom Bombadil is the oldest being in all of Middle-earth and he lived there before all other beings. Yet at one point Gandalf refers to Treebeard as "the oldest living thing in Middle-earth". The apparent contradiction is not such, since Tom Bombadil is not technically "a living being" but a spirit, although its precise nature is not clear.^{[citation required]}

Accommodations

Tom Bombadil does not appear in any of the three films directed by Peter Jackson (he claimed that he was not necessary for the story), nor do any of the events narrated in the novel about the Old Forest in the first film. However, in the extended version on DVD of the second of the films in the trilogy (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers), a scene very similar to that of the Old Man-Willow was included., but transferred to Fangorn and starring an uhorn. In this scene the one who "sings" to free Merry and Pippin is not Tom Bombadil but Treebeard.

However, it does appear in the video game The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and in The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II. The representation of the character in the two video games is different: in The Battle for Middle-earth II he is presented as a jolly old man with long white hair and beard, dressed in the clothing described in the video game. book, and with the power to use his voice as a weapon, fighting his enemies by singing and dancing; meanwhile, in the first mentioned video game, Bombadil is more true to the novel's description, with brown hair. He also appears in the video game & # 34; Lord of the Rings Online & # 34; and he can be found in his house between the forest and the ravine of the mounds. He also appears in the video game "Lego The Lord of the Rings", as a character available for "purchase". and retains his characteristic appearance: blue jacket, yellow boots, brown hair and beard, and hat. He appears in the Hobbiton borders and can only be purchased during the day.