I can't answer what Bombadil is in the lore of LOTR, he seems to be unique in terms of entities we are shown. But I can tell you what he is at a meta level. You see, LOTR was first told as stories to Tolkiens kids, which you probably already knew, which you may not have known, is that Bombadil was a recurring character in previous stories he had told his children. So at a meta level, Bombadil is just a fun callback to a previous character for his kids to have enjoyed.
this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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So, Hoid of a sort
Thank you for indirectly leading me to discover the book title "The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England". Even if I never work my way to finding out anything further about this corner of literature, that title certainly tickled me.
It's a really fun read. Sanderson gets some hate from literary snobs for his simple writing style but sometimes that's the style of story you need.
(Raises an eyebrow) Who has a problem with Brandon's writing style?
Edit: FYI this comment was meant to rag on him for his writer's tic of having his characters raise a single eyebrow on every other page. Personally while I like many of his stories, his prose has been distractingly awkward at times.
"Serious" literature and fantasy fans often don't like him.
Title is great, but I didnβt read that one yet because thereβs no Hoid in there. I want to complete the Cosmere reread first.
Except Hoid has/will have a story of his own.
A Proto-Hoid for children
This comes closest of the answers in this thread, imo. Tom Bombadil was a figurine/puppet Tolkien or his kids owned and he would devise stories around it. He included it in the main narrative as a sort of mental resting point, where both the reader and the hobbits come at peace for a brief moment. It's completely separate from the main narrative and it doesn't cleanly fit in the story. I think of it as Tom Bombadil, Goldberry and their house basically being in another dimension, which is why neither time nor the ring affect them.
If you are interested in it, Tolkien discussed the nature of Tom Bombadil in several letters and there are some decent youtube videos on the subject.
As far as I know Tom is left as an enigmatic character and never explained. Just a strange encounter to make the world seem larger and more mysterious.
I donβt think that was the intention.
Heβs Q but itβs TLOTR
That's blasphemy, but funny
Blasphemy is always funny
Do we know for sure that Star Trek and LOTR don't play in the same universe?
In Star Trek Enterprise, thereβs an episode where the crew finds a planet being ravaged by disease. Bizarrely, the planet has two humanoid species: one dominant (intelligent, technologically advanced) and one less dominant (less evolved brains). The captain mentions that in every planet theyβve encountered, only one humanoid species survives the process of evolution.
Well, it turns out that the disease is genetic, it only affects the currently-dominant species, and they will go extinct in a few centuries because of it. The same evolutionary phenomenon that explorers encountered countless times before on other planets was happening right before their eyes.
Middle Earth has like at least 3 humanoid species (Man, Elf, Dwarf), more if you count Hobbits and Orcs. Thatβs totally incompatible with Star Trek lore!
Well when we see the story of LotR, the elves and dwarves are disappearing - maybe it's the Trek rule happening in front of us again! Orcs certainly don't seem to fare well during it either. Hobbit are disappearing too, if they're to be counted as separate to humans at all. It's very much becoming a world of humans when the plot of LotR happens
But you just explained it yourself. Currently there >1 humanoid species on planet "Middle Earth", but over time there will likely only be 1 for one reason or another (diseases, dominant races doing the good old genocide, etc.)
So either the Enterprise / Federation hasn't found the planet yet (and it will become the first planet with this many humanoid species on it) or LOTR and ENT simply don't play at the same time.
What about the Xindi?
Maybe the other races don't count as "humanoid"? The dolphin people definitely wouldn't be considered humanoid at least, neither would the ents in middle earth I guess.
Would say Tom is chaotic-good, while Q on the other hand might be chaotic-neutral?
Heβs a merry fellow, bright blue his jacket is and his boots are yellow.
He is a character who is not connected to the main conflict in the story in any way, and is meant to show that the world of middle earth is much larger and more mysterious than what the hobbits/men/elves/orcs are fighting over. His back story was left as a mystery on purpose. The simplest explanation to accept is that youβre just not supposed to know.
There is a whole lot of fan theory and actual letters from Tolkien himself explaining (or rather not explaining) the character.
Some had suggested he was the spirit of "JRR Tolkien" placed into his own book
Bilbo is sort of covering for the professor too
Yes, certainly, as the writer of "There and back again"
Tom represents the incomplete knowledge of mankind and our pre-modern inability to firmly grasp the natural world we live in (and to some extent our continued struggle).
The fantasy world of Middle-Earth is in most ways supernatural to our own. So how much more incomplete would our understanding and knowledge of it been?
Tolkien was a professor of language and mythology and steeped in the ancient epics of the Anglo-saxons and Norse cultures. His career was putting together what these people knew and how they saw the world, but also what they couldn't understand and how they explained their ignorance.
Others here are hinting at what Tom is, but not why he is. He's a manifestation of ignorance. That's why pinning him down is so tricky. It's like pointing at a shadow with a flashlight.
Very good analogy. Questioning Tom Bombadil's role in Middle Earth is the reason Tolkien included him, in my mind at least. The reader sees him as mysterious, mystical, alien, and seemingly detached from the world around him. And we try to fit him into the rest of the world, but not everything fits into nice little boxes. Some aspects of life will always be unknowable. The same goes for history and myth, which Tom seems to be very related to.
I like this answer. Mine would've been "spirit of nature incarnate" or similar, but this captures why I think that.
Tom Bombadil is trustworthy in that he was understood to be incorruptible by the ring. However, he wasn't a trustworthy holder of the ring because he'd probably lose it because he didn't feel the gravity of it. Tom Bombadil is good and trustworthy, but ultimately uncontrollable.
a nature spirit, yeah?
Freelance heating engineer.
He's just this guy, you know?
"Eldest, that's what I am... Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn... He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside."
the Navajo had a tradition of weaving a single, intentional imperfection into the patterns on their blankets and rugs.. they said it was so that their spirit didn't get trapped inside the weave..
TIL - I thought of this as a Persian tradition. Apparently the idea of a deliberate flaw in a woven work features in both cultures.
very cool to know.. it may have been a pretty common practice at one time..
Japanese do this too especially in pottery, it seems like a very old form of artisanry
oohh, thank you for sharing that.. yes, it seems to belong to the very beginning of artistry itself..
I'm pretty sure Islamic art does a similar thing too, to highlight humanity's imperfection or something.
That is a definite threat for artists.
While you're working on your big project, the project definitely has your soul.
If the project comes out perfectly, or is close to perfect, or promises perfection, you might spend forever tweaking. Thus it has your soul forever.
A druidic forest spirit.
Maybe he's a demi-god whose back story we don't know enough about.
Gandalf seems pretty human to start with, but then we find out that he's a superhuman/demigod. That whole circle of wizards seems superhuman.
What was Sauron?
I think CS Lewis and Lewis Carroll had a better approach of just being like "Look, anything we want can show up as part of the story."
Tolkien had to create all of these taxonomies, bloodlines, and typing, which is why we're talking about this.
He's old, very old
My opinion: mostly obnoxious and good he was left out of the movie.
The most boring part of the bookβ¦in my opinion.
That's not Tom. That's the forest
Yeah, thatβs fair.
When I read about him, the first thing that came to mind is the concept of the "original man" from Manichaeism. However, the Lord of the Rings, being a trilogy that owes itself to Catholicism, would rule anything relating to Manichaeism out as a correct interpretation.