/lit/ - Literature

>>4430950
I found them very peaceful (I did not care for the songs though). The chapters with Tom Bombadil are very early in the book, if you find them difficult or boring I would not recommend reading further because while the story becomes less whimsical it does continue to retain many of the same qualities here (natural imagery, poetry, descriptions of magic, etc.)

inb4 shitstorm

I once read a parody version where Bombadil was The Dude. The character made sense to me then. Maybe think of him as being played by Jeff Bridges, and it'll go down easier.

Who is John Galt?

>>4430950
Hes not even in it that much.

What makes it insufferable? Use your words, OP.

I don't get it, how can Tom be so insufferable?

Do you imply ancient folklore to be insufferable

But Tom was the GOAT character

Not liking old Tom Bombadillo, what are you, a pleb?
Those chapters were comfy as hell.

I actually just finished The Fellowship for the first time yesterday.
My boyfriend told me to just skip the Tom Bombadil chapter because "the book comes to a grinding halt" (his words, not mine). I actually liked Tom though. Cool old guy that's probably high as shit on Hobbit Weed has a hot ass wife and a wicked verbal tick. He enjoys running through the forest and yelling at plant all day. I mean, it wasn't my favorite chapter but it was definitely "lol wut" enough for me to get through it.

>MFW Tom Bombadil

>>4432943
Boyfriend

>>4430950
Don't bother, you won't appreciate it anyway, what with your being an utter pleb.

If you thought Tom was boring how the hell did you get through the Old Forest? Oh look a hill, then a tree branch, then another hill, then another hill. Here's a valley. Now here's another hill.

Fortunately the rest of the series isn't like that.

>not liking based tom

Shit taste as usual /lit/

>>4432984
But most people are saying they liked the Tom parts you fool

>>4432993
I only read the OP

As much as I love LOTR, the Fellowship of the Ring is boring as all fuck until Aragorn shows up. Like I give two fucks about Frodo's real estate problems.

This is one thing I thought the Hobbit did a thousand times better than LOTR. Right off the bat Bilbo goes adventuring, none of that birthday shit.

I don't like it when Tom and/or the Hobbits start spontaneously jigging. It takes me right out of the book, every single time; always with the same thought: "That's fucking stupid. Who starts randomly jigging in the middle of a meal?"

>>4432943
>boyfriend
>no qt3.14 /lit/ gf to talk to about books
>thread derailed
>feels
>etc.

On a more serious note, it was odd, but Tom as a character is just so fucking ridiculous that I enjoyed it, to some extent.

>>4433006
I thought the Shadow of the Past was the best chapter in the first book.

>>4433006

But that's wrong you fucking retard.

>>4432943
>>4433032
>impliying she's a she

>>4433007
hobbits

>>4433006
>muh hawllywoo ackshung

>>4433006

Sometime, you should just decide to go for an adventure. Leave behind your house. You can't tell anyone where you are going, except the friends that will just have to travel with you. Abandon all your possessions and your money, it wouldn't do you any good. Also you cannot reveal who you are, there may be strange giants chasing you to kill you and steal your shit. Oh and you have to walk.

This is hella compelling to me at least. The one part that is pretty silly is the eighteen-year timeskip between the party and the rest of the story, I was always secretly glad the movies snipped that. How fucking long could it even take for the Nazgul to find the Shire?

>>4433839
the shire is not bumfuck, kentucky. it's even worse. most people in middle earth aren't even aware hobbits are a thing, let alone know where they live.

Where's that pasta about how he's actually a horrifically powerful dark wizard that Gandalf kills before sailing off to magic elf land at the end of LOTR?
I'm pretty sure my estranged brother wrote it -- at the very least he independently came to a similar conclusion

>>4433856

Tom Bombadil is the Witch-King of Angmar:

http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/theories/bombadil.htm

>>4433843

True, maybe I should have added "also you're a midget

>>4433888
"

>>4433886
>2. We never see them together.

We never Boromir and Theoden together either. Boromir confirmed for being Theoden!

>>4433896

That's the point, it is a crack-pot.

>>4433898
Ur mums a crack-pot.

>>4433900

Tom Bombadil is Walt Whitman

When Isildur had control of the One Ring, why didn't he use it to command the Ringwraiths? Or the Elven-rings? Or the Dwarven-rings? He could have ruled the whole of Middle-earth with that Ring, yet he decided instead to just write a couple of letters and then go for an unfortunate swim. What's his problem, anyway? Was he stupid?

>>4433923
>missing the point

>Pick up copy of LOTR because of generations of hype
>Realize the writing is awful

Mate, you've just been initiated. Welcome to the over-13-and/or-not-a-drug-addled-hippie club.

because the only people who read lotr are manchildren

>>4433928
As a drug addled hippie this offends me. LOTR was physically painful.

>>4433926

No, the Ring is shown to affect some men by causing them to lust for power over others, while those who don't wish to have power will be capable of resisting it. This is what is illustrated with Boromir, Faramir, Denethor. Isildur demonstrated enough of a desire for power to take the One Ring, but not enough of a desire for power to start to influence the others. But after all think what using the ring to master the others would mean; he, the effective ruler of the two biggest kingdoms of humankind in the vicinity would have to start to try to dominate and control the greatest and oldest of the elves and the kings of the dwarves, they wouldn't let him do that and he would have to be insane to do it. It's not like the ring was immediately going to make him lose his fucking mind and start a straight up race war.

Because it's over in like 15 seconds. Jesus christ if your attention span is this pitiful how do you read at all?

>>4433923

The Ring grants power proportionate to your own. Isildur, though great, is only a man. Gandalf and Galadriel each admit that taking the Ring would grant them power enough to destroy Sauron, but only at the cost of becoming the next Dark Lord or Lady.

>>4433937
It's possible to be a smoking, tripping hippie without being addled. I was one myself when I tried to read it and found it atrocious. Most of the hippies I met who loved it were also the sorts of idiots who followed the dead and phish everywhere. For some reason that particular class of dimwit loves LOTR. It's a cultural touchstone for them. God knows why. Perhaps because it's one of the few books they've ever read.

>>4433949
>Because it's over in like 15 seconds.
So are most murders.

>>4433953
>Yfw I love festivals

I don't follow bands around selling drugs to eat though, and Phish is not really my cup o' joe.

/off-topic convo

>>4433910
You would say that you shit-eating piece of shit

>>4433960
Walt would have said "shit-eating dog", though. He was much more concise than you. And that's saying something.

Old Tom Bombadil. Possibly the least liked character in The Lord of the Rings. A childish figure so disliked by fans of the book that few object to his absence from all adaptations of the story. And yet, there is another way of looking at Bombadil, based only on what appears in the book itself, that paints a very different picture of this figure of fun.

What do we know about Tom Bombadil? He is fat and jolly and smiles all the time. He is friendly and gregarious and always ready to help travellers in distress.

Except that none of that can possibly be true.

Consider: By his own account (and by Elrond’s surprisingly sketchy knowledge) Bombadil has lived in the Old Forest since before the hobbits came to the Shire. Since before Elrond was born. Since the earliest days of the First Age.

And yet no hobbit has ever heard of him.

The guise in which Bombadil appears to Frodo and his companions is much like a hobbit writ large. He loves food and songs and nonsense rhymes and drink and company. Any hobbit who saw such a person would tell tales of him. Any hobbit who was rescued by Tom would sing songs about him and tell everyone else. Yet Merry – who knows all the history of Buckland and has ventured into the Old Forest many times – has never heard of Tom Bombadil. Frodo and Sam – avid readers of old Bilbo’s lore – have no idea that any such being exists, until he appears to them. All the hobbits of the Shire think of the Old Forest as a place of horror – not as the abode of a jolly fat man who is surprisingly generous with his food.

If Bombadil has indeed lived in the Old Forest all this time – in a house less than twenty miles from Buckland – then it stands to reason that he has never appeared to a single hobbit traveller before, and has certainly never rescued one from death. In the 1400 years since the Shire was settled.

What do we know about Tom Bombadil? He is not what he seems.

Elrond, the greatest lore-master of the Third Age, has never heard of Tom Bombadil. Elrond is only vaguely aware that there was once someone called Iarwain Ben-Adar (“Oldest and Fatherless”) who might be the same as Bombadil. And yet, the main road between Rivendell and the Grey Havens passes not 20 miles from Bombadil’s house, which stands beside the most ancient forest in Middle Earth. Has no elf ever wandered in the Old Forest or encountered Bombadil in all these thousands of years? Apparently not.

Gandalf seems to know more, but he keeps his knowledge to himself. At the Council of Elrond, when people suggest sending the Ring to Bombadil, Gandalf comes up with a surprisingly varied list of reasons why that should not be done. It is not clear that any of the reasons that he gives are the true one.

Now, in his conversation with Frodo, Bombadil implies (but avoids directly stating) that he had heard of their coming from Farmer Maggot and from Gildor’s elves (both of whom Frodo had recently described). But that also makes no sense. Maggot lives west of the Brandywine, remained there when Frodo left, and never even knew that Frodo would be leaving the Shire. And if Elrond knows nothing of Bombadil, how can he be a friend of Gildor’s?

What do we know about Tom Bombadil? He lies.

A question: what is the most dangerous place in Middle Earth? First place goes to the Mines of Moria, home of the Balrog, but what is the second most dangerous place? Tom Bombadil’s country.
By comparison, Mordor is a safe and well-run land, where two lightly-armed hobbits can wander for days without meeting anything more dangerous than themselves. Yet the Old Forest and the Barrow Downs, all part of Tom’s country, are filled with perils that would tax anyone in the Fellowship except perhaps Gandalf.

Now, it is canonical in Tolkein that powerful magical beings imprint their nature on their homes. Lorien under Galadriel is a place of peace and light. Moria, after the Balrog awoke, was a place of terror to which lesser evil creatures were drawn. Likewise, when Sauron lived in Mirkwood, it became blighted with evil and a home to monsters.

The Bombadil episode has pretty obviously been interpolated from another story or another legend, it's clearly something unrelated to the larger work and most likely the result of a corruption of the text.

And then, there’s Tom Bombadil’s Country.

The hobbits can sense the hatred within all the trees in the Old Forest. Every tree in that place is a malevolent huorn, hating humankind. Every single tree. And the barrows of the ancient kings that lie nearby are defiled and inhabited by Barrow-Wights. Bombadil has the power to control or banish all these creatures, but he does not do so. Instead, he provides a refuge for them against men and other powers. Evil things – and only evil things – flourish in his domain. “Tom Bombadil is the master” Goldberry says. And his subjects are black huorns and barrow wights.

What do we know about Tom Bombadil? He is not the benevolent figure that he pretends to be.

Tom appears to the Ringbearer in a friendly, happy guise, to question and test him and to give him and his companions swords that can kill the servants of another evil power. But his motives are his own.

Consider: it is said more than once that the willows are the most powerful and evil trees in the Forest. Yet, the rhyme that Bombadil teaches the hobbits to use in conjuring up Bombadil himself includes the line, “By the reed and willow.” The willows are a part of Bombadil’s power and a means of calling on him. They draw their strength from the cursed river Withywindle, the centre of all the evil in the Forest.

And the springs of the Withywindle are right next to Tom Bombadil’s house.

And then there is Goldberry, “the river-daughter”. She is presented as Bombadil’s wife, an improbably beautiful and regal being who charms and beguiles the hobbits. It is implied that she is a water spirit, and she sits combing her long, blonde hair after the manner of a mermaid. (And it is worth remembering that mermaids were originally seen as monsters, beautiful above the water, slimy and hideous below, luring sailors to drown and be eaten.) But I suggest the name means that in her true state, Goldberry is nourished by the River – that is, by the proverbially evil Withywindle.

In folklore and legend (as Tolkien would know well) there are many tales of creatures that can take on human form but whose human shape always contains a clue to their true nature. So what might Goldberry be? She is tall and slender - specifically she is “slender as a willow wand”. She wears a green dress, sits amidst bowls of river water and is surrounded by the curtain of her golden hair. I suggest that she is a Willow tree conjured into human form, a malevolent huorn like the Old Man Willow from whom the hobbits have just escaped. If she is not indeed the same tree.

>>4433984
>>4433985
>>4433988

So, if this is true, then why does Bombadil save and help the ringbearer and his companions? Because they can bring about the downfall of Sauron, the current Dark Lord of Middle Earth. When Sauron falls, the other rings will fail and the wizards and elves will leave Middle Earth and the only great power that is left will be Bombadil.

There is a boundary around Bombadil’s country that he cannot or will not pass, something that confines him to a narrow space. And in return, no wizard or elf comes into his country to see who rules it, or to disturb the evil creatures that gather under his protection.

When the hobbits return to the Shire after their journey to Mordor, Gandalf leaves them close to Bree and goes towards Bombadil’s country to have words with him. We do not know what they say. But Gandalf was sent to Middle Earth to contend against Sauron and now he must depart. He has been given no mission to confront Bombadil and he must soon leave Middle Earth to powerless men and hobbits, while Bombadil remains, waiting to fulfill his purpose.

To speculate further and more wildly:

The spell that binds Bombadil to his narrow and cursed country was put in place centuries ago by the Valar to protect men and elves. It may last a few decades more, perhaps a few generations of hobbit lives. But when the last elf has gone from the havens and the last spells of rings and wizards unravel, then it will be gone. And Iarwain Ben-Adar, Oldest and Fatherless, who was ruler of the darkness in Middle Earth before Sauron was, before Morgoth set foot there, before the first rising of the sun, will come into his inheritance again. And one dark night the old trees will march westward into the Shire to feed their ancient hatred. And Bombadil will dance down amongst them, clad in his true shape at last, singing his incomprehensible rhymes as the trees mutter their curses and the black and terrible Barrow-Wights dance and gibber around him. And he will be smiling.

/pasta
https://fuuka.warosu.org/lit/thread/S4334510#p4342396

>>4430963

...You might be onto something there

>>4433991
>>4433988
>>4433985
>>4433984

This is a shitload of buildup that fumbles its eventual point and then goes insane for no reason. Bombadil is basically a local spirit, an incarnation of a certain place, something fundamentally unlike the Valar or Maiar but basically a primal spirit that entered the creation. This is Tolkien's explanation for the existence of "heathens" in a world that is on the face of it straight up created by only one god who leads one pantheon basically - Tom manifests as a literal "pagan god", like a country deity: "master of wind wood & hill". Since hobbit society is exclusively secular and generally cannot conceptualize the notion of anything higher or more splendid than "oh my god fukken elves", he simply appears to the hobbits as a friendly bro in the woods, exactly what they needed in the hostile Old Forest. Why?

Because he is a friend of Gandalf's. They were both spirits that existed before the world was created, even if one remains faithful to God and one goes and sublimates himself into the creation. They are capable of communicating, but within his own little world Tom essentially does not have to give a fuck about Gandalf's business and it's not in Gandalf's nature to force him to do so. Nonetheless Gandalf convinces him to look out for the hobbits since he's just thinking "shit, if that dumbass Frodo heads off to Bree this way he will be running through the Barrowdowns and he will get wrecked" and wants to help them avoid this peril.

Gandalf doesn't really need to "confront" Tom, they are not antagonistic. Tom is not an evil entity really, but of a completely foreign nature to things like Gandalf. He is also completely foreign to things like Sauron, though Sauron unlike Gandalf would some day destroy Tom's countryside, his place (and thus himself, see Morgoth's Ring for more on this idea of spirits in Tolkien kind of submerging themselves into the world).

tl;dr Tom is a pagan god in a monotheistic cosmos

>>4434033

See, I love the mythology aspect of LoTR.

But it seems like Tolkien didn't go full myth, like he couldn't decide if he wanted a fictional history with realistic cultures or if he wanted an epic myth. There's such detailed descriptions of individual cultures and habits alongside fueding angels and demi-gods. It's cool and there's nothing wrong with that obviously, but it just makes me OCD or something, like it just doesn't fit.

Anybody else think this? Am I just retarded?

>>4434053

LotR is the Red Book of Westmarch, right? It's a hobbit artifact, a book by a culture that doesn't normally care at all about high magic and badass gods and monsters and elves and is content to remain occupied with itself, that tries to square a voyage into this larger "storybook" world with the accustomed ritual of everyday life in the Shire. The cultures aren't exactly "realistic": though detailed, they are mythicized, the way real cultures will sometimes mythicize each other in narrative. Think of how richly described the culture of the people in Beowulf is - this was an Anglo-Saxon writing about Geats and Danes, yet he lavishes detail on the conduct of their feasts, courts, funerals, warbands.

It's the other cultures that have the epic myth: the heroes of the book follow some random guy from being a wandering wilderness policeman in a generations-old tribal guerilla army (!!) to being king of most of the civilized fucking world, but at the end they go back home where nobody even gives a shit. Gandalf burned to goddamn death and rose again from the dead on top of the tallest mountain on the continent and these midget fuckers were busy farming and smoking tobacco. Some of them might have heard of elves, but how many of them could tell you that elves worship a giant female angel that they claim created the stars to provide light after the primordial rebel and the embodiment of the void external to creation joined forces to suck the life from the great magical trees that lit the entire world, or that this wasn't even the first conflict these forces had had and he had already smashed their lights in the spirit of fuck you once before in a totally different act of unprovoked aggression?

>>4434116

None of them, that's fucking who. The hobbits by and large don't know shit, and only a few of them - people like Bilbo and Frodo - are trying to represent these other cultures that have been around for THOUSANDS of years (really think about that, just try to imagine what a society like Gondor's would look like to someone coming from a fundamentally "modern" source like the Shire - imagine if the ancient Romans were still around, and also still ruled their empire with an iron fist, wielding swords and shit, what would you even say to one of those guys?) in the only way they can.

It's a fantasy world seen by a guy who, for all his love of reading about the "greater world", was basically content to stay in his own little world.

The elves out there believe in epic myths, but hobbits just believe in eating and smoking and drinking and partying and working but not too hard because that would be industrialization which is bad. But the two remain in tension for Frodo, the authorial voice: he of all hobbits is aware that the existence of the Shire is only made possible by the huge drama of elves and men and gods fighting monsters and devils, he has in fact experienced the real life that people in the Shire can only read about (and only a few of them care to, probably) and knows what he's seen. He hasn't seen Elbereth - but he knows that when he invoked this elvish gem in her name, it saved him from some horrible shit. I mean he literally undertook and then failed a mission to kill a fallen angel, he knows that there is way more to this world than exists in the Shire and that there is truth to these myths that elves and men tell.

That's why he can't reintegrate into the Shire after the War of the Ring: his experience of the "storybook world" has flipped-turned his life upside down, and the Shire is the unattainable fantasy, while Middle-earth is real. And he can't stand that and so must leave, yo holmes to bel air

So this is the first actually interesting argument on /lit/ I've read in quite some time. Kudos

>>4434116
>>4434121

10/10, thank you, that explained it very well

http://km-515.livejournal.com/1042.html

Soon...

>>4434121

So basically Frodo is like a war reporter who can't settle down.

>>4434121

>I mean he literally undertook and then failed a mission to kill a fallen angel

He failed?

>>4433886

Doesn't he grab the ring to look at it and put it on before giving it back to Frodo?

>>4433923

He didn't have the ability to actually use the ring to control other people. I got the impression from Galadriel that it's something you have to train your mind for or it'll destroy the person trying to use it like that.

>>4434279

He claimed the ring for himself, it was only thanks to Gollum that the ring got destroyed

>>4434279
Sort of. When he got to the volcano he gave in to the ring's temptation. The only thing that finished the ring off was the fact that Gollum stole it back and then tripped.

So then Sauron was defeated apparently by random chance, not Frodo. My take on it is that Gollum tripping into the pit was God/Eru finally intervening in some small way to prevent evil from destroying middle earth.

It still makes Frodo a hero - he got the ring to the right place. But he didn't fully succeed in his mission.

I thought it was a pretty heartwarming chapter

>>4430950
Oh, dude.

You did not just shit on the one part of LotR that has thematic value.

>>4430950
You cannot be serious. You read the part were four hobbits meet someone who is most likely an Ainur who lives in a fucking awesome enchanted forest and you shit on it? Fuck you, pal.

>>4434121
That was great.

>>4434308
Yes. Tom Bombadill is an elemental god, but every element as to encompass the entirety of Middle-Earth. The One Ring holds no power over him whatsoever. The problem with giving the ring to Tom is that he really doesn't give a fuck about it and would probably lose it at some point.

>>4430950
His chapter pales in comparison to the Ent chapters though. High as fuck.

You people have no sense of wonder or imagination. I suspect you only read for the sake of learning about literary techniques themselves and to give yourself a veneer of gentility, not to study the human animal and his story. Anyone who does knows that LOTR is far from a piece of genre fiction. Tolkien used Germanic mythology and philology to tell the Christian story of humanity's fall and its redemption. What is genre fiction about that exactly?

Tom Bombadil is a beautiful character because he cares only about beauty. He is so madly in love with nature and the universe itself that the ring, which invariably seduces all lesser beings, is a silly trinket to him. They rightly decide at the Council of Elrond that giving him the ring would be a terrible idea because he would lose it. Think about that. Bombadil would lose the physical manifestation of all evil in Middle-Earth because he cares about it so little. It's not the he doesn't understand what it is. He's been around a while, he fully realizes what it is, when it was made, why Sauron made it, etc. He doesn't give a shit though, he's too busy gathering lillies for Goldberry. And that's why Bombadil is probably the strongest character of the LOTR. He's totally in control of himself, and he can do whatever he pleases, no matter how great the temptation.

>>4433006
You're such a pleb.I loved reading about Frodo's move to Crickhallow and all the preperations, it would be shit without it, just watch the fucking movies if you're really not interested in any of this stuff. Me, I love reading it all. Everything, I enjoy every single bit.

>>4436146

I see. Still thinks it is boring as hell

>>4435975
>Ainur
>Bombadil

yeah that's fucking wrong.

>>4436146

now explain why if bombadil is so in love with nature why he would be willing to stand by and let sauron and his minions completely desecrate middle-earth.

>>4436146
>Tom Bombadil is a beautiful character because he cares only about beauty

In other words, he's Oscar Wilde without the cock in his mouth.

>>4433843
Actually... http://pinstripepulpit.com/tolkiens-kentucky-hobbits/

Also, Tom Bombadil is GOAT tolkein character. Why? Because the ring had no fucking influence on him! If I'm recall the books correctly, he took the ring and was playing around with it like a toy.

>>4437673
He doesn't care much about anything past his forest.
It's just not his problem.

>>4432984
It's a shame. Tom Bombadil is easily one of Tolkien's best characters.

>>4433956
Reality? On my /lit/?

But it depends on the murder. A stab to a blood-heavy spot can cause unconsciousness in less than 30 seconds and death soon after. Strangulation takes 3 minutes to kill someone, but that time can be reduced if there's enough pressure to the throat. A punctured lung can be prolonged for a minute or two if the victim knows that inhaling leads to collapse. Broken bones and fractures are only detrimental if they somehow damage a blood-heavy spot or vital organ. A bullet can kill only if a big enough hole is left behind (the exit is always bigger than the entry) and blood loss or organ damage occurs. Should I google damage from falling? I've seen someone not even get injured from a well-played fall from two stories above the ground, but I'm sure more variables play into it than just height.

What kind of narcissistic sings his own name over and over again?

>>4438135
The time it takes for actual death to occur, and the amount of time it takes for a victim to be totally incapacitated and incapable of movement, communication, etc aren't usually the same

>>4438151
only the best

Is Tom Bombadil Jesus? "He Is".

>>4438165
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVUyyHYkBHk

>>4430963

I always pictured Tom Bombadil as being like Eminiem.

Rapping wherever he goes. being all fun and care free.

>>4439197
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNXYvidMaTM
seems carefree to me too

>>4439197
>>4439210
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZouiWmzWoY