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There can never be enough Bombadil!

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Faramond
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Posted: Sat 22 Oct , 2005 4:07 am
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Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?


Tell me, what does this question mean, alone, itself and nameless?


If I don't have someone to hold my hand I have no idea what this question means. Embarrassing to admit, yet true. Does it mean you're nothing, alone and nameless? Does it mean that you're only truly yourself, alone and nameless? Does it mean you're someone else if you change your name? ;)

I find the truest meaning of that question by asking what the question means, not in actually answering the question. So too, I find the greater meaning in LOTR not from the question of the success or failure of the Quest itself, but in the meaning of the Quest, and how one succeeds or fails at it.

Tom Bombadil transcends the Ring Quest. The perspective he brings is that the quest is not that important. To be sure, the Quest is not that important to the orcs either, as Jn noted. They don't want anything, they have nothing to affirm or negate, no quests to aspire to. What is the difference between Bombadil and the Orcs? The Orcs can give no meaning to the question. Who is an orc, alone, himself and nameless? There is nowhere to begin. There is nothing there but Jn's creature crouched in the corner, waiting to grab and eat.

But with Tom there is a place to begin. There is something there. I shall begin ... with my first meeting with him, through the eyes of impressionable young hobbits. :)


This Quest is the only thing that matters ... no, it's not.


Hello, hobbits. My name is Tom Bombadil. So you know that Ring that you have? The One Ring, as you comically call it, that Ring that you capitalize in your mind when you think about it, that Ring which occupies nearly all your thoughts, as in how shall I get to Rivendell with it, what shall I do with it, I wonder if I should use it after all if things really get tough ... well, that Ring is not much at all.

See, I can put it on and it doesn't make me invisible. This is Ring is nothing. Not just it's nothing next to me. In fact that's wrong. I don't put things next to me, after all. I am myself. Look, I have been here for a long time, and I have seen a lot of things. This is the deepest, wildest magic you'll see on your entire journey. Do you know why I seem so playful and twee? Do you know why I'm never serious? Because I don't believe in success and failure. I don't believe in quests. I don't want things ... except for one thing.

But first ... a detour.


Tolkien knew his own name.


Tolkien knew himself, and he knew what he believed, and he knew what felt right in a story. The origin of any story element is irrelevant to what it becomes if the author knows the philosophical currents of his own story. It matters not that the seed of Bombadil is childish whimsy.

Bombadil does not have a place in the story. He fits not into the plot. He grows into the story, leaving strange roots where the tidy gardener of plot and logic does not want them. He changes the story, contrasts it with something greater than itself, reminds us that there is more to life, more to a story, than any single quest, no matter how important. He pushes us into a perspective beyond success and failure.

I think I will need to accept his push.


I can't believe Frodo really failed! So ... ask a different question.


Frodo failed. Man, did he fail. Went all the way to the Cracks of Doom with the Ring, and then what did he do? He did the one thing he wasn't supposed to ever do! He claimed the Ring. He took the Ring for his own, just like a common Gollum. He failed in his task. He failed.

I'm not going to ask if Frodo succeeded or fail, then. This answer doesn't quite feel right. This answer has exposed the question as a shallow one, perhaps. What question shall I ask?

Who is Frodo, alone, himself and nameless?

Frodo is a story, a current through Middle-earth, impossible to separate from other currents. Frodo is not alone. There is Sam, and Gollum, and Gandalf. He has let their currents be a part of his current, while affirming his own. This means that he listens to them, and seeks to understand their perspectives while never losing his own.

But that doesn't asnwer the question. Who is he alone?

He is his love for the Shire.

He's not alone then ... there is the Shire. Who is he himself?

He is Frodo Baggins.

Who is he nameless?

I have no idea. But the answer lies beyond any success or failure in Frodo's life.


Isn't this thread about Tom Bombadil, anyway?


Who is Tom, alone, himself and nameless? I don't know how to answer this question, so I will ask another question that may shed some meaning onto it for me. What does he want, alone, himself and nameless, with no world around him? The same thing he wants with the world around him, and that is what makes Tom different from all the other character is LOTR. He wants to be himself, and nothing else.

That is why he does not disappear when he puts on the ring. His greatest desire is amplified when he claims it, and he is still himself, unmarred from before. There is no other desire for him to be enslaved to. For example, if Sam claimed the ring, he would cease to be after a time, and a dictator gardener who cared only for his gardens and nothing else would take his place. The want would be amplified to the point that nothing else of Sam remained.

Who is Tom?

He is the person who wants to be himself.

He is the one who says there can never be enough Bombadil. ;)


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 22 Oct , 2005 4:19 am
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Wow - thanks for all these great responses, guys! I wasn't feeling very coherent when I typed that and I was afraid it would attract only embarrassing silence. :P

Semprini came closest to what I was trying to get across:

"Semprini: Since, we all have the ability to use this metaphorical Ring of invisibility without being caught, we are individually responsible for the existence of the notion of justice in the world, as it applies individually to each one of us. We decide what justice is. We decide how we believe justice applies. We all bear Gygès' Ring. It is our own responsibility to "name" ourselves, i.e., to identify ourselves, to give our own definition of Good and justice. What kind of person are we? Therefore, Tom's question is addressed directly to the reader of LOTR, who remains nameless until he has decided who he wanted to be. Therefore we are directly concerned by the question of the temptation to use the Ring, which results in the naming of ourselves. We must cease to hide.

Those of you who followed the TMU thread probably recall that I was trying to use James Carse's notion of "unveiling" to analyze what the various character 'affirm' as their antidote to the ring. I think that identifying one's being with one's name is about unveiling. If there is no other secret truth to discover beyond one's name, then once the name is revealed the bearer of the name is transparent, visible, unveiled. The opposite of the ring, in other words.

Imp said: "I'd say that old Tom has done just this, so the Ring is no longer a temptation for he has put aside the desire for the world."

And Din responded: The goal of enlightenment is loss of self to become one with the whole (see Eight Fold Path et al). Bomberdil is as much an individual as anybody ... He sits better with Patenjali (father of Yogic tradition), with self as the most important factor in his existance.

This is the paradox that Tolkien presents. In some ways Tom seems to have transcended the concerns of Middle Earth, but he is a vibrantly physical character - his colorful clothing, dancing, songs, partnership with Goldberry ... this is not someone on a path of self-renunciation. The model of oneness that he offers is not one we have been trained to expect.

Alatar: I realize that Bombadil is just a big annoyance to lots of people. :) Technically, though, I don't think we can call him a mistake or, as Din put it, bad editing. An epic quest must have, early on, a meeting with the mysterious 'green man' in the woods, just as Frodo must be Bilbo's nephew and not his son. These are conventions. There would have been someone in the Old Forest if not Bombadil.

Voronwe found the quote I had in the back of my mind:

"“The power of the Ring over all concerned, even the Wizards or Emissaries, is not a delusion -- but it is not the whole picture, even of the then state and content of that part of the Universe.â€

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Posted: Sat 22 Oct , 2005 10:37 am
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Wonderful post Faramond. Now, that's a sentiment I can get behind.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 22 Oct , 2005 8:18 pm
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I just realized that while I was composing last night's post - very late - Brian and Faramond chimed in. I was not ignoring you, I just didn't see what you had written.

Going back now to read the rest of the posts and will edit in my reply.

Jn

_______________ OK, here's the rest. :)


Brian - what an interesting idea!

Before picking that up and running with it, let me express agreement with Faramond’s observation that Tolkien knew the current of his own story. I don’t think it is necessary for Tolkien to have consciously created Bombadil as an anti-Melkor in order for your idea to be valid. In fact, I’m sure that Tolkien did not do this. But the mythology already existed, and its existence created the potential for a depiction of Melkor as he should have been, and in the fashioning of Bombadil within LotR (that is, beyond the adventures written for his children) I believe that Tolkien had very definite ideas about what the personification of Middle Earth would be, in contrast to the forming/deforming powers of the Valar, and that the contrast you’ve identified is very likely the one that Tolkien had in mind.

I think that a lot of the abstruse things we discuss were actually instinctive in Tolkien ... they are not conscious creations but they flow unconsciously and unerringly from a very consistent and coherent moral perspective. I don’t want to put interpretations into his mind that he never dreamed of, but I think it is legitimate to discuss interpretations that seem consistent with his moral perspective as it is revealed in the story.

And actually, what Faramond and Brian have said is closely related so let me add my thoughts to both of your posts at once.

Faramond, in this case I think that the question and the answer are equally important.

Frodo asks Bombadil who he is as if there were some concept, some type, which, if revealed, would explain something about Bombadil that is not already obvious. This idea, you know, that there is an abstract self of which our appearance is but a manifestation. The idea that we can be categorized, classified, and that the classification is somehow more informative than our actual presentness in the world. The idea that we can be abstracted from ourselves and reduced to a classification.

And I take Bombadil’s answer to mean that he cannot be abstracted from himself. That none of us can be, because he answers, “Who are you ...â€

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Sassafras
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Posted: Sat 22 Oct , 2005 11:38 pm
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Quote:
What was troubling me about the orcs was not their origin but rather Tolkien’s decision to leave them as ‘types’ rather than giving them inner lives and redemptive potential as he does for every other character. But I am thinking now that that they are types because there needed to be, in contrast to the concreteness of everyone else, exemplars of the personhood that has been abstracted from itself and reduced to a type. This is, rightly, a kind of slavery all too familiar in our world.
Reduced to type?

Orcs, as I see them, are bred to the collective. Like the Borg, they exist solely to carry out the will of the hive 'brain'. First Melkor and then Sauron.
And yet, they are not totally robotic. Gorbag, in particular seems capable of judgement .... The big fellow with the sharp sword doesn't seem to have thought him worth much anyhow --just left him lying there: regular elvish trick

and this exchange is humanizing imo ... What d'you say? --if we get a chance, you and me'll slip off somewhere on our own with a few trusty lads, somewhere where there's good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses.

So let me ask a question:

Given the temper of Tolkien's strongly catholic morality throughout his work, is it a moral failure on the part of the author to deny the orcs the chance of redemption?

And if not. Why not?

Putting aside, for the moment, the need for the story to have evil (in order for there to be good). Even Gollum, the most wretched and miserable of creatures is offered redemption. Even Saruman. Why not orcs, who have (apparently) no freedom of choice, no free will, being born and bred to carry out the will of the dark lord?

Was writing them as one-dimensional beings a mistake?
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Sorry, this is a bit garbled but there's a baseball game that just wont wait.

:D
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Edit: Great post, Faramond! :)


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sun 23 Oct , 2005 4:14 am
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What d'you say? --if we get a chance, you and me'll slip off somewhere on our own with a few trusty lads, somewhere where there's good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses.

Sass, thanks for finding that quote. I've always liked that little passage because it's one of the few places where we get a glimmer of something like regret on the part of the orcs. Obviously it's not their evil deeds they regret sincce they're wishing for 'loot' but they seem to regret their lost freedom.

Given the temper of Tolkien's strongly catholic morality throughout his work, is it a moral failure on the part of the author to deny the orcs the chance of redemption? the most wretched and miserable of creatures is offered redemption ... Why not orcs, who have (apparently) no freedom of choice, no free will, being born and bred to carry out the will of the dark lord?

Yes, that's exactly the problem I was considering. And it seems to have bothered Tolkien as well when the books became so popular and endless people were writing to him asking for explanations.

I think that the presence of an abstract 'evil' type should not necessarily pose a moral dilemma for the author ... I mean, if one wanted to elaborate in a story on the things which place us beyond redemption then there would have to be character(s) who are in such a state. But the presence of those characters might present a moral dilemma for the reader.

This issue was close to the front of my mind while watching The Matrix. Not sure why it was so evident to me there ... but I think the fact that the Columbine shooters dressed up like the Matrix characters had something to do with it ...

In The Matrix the agents take over the bodies of everyday people. The director shows us this transformation in some cases - we see the person morph into the agent, or morph back after they are dead. The legitimacy of killing the agent is not questioned ... and doesn't really need to be, imo ... but for the viewer who identifies with the heroes, what translation do they make of this?

I was given to understand that the person doesn't actually change appearance - the face of Agent Smith is a metaphor, allowing the viewer to identify the agents, but what the hero sees is the regular person as they acquire sudden alarming powers. I think we actually see it that way when Neo is running through the apartment building - the director does not attempt to morph everyone but just shows us granny hurling the knife, you know, as she would appear to Neo.

There is a danger that the viewer translates this ... correctly, btw ... into the belief that only he can identify the true threats. There is no outer manifestation visible to others ... otherwise all of us would realize that we are trapped in the rabbit hole.

Is there a corresponding elaboration of this idea into a justification for killing anyone who is perceived to be a true threat? Is there a conclusion that they are somehow not human, as the agents are not, or some deadly kind of human that must of necessity be gotten rid of? I fear that this elaboration does take place in the minds of some young people, partly because the threats against them are not taken seriously enough by adults. (That was certainly true of the Columbine kids.)

I think there is a corresponding danger to the reader of interpreting the orcs to be Tolkien's way of saying that there are certain types that one is justified in killing without worrying first whether they have had their shot at redemption.

I don't think that this is what Tolkien is saying, but I think that he could be interpreted that way... this is not a book that can be read casually, you know, without risking serious misunderstandings of the author's intent. IMHO.

Jn

(belated edit for two typos)

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Faramond
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Posted: Sun 23 Oct , 2005 10:08 pm
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Jn: I think there is a corresponding danger to the reader of interpreting the orcs to be Tolkien's way of saying that there are certain types that one is justified in killing without worrying first whether they have had their shot at redemption.

I have always felt a bit uneasy about the orcs because of this. Fortunately, we only encounter the orcs in combat ... the heroes do not come upon orc villages and slaughter everyone including the orc kids. (orcids? ;))

One way I think of the orcs is that they are the sin of abdicating choice. Not that they have committed that sin, but that they are the logical consequence of that sin.

Look at these orcs. This is what happens when you refuse to give value to anything, when you refuse to engage life, with all its choices, when you attempt to escape pain so much that you remove your self from the world, and the ugly husk remains, one that is below redemption.

In which case the orcs must be largely metaphorical, and in fact it presenting orc villages with orckids and all in them would be very troublesome.

I'll need to say more about this, but later.


Jn: I don't think that this is what Tolkien is saying, but I think that he could be interpreted that way... this is not a book that can be read casually, you know, without risking serious misunderstandings of the author's intent.

This is why a reader shouldn't make the orcs concrete in his or her mind, in my opinion. Tolkien does not make them characters, and we should not try to. That is where a reader can go wrong and follow the path to a perilous interpretation. There are already wicked characters who treated fully as characters, and who are offered chances at redemption.


Jn: In any event, I think this extraordinary concreteness given to so many characters was deliberate on the part of Tolkien - not just bad writing as TheWagner used to contend - but a genuine reflection of his world view, expressed first in this answer to Frodo.

Concreteness is required for redemption to be possible, I think. Certainly offering Gollum redemption won't mean anything to us unless he is truly a character, and not just a type. It would be unintelligible if Aragorn took some orcs prisoner at some point and offered them redemption. What would we make of this? It would be like offering a dog a mastercard. ( Unless that dog was Spuds McKenzie. :D)

Now I'd better not make a post in this thread referencing a dead spokesdog and not Bombadil!

With Bombadil's question to answer another question, a question that engages the listener by inviting the listener to imagine himself as a part of no abstraction, Bombadil is reminding us that we are not just abstract types. So, this is my brief summary of what I take from Jn's posts.

Bombadil also reminds us that there is more to life than the quest, that we are more than any abstract failures or successes. Bombadil is beyond any need for redemption because there is nothing abstract about him. Consider another character. Boromir needed redemption because he replaced himself with the abstract ideal of defending Gondor. He elevated his noble desire above everything else, and when he did that he had already claimed the ring in his heart.

Tom is so mysterious because there is no convenient abstract handle with which to really grab hold of him.


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sun 23 Oct , 2005 11:50 pm
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Faramond: One way I think of the orcs is that they are the sin of abdicating choice. Not that they have committed that sin, but that they are the logical consequence of that sin.

(bold emphasis mine) Yes. That is what struck me with sudden force awhile ago. That the choice to affirm in spite of all difficulties was a choice that the characters must have continuously had to make. It could not be made once for all time, in the gardens of Lorien or in the Shire. And, you see, I think it is much more difficult to continue saying "yes" than it is to continue saying "no."

The orcs have succombed. They have given up saying "yes."

Concreteness is required for redemption to be possible, I think.

I agree. But you understand to what extent this overturns our traditional notion of things! Traditionally it is the soul, the spirit, a thing before-within-beyond the material person, an invisible abstraction from the person, which is redeemed. And Tom seems to be pointing in an entirely different direction.

Boromir needed redemption because he replaced himself with the abstract ideal of defending Gondor.

Yes again. :) I think in the TMU thread I said that he had identified with his title and forgotten his name ... or something like that.

Jn

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Impenitent
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I'm getting terribly excited about the discussion of Tom's name.

That wonderful quote Jn started with: " Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? "


and then:

"I think that identifying one's being with one's name is about unveiling. If there is no other secret truth to discover beyond one's name, then once the name is revealed the bearer of the name is transparent, visible, unveiled. The opposite of the ring, in other words. "

It has put me in mind of a wonderful poem:

"Each One Has A Name
Each one has a name, given them by God, and given them by their father and mother.
Each one has a name given them by their stature and their way of smiling, and given them by their clothes.
Each one has a name given them by the mountains and given them by their walls.
Each one has a name given them by the planets and given them by their neighbours.
Each one has a name given them by their sins and given them by their longings.
Each one has a name given them by their enemies and given them by their love.
Each one has a name given them by their feast days and given them by their craft.
Each one has a name given them by the seasons of the year and given them by their blindness.
Each one has a name given them by the sea and given them by their death."


That poem (ironically I couldn't remember the name of the author) provides another perspective, that one's name epitomises the self in a different way, as an expression of where one stands in the world, physically, spiritually, emotionally. I think it fits well with Tom's question. :)

Din, I think you're confusing the eight-fold path - Patanjali's final limb of yoga, Samadhi, or the state of super bliss, is the merging of the individual consciousness to the universal consciousness rather than an individuating process. But the whole consciousness thing wasn't what I was referring to anyway. :) I guess I meant, in a lighthearted way, that Tom has found his Buddha nature; that ultimate state of freedom sought in Bhuddhism where you are liberated from the need or desire to have things or (more importantly) power.

Jn says: "...[Tom] is not someone on a path of self-renunciation. The model of oneness that he offers is not one we have been trained to expect." Yes but perhaps our training is a little flawed.

And then Faramond said: " Bombadil also reminds us that there is more to life than the quest, that we are more than any abstract failures or successes. Bombadil is beyond any need for redemption because there is nothing abstract about him."

I keep thinking of Dalai Lama, who is so often spoken of as having great wisdom and yet a very childlike capacity for the ridiculous. Apparently, he laughs alot and finds joy everywhere. And I suspect he is very grounded and has a very focused sense of self in a way that many of us do not - the Dalai Lama knows who he is. I think that his model of oneness is not the one that we have been trained to expect either!

There is also this: all those mantras in which the tone of the chant is so important, changing things at a fundamental level (brain wave patterns, and even blood pressure etc are affected). Of course, this is not limited to Buddhist chants. The idea that Tom is a part, and an embodiment, of Eru's creation music, separate from that of the Ainur, is very beguiling and if one embraces the idea that Tom is the song, the power of his own singing is easier to understand.

And there is this: if Tom is the song, or a part of the song, or the echo of the song, then Tom existed before Arda as well as being a very part of the fabrid of Arda. Tom embodies the natural world, but he also is ageless, without beginning or end. What a curious idea that is! A splinter of Eru, in fact.

And I completely agree with Alatar that Tolkien had NONE of this in mind at any time! However, there Tom is. He may have written him in thoughtlessly at the beginning but Tom did come to embody certain things for Tolkien (as elaborated in other posts), to represent certain things in the story and in the sub-creation which would otherwise have been missing. Besides, I don't see why Tolkien should be exempt from being over-analysed just like every other author. We can see what we wish to see, and find understanding beyond that intended by Tolkien (I have a feeling Shakespeare would be plenty surprised to find so much meaning in his plays as is found by modern literary analysis)

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Mon 24 Oct , 2005 3:31 am
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Imp, that poem gives me chills.

... perhaps our training is a little flawed.

:) Yes, I think so.

The dualism that infects Western thinking did not infect Eastern philosophies.

Biologist Gregory Bateson called it "a monstrous idea that nearly killed us." I think I've quoted him before in a thread on a related topic, but he bears repeating.

I keep thinking of Dalai Lama,

What an excellent example!

... if one embraces the idea that Tom is the song, the power of his own singing is easier to understand.

This is an intriguing idea!

Question: does anyone recall orcs singing anywhere in the book?

Jn

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Faramond
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I'll post more later about other things, but in answer to Jn's question I believe orcs sing in the Hobbit. I sure don't remember them singing in LOTR.

Indeed, in chapter 4 of the Hobbit:

The goblins began to sing, or croak, keeping in time with the flap of their flat feet on the stone, and shaking their prisoners as well.

Clap! Snap! and black crack!
Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down down to Goblin-town
You go, my lad!

Clash, crash! Crush, smash!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, for underground!
Ho, ho! my lad!

Swish, smack! Whip crack!
Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!
Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,
While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,
Round and round far underground
Below, my lad!


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Impenitent
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I don't think The Hobbit counts, actually.

If you start making parallels between the goblins of The Hobbit and the orcs of LoTR, you're going to have to stomach this as typical elven song:

O! What are you doing,
And where are you going?
Your ponies need shoeing!
The river is flowing!
O! tra-la-la-lally
here down in the valley!

O! What are you seeking,
And where are you making?
The faggots are reeking,
The bannocks are baking!
O! tril-lil-lil-lolly
the valley is jolly,
ha! ha!

O! Where are you going
With beards all a-wagging?
No knowing, no knowing
What brings Mister Baggins,
And Balin and Dwalin
down into the valley
in June
ha! ha!

O! Will you be staying,
Or will you be flying?
Your ponies are straying!
The daylight is dying!
To fly would be folly,
To stay would be jolly
And listen and hark
Till the end of the dark
to our tune
ha! ha.'


;) :P

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Faramond
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Just to follow up:

So there are goblins singing, or at least croaking, in The Hobbit. But the philosophical currents Tolkien has running through this story are nowhere near as strong. I think orcs singing in LOTR would have intuitively felt wrong to him in a way it didn't in The Hobbit.

The most likely place to have orc singing would seem to me to be in chapter 3 of TTT, when the Uruk-hai are running and have Merry and Pip. Perhaps a sort of marching chant. But there is not even a mention of something like that in passing that I can see.


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vison
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Posted: Mon 24 Oct , 2005 4:22 am
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I thought this was a comic thread!!!!

Woe is me!!!! :bawl:

I have come late to the party. :bawl:

I haven't had time to read it all, but what I've read is wonderful. :Wooper:

Will catch up later.


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Faramond
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Posted: Mon 24 Oct , 2005 4:26 am
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Impenitent wrote:
I don't think The Hobbit counts, actually.

If you start making parallels between the goblins of The Hobbit and the orcs of LoTR, you're going to have to stomach this as typical elven song:
Indeed, I agree. I'm not making a parallel ... I'm just pointing to the closest we can come to orcs singing. What the example of the Hobbit shows is that Tolkien was willing to alter his depictions of elves and goblins to better fit the philosophical currents that grew in the telling of LOTR. Though of course the elves in LOTR are decendants of the elves of his already developed background mythology, and really have nothing to do with those silly creatures in Rivendell.

That said, why can't elves be silly sometimes?


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vison
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Posted: Mon 24 Oct , 2005 4:45 am
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jnyusa said: "They live from moment to moment without a guiding principle. "

That is what I have always thought about Orcs. But that's another topic.

Bombadil. Who is he, alone and nameless? An editing error?

I think Bombadil was Serendipity.

Tolkien may have thought, at times, that Tom was a mistake. There are those who think Tom WAS a mistake, that he adds nothing to the tale and that his not-being-missed in the movie only proves that.

Well, maybe so. Maybe not. There he is, anyway. An awkward, capering critter. But Goldberry loved him!!! Goldberry the River Daughter loved Tom. Could she have loved a mistake? Could she have loved someone who wasn't "necessary"?

I came to think of Bombadil as a kind of portal, the door through which the hobbits AT LAST really left the Shire.

Tolkien might have made Tom "better", less silly, more "romantic" or "majestic". If Tom represents Nature, then he is a bit silly and unromantic, perhaps, to our minds. But then, Tom is Tom. He's nothing else and that's everything. He makes no apologies for his silliness, he would not even recognize that he might be silly, he dances unselfconsciously, he sings his songs like a robin would sing.

Whether Tolkien really intended for Tom to be important, I don't know. But I think he was right to leave him in, because Tom possesses a reality of his own that really has nothing to do with Tolkien. Tolkien wrote a novel that some are pleased to call a myth, but of course it wasn't. The one really mythical thing in the book is Tom Bombadil, the one that wasn't imagined into life by Tolkien. Tom was already there......why, he was first as he will be last........

I used to skip over the Bombadil bits. I'd twitch and be irritated. But now he's welcome. When he comes down the path to the Withywindle, he's bent on an errand: to take the last of summer to his lover. I like that.


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Impenitent
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Posted: Mon 24 Oct , 2005 4:55 am
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vison wrote:
I used to skip over the Bombadil bits. I'd twitch and be irritated. But now he's welcome. When he comes down the path to the Withywindle, he's bent on an errand: to take the last of summer to his lover. I like that.
Dare I bring this up? I will, I guess.

I know Goldberry and Tom are an item but never, in all of my many readings, have I ever been able to ascribe any erotic aspect to them - especially Tom.

Is that my fault or do others read it that way?

I mean, Aragorn/Arwen - yes, I can imagine an erotic love.

ibid Faramir/Eowyn

And Sam/Rosie

But Tom, though he is completely corporeal, just does not work.

Perhaps because for some time I had a hard time thinking of Goldberry as fully corporeal; I could only see her as water-nymph like and insubstantial. And Tom...well, yes, okay, I've read the bacchanalian parallels and can stretch my imagination that way but still.

I can admit it as a platonic, almost-worship kind of love; distant; but my mind won't even stretch to a companionable kind of love.

It goes to how I see Tom, I think as well as how I see Goldberry; completely asexual. COMPLETELY!

Can't elaborate now, though I really should having made a bald statement that is out of context to the thread, but I've got to turn back to work. Maybe after I've worked through more myself and have more time.

Thought I'd throw it out there, though.

Last edited by Impenitent on Mon 24 Oct , 2005 4:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Mon 24 Oct , 2005 4:57 am
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I wrote a VERY long post for this thread that got lost in cyberspace. :rage:

I will try to recapture at least some of the ideas, but not now. Too annoyed to think straight.

But I will say, wonderful posts, everyone. :)


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vison
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Posted: Mon 24 Oct , 2005 5:28 am
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Voronwë_the_Faithful wrote:
I wrote a VERY long post for this thread that got lost in cyberspace. :rage:

I will try to recapture at least some of the ideas, but not now. Too annoyed to think straight.

But I will say, wonderful posts, everyone. :)
Oh, that sux. I HATE it when that happens. Somehow the flow of words cannot be recaptured, and the very points you wanted to make are elusive.

As for Impenitent's post, I understand what you're saying, because to be honest, I have some of the same difficulties with Arwen and Aragorn. It took me a long time to work up this affection for Tom Bombadil, and one of the things that created it for me was to write a fanfic about him. "My" TB is not much like Tolkien's, of course, but I had fun doing it, and somehow I got into TB's mind in such a way that his relationship with Goldberry WAS real.


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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Mon 24 Oct , 2005 3:19 pm
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Jnyusa wrote:
Concreteness is required for redemption to be possible, I think.

I agree. But you understand to what extent this overturns our traditional notion of things! Traditionally it is the soul, the spirit, a thing before-within-beyond the material person, an invisible abstraction from the person, which is redeemed.
One way that Tolkien considered dealing with the "Orc problem" was to eliminate them having souls altogether. From the "Myths Transformed" section of Morgoth's Ring:
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In summary: I think it must be assumed that 'talking is not necessarily the sign of the possession of a 'rational soul' or fëa. The Orcs were beasts of humanized shape (to mock Men and Elves) deliberately perverted/converted into a more close resemblance to Men. Their 'talking' was really reeling off 'records' set in them by Melkor. Even their rebellious critical words -- he knew about them. Melkor taught them speech and as they bred they inherited this; and they had just as much independence as have, say, dogs or horse of their human masters. This talking was largely echoic (cf. parrots). In The Lord of the Rings Sauron is said to have devised a language for them.

The same sort of thing may be said of Huan and the Eagles: they were taught language by the Valar, and raised to a higher level but they still had no fëar.
I would make the radical claim that the same sort of thing may also be said of Bombadil. I do not believe that Bombadil shared in the duality of body (hröar) and spirit (fëar) that the Children of Eru experience. I believe that he was a pure material manifestation of Eru. Consider again Imp's profound words:
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And there is this: if Tom is the song, or a part of the song, or the echo of the song, then Tom existed before Arda as well as being a very part of the fabrid of Arda. Tom embodies the natural world, but he also is ageless, without beginning or end. What a curious idea that is! A splinter of Eru, in fact.
Yes, exactly. A splinter of Eru. He embodies the natural world because there is no "I" between him and the natural world. He is "one with the natural world" because his spirit is not separate from his material body.

Brian very aptly said that Tom was the antithesis of Morgoth (it must be apt because that observation fits right in with what I said in my first post :P). But another apt comparison is with Saruman. As I said earlier, Tolkien came to consider Bombadil as a symbol of "pure science" -- of understanding nature for the sake of understanding only, not for any practical purpose. Saruman is of course the diametric opposite of this: he is the symbol of using science for the manipulation of nature in the name of "progress," something that Tolkien thought was a very bad thing.

But on a more fundamental level, Saruman, like all of the Istari, contrasts with Bombadil in that they accepted the duality of body and spirit when they came to Middle-earth and adopted the forms that they did. And consider this: Tolkien says that of the Istari, all but one failed. In adopting forms that were part of the substance of Arda, the Istari's souls became subject to the corruption of Arda Marred. And consider this further: the hröar of the only one of the Istari that succeeded, Olorin, had to die before he could succeed. As Tolkien stated:
Quote:
He was sent by a mere prudent plan of the angelic Valar or governors; but Authority had taken up this plan and enlarged it, at the moment of its failure. 'Naked I was sent back -- for a brief time, until my task is done'. Sent back by whom, and whence? Not by the 'gods' whose business is only with this embodied world and its time; for he pased 'out of thought and time'.
So there we have it. If Bombadil was a pure material "splinter of Eru" as Imp put it, then Gandalf the White came back from death as a pure spiritual "splinter of Eru".


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