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There can never be enough Bombadil!

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Jnyusa
Post subject: There can never be enough Bombadil!
Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 5:57 am
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OK, it started as a small joke in the Business room, but it seems there are a few people who've been wanting to talk about Bombadil, and Voronwe accorded me the honor of starting a thread ... :)

Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?

The most important line in the book, imo.

Back when Crispy's thread, Are They Important Films?, was going strong on TORC, I made a passing comment that the orcs were too concrete in Jackson's films, and Shagrat responded that the orcs were not concrete enough in Tolkien.

This got me to thinking about why Tolkien made the orcs such foils ... and all the other ethical dilemmas he seems to have gotten into regarding orcs when he had to begin explaining them. The 'corrupted elves' explanation had always satisfied me, but on reflection this would seem to make them more worthy of pity, not less so. And Tolkien did not present them as worthy of sympathy in any way ... their potential for redemption is simply not addressed in the book.

The more we discussed the moral dimensions of Tolkien, the more this problem of orc redemption bothered me; but at the same time I felt at some deep level that his decision to use them in this manner was right. It was true. There are ways of being in the world that remove the potential for redemption. So I thought and thought about this and finally settled on an explanation that felt satisfactory ... and I've procrastinated writing about it for a few months now, but will try to put it into words tonight because I just realized tonight that Bombadil also takes on new significance in light of this explanation, so I can't say what I want to say about Bombadil without talking first about the orcs.

<opens box of cookies ... takes out three and sets box where everyone can reach it >

This is spawn of TMU, so bear with me through a very brief recap. My assertion in 'Tolkien's Moral Universe' was that LotR is not about rejection of the Ring but rather about affirmation of life in the face of mortality, suffering, failure.

What the book shows for each character, subtly but thoroughly, is the affirmation that allows them to resist using the Ring. I want to use the example of Aragorn because I wrote about it already on TORC and because it dovetails most gracefully with the quote from Bombadil above.

What I wrote previously about Aragorn was that it is Arwen's love that enabled him to seek the Kingship without using the Ring to obtain it. The Ring is a shortcut to the Kingship but it is shortcut to the Title alone, behind which his name would be lost as the name of the Witch King of Angmar is lost. Arwen cannot love 'the King' abstractly; none of us can love an abstraction. If she loves, she loves Aragorn concretely. That is, she loves him by name and not by title (borrowing this distinction from Carse), and that love is what allows him to hang on to his own name and not take the shortcut to a title offered by the Ring. As long as he loves Arwen, the title alone is meaningless for him and the Ring holds no serious temptation, but he must hold the awareness of Arwen's love before him at all times to continue to resist the temptation. He sets this affirmation against the false promises of the Ring, so to speak.

Now ... what I am lately realizing is just how sore a trial this must be.

Because there is another way to sidestep the temptation of the Ring, which is the way of not wanting anything at all. Putting oneself beyond both affirmation and negation, putting oneself beyond the concerns of this world. Buddhism offers this as the highest good, though one must affirm the world before transcending it. But this path is not open to the characters in the story. They are charged with first solving this problem of the Ring in Middle Earth. And in order to convey the Ring to Mordor, each of them must continue to remember and affirm that one true thing in their lives, whatever it is, while being in constant proximity to the tool that would allow them to achieve it superficially in an instant - to save the Shire, to win the Kingship, to preserve Lorien, to restore Gondor, etc. - and yet remember as well that the tool will betray them and so not use it to achieve their purpose.

To continue to want it with all your heart, and to have the means of achieving it at your disposal, but to refrain from using that means even though you can't stop wanting to.

I was trying to think of a mundane comparison and all I could think of was Mastercard. :) You want all those things you see on ebay and you've got your Mastercard in your pocket but you absolutely, positively cannot use it because in the long run that will be really, really bad. (Two rings for mortal men doomed to debt.)

Now think how well you've handled that temptation in the past, all the rationalizations you've used on yourself, and you'll have a clue what our heroes were up against while plowing through the snow of Caradhras and fleeing the orcs through Moria. :P I can't even keep my grubby fingers off the damned credit card when I'm sitting comfortably in my own home with a cup of hot cocoa and every legitimate earthly need met.

And, seriously now ... what a lot of people do is cut their credit card in half, or simply never visit ebay (that's my strategy) ... that is, they remove from themselves the temptation to want the thing because they cannot resist the temptation to obtain it in a harmful way.

And that it precisely what our heroes must not do. They must not stop wanting the things they have affirmed, or else the quest becomes a wandering in the wildnerness, an endless series of purposeless involvements in meaningless tasks, no direction home ...

for some reason Jim Morrison's lyrics come to mind:

"... can you picture what will be, so limitless and free, desperately in need of some stranger's hand ... desperate land ..."

And this is what I think the orcs are ... creatures who have given in to existential exhaustion and fear, and no longer affirm anything in their heart of hearts but wander from meaningless deed to meaningless deed. They can be loyal to no one because they can want no person's purpose; they can hope for no particular end. Tolkien does not even offer us speculation on what an orc would do with the Ring if he got his hands on it ... this is somehow beyond their capacity to even want the power of the Ring. Thus they are enslaved by Sauron and Saruman but never loyal to them, never believing in the cause; they are cruel but their cruelty is disorganized. They live from moment to moment without a guiding principle.

It is not necessary to consider the potential for redemption of such a creature because they would have first to turn into something that could want redemption ... that could want something, anything, beyond the moment at hand.

... I want to say that our heroes are people who have rejected the Ring, and the orcs are people who have rejected the opportunity to be tempted by the Ring. They are people who have abdicated their own significance.

And yes, I think there are people like that. People whose lives are the equivalent of crouching in a corner, wanting only to grab what is near at hand and, basically, eat it.

<gets more cookies>

So, to tie this back to Crispy's thread ... the concreteness of Jackson's orc bothered me at a subconscious level because they were too willfull. They bought into Sauron's program - they carried forth his will, rather than being driven by his will and against their own. They are not concrete in Tolkien because to make them concrete he would have to invest them with a degree of willfulness, purposefulness, and this is precisely what they are intended to lack.

So ... getting back to Bombadil ... what I realized recently while considering that line about being alone and nameless, is that Bombadil is a real paradox within the context of the story. In him we see 'beyondness' from a different perspective, a positive perspective. I'm not sure that 'beyondness' is even the right word ... it's more like an in-ness ... an identity that is whole and complete within itself. And this is wonderful and intriguing and perplexing because he is not an 'opposite' of any other 'type' in the story, but he manages to contrast with just about every purpose expressed in the book.

Hmm ... well, my thoughts about this are not yet well-formed, I see, because I'm having trouble finding words to express them. And it's getting very late here. So maybe I'll just break off here and see what others were going to say about Bombadil.

I realize this post doesn't sound as if it's about Bombadil, but I think that it is. :) I think that the wholly bizarre and unexpected concreteness of Bombadil plunking himself down in the middle of this story and being nothing but his own name ... I think he is a big part of Tolkien's 'answer' to one of the eternal questions ... what are we here for? what is our significance?

Jn

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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 6:30 am
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I'm going to commit an abomination by following your long and thoughtful post with a short, abrupt one - but please forgive me because I have no time to hand and yet I CANNOT RESIST THE TEMPTATION!

(Oi, I'm glad the Ring never came within my arm's reach)

Bombadil:

He epitomiss enlightment. It's an oblique way of looking at it, but you brought up Buddhism: "Buddhism offers this as the highest good, though one must affirm the world before transcending it."

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.

Tolkien would have it that he is a symbolic embodiment of the exuberance of the natural world. Perhaps so - but he has given up ownership of it.

And now...I have to zip away and leave behind not even half-formed, dim-witted ideas.

Sigh.

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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 7:47 am
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Thank you for starting this thread, Jn. :love:

Bombadil came up briefly in the Sil thread. I was bemoaning the marring of Arda, and expressed the opinion that the only being in Middle-earth that remains unmarred was Bombadil. Melkor (as Tolkien said in any essay in Morgoth's Ring) "squandered his power (of being) in the endeavour to gain control of others. ... To gain dominination over Arda, Morgoth had let most of his being pass into the physical constituents of the Earth - hence all things that were born on Earth and lived on and by it, beasts or plants or incarnate spirits were libable to be 'stained'. But Tom alone escapes that stain entirely, as evidenced by the fact that the Ring of Sauron, the strongest manifestation of the will of Melkor in Middle-earth in the third age, has no effect on him.

Consider Goldberry's words about Tom:
Quote:
'He is,' said Goldberry, staying her swift movements and smiling.

Frodo looked at her questioningly. 'He is as you have seen him,' she said in answer to his look. 'He is the master of wood, water and hill.'

'Then all this strange land belongs to him?'

'No indeed!' she answered, and her smile faded. 'That would indeed be a burden,' she added in a low voice, as if to herself. 'The trees and the grasses and all things growing in the land belong each to themselves. Tom Bombadil is the master. No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hill-tops under light and shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master.'
Where as Melkor is more and more bound by his need for material domination, Bombadil is completely free of this burden, as Goldberry tells Frodo. As Jn hints at, that is why Tom is uneffected by the Ring. Consider again the line that Jn quoted from Tom himself:
Quote:
Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?
And Jn's own subsequent words:
Quote:
Because there is another way to sidestep the temptation of the Ring, which is the way of not wanting anything at all. Putting oneself beyond both affirmation and negation, putting oneself beyond the concerns of this world.
Turning for a moment to Jn's Orcs. ;) I see the Orcs the ultimate reflection of the Marring of Arda. They are incarnate beings that are almost entirely manifestations of the "being" of Melkor that he allowed to pass into the physical constituents of the Earth. If Bombadil is the ultimate symbol of freedom, because he truly is beyond both affirmation and negation, the Orcs are the ultimate symbols of slavery, because they are utterly bound to the will of Melkor (even by Sauron, who himself is a slave to Melkor's will). [Jackson, of course, was completely unable to capture this with his Orcs, and I think he was wise not to even try. But I must admit I am not so much interested in talking about Jackson in this thread, as I am in exploring some of the deeper implications of Tolkien's work. After all, a thread on Bombadil doesn't really leave all that much to say about Jackson's movies. ;)]

Many people are, of course, turned off by both Bombadil's nonsensical nature and his paradoxical role in the story. But as I jokingly said in teh business room thread, just as sense is what you make of it, so is nonsense. Bombadil is not bound by "sense" any more then he is bound by anything else. As Tolkien says "He is masterin a peculiar way: he has no fear, and no desire of possession or domination at all. He merely knows and understands about such things as concern him in his natural little realm. He harldly even judges, and as far as can be seen makes no effort to reform or remove even the Willow."

In a rather remarkable passage, Tolkien explains later in the same letter (No. 153) why he put Bombadil in the story, and that despite his well advertised dislike of allegory, he essentialy admits that he left Bombadil in the story for allegorical purposes:
Quote:
[M]any have found him an odd or indeed discordant ingredient. In historical fact I put him in because I had already 'invented' him independently (he first appeared in the Oxford Magazine) and wanted an 'adventure' on the way. But I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out. I do not mean him to be an allegory -- or I should not have given him so particular, individual and, and ridculous a name -- but 'allegory' is the only mode of exhibiting certain functions: he is then an 'allegory', or an exemplar, a particular embodying of pure (real) natural science: the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature, because they are 'other' and wholly independent of the enquiring mind, , a spirit coeval with the rational mind, and entirely unconcerned with 'doing' anything with the knowledge: Zoology and Botany not Cattle-breeding or Agriculture. Even the Elves hardly show this: they are primarily artists [that statement itself deserves its own thread]. Also T.B. exhibits another point in his attitude to the Ring, and its failure to affect him. You must concentrate on some part, probably relatively small, of the World (Universe), whether to tell a tale, however long, or to learn anything however hundamental -- and therefore much will from that 'point of view' be left out, distorted on the circumference, or seem a discordant oddity. 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.
I don't pretend to actually understand quite what Tolkien means by the latter part of that statement (I can grasp the surface meanings of the words, but the deeper implications remain just beyond my grasp), but I can sense its importance. But even if, like at midnight on a carousel, reaching for the gold ring, I never can reach it, at least I can try. :)

Edit: Imp, I did not see your post until after I posted mine. So much of what I was trying to say, you had already said more efficiently then I ever could. :love:

More tomorrow. :)


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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 7:53 am
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Not sure Tom epitomisse enlightenment. 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.

But perhaps because of this self, Tom represents somebody who has fallen out of the world. Somebody who exists but with no purpose in the world, and without the interaction to be in the world.

I felt he always reminded me of Tolkien himself as an academic. He was teaching a dead language, and literature and the world was spinning off away from him. If you ask most people alive today who or what did Grendles mother represent they would look at you stunned and not understanding. It is not part of teh real world anymore.

But more importantly, that was Tolkien's life. He loved the Anglo Saxon, and would do anything to work in it or with it and wouldn't be destracted by the riches, and fame of the world.

This is what the ring represents in the Bomberdil context, riches and power in the world. To Tom, it was not that the ring was not there, but it had no hold over him in a very real sense. Likewise to Tolkien, the Ring represented all those things that the power hungry want, but which don't mean anything to him because he had his nice house, and family and wife. What more would he want in his own mind?

And Orcs, well that's another issue. Tolkien needed baddies. I am convinced he based them on German soldiers he would have met and fought with in WWI, or seen on newsreel from WWII. If you read the book, they are not evil as such. They are bad, rough and nasty, but it is nurture rather than nature that makes them so. PJ made them intrinsiclly evil because in the modern world view (read Western paranoia of Russia/Korea/Vietnam/Argentinian/Arab etc ), the enermy must be evil because they are wrong! (tm).

Nice cookies bytheway ;)

Edited to add, Veronwe, you snook in before me. I aprove ;)


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Hey,

I have just two things to add to these great posts:

First, we all bear the One Ring. We all have the Ring. When Plato used the myth of Gygès and his invisible ring in The Republic to ponder about the notions of justice and injustice, he metaphorically says that we would all be tempted to do evil deeds benefitting ourselves if we were sure not to be caught, if we could use a Ring of invisibility. Plato refers to the idea that some people have the ability to successfully hide their thoughts during their lives, so that sometimes dishonest people succeed, thus raising the question of justice in this world.

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.

Second, the question of the nature of the orcs also derive from the fact that we are responsible for who we are. From a point of view internal to Tolkien's myths, Orcs exist because Morgoth and Sauron have amplified the Morgothian element contained in Arda, from which all living creatures are made, in order to turn Elves or Men (depending on the versions) into Orcs. I have already analyzed this effect of the marring of Arda on TORC. Therefore, Orcs are mere potentialities of ourselves. Potentially, all Men and Elves can turn into Orcs. From an external point of view, it is clear when reading Tolkien's letters, or when reading his attempted sequel to LOTR (the New Shadow) that we, the readers, also can turn into Orcs. Tolkien refers to some men of the world as Orks, in both his letters and The New Shadow. Even in the context of WW2, he says that "Orcs belongs to both sides". He never refers to Nazis alone as Orcs, because there also are Orcs in "the right side". Of course, in real life, they do not have the appearence of Orcs, because they have hidden their evil thoughts with their own ring of invisibility (metaphorically their mind) (this is why there can be no redemption for our Orcish side; we must get rid of this side, until it comes back; since Arda has been marred, the temptation can only come back at one point; but, Orcs themselves do not concretely exist)

Conclusion: Jn is absolutly right in saying that Tom Bombadil's question is linked to the Orc problem. We can be good folks, just like we can be Orcs. (This, of course, is very schematical. But we are talking about myths here. Myths, sometimes, have to be schematical. It is for us to apply them in an intelligent manner to real life, which is never schematical or simple. Myths only give tools to find the truth, or the partial truth. They never give the whole truth, assuming it exists.)

So in many ways, Tom represents the window to philosophy in LOTR. Tom reprents the adult part of LOTR, which was very difficult to convey to cinema as shown by PJ's juvenile adaptation of the book. Beyond Frodo, Tom talks to us. And he talks to us, from his own peculiar point of view, about most of the philosophical questions that have been discussed by Men since the dawn of time. Who are we? What is nature? What is time? What is immortality? What is music? Etc... Tom Bombadil turns off many people, because many people are turned off by philosophy when it is not crystal clear and when it requires significant efforts from the reader. Tom as a philosophy teacher is obscure because he mixes myths and philosophy, mythos and logos, in a book which has action-adventure sections.

Like Jn, I have advocated that they were far too many Orks in PJ's film. They are indeed ugly and concrete, where Tolkien insists on light and represents evil as mere shadows. PJ did not understand, or did not care to understand, who the Orcs were. He did not ask them (and thus to us) the question "who are you...nameless?"

EDIT: It looks like others write faster than I do. :)

edit: spelling issues

Last edited by Semprini on Fri 21 Oct , 2005 10:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 9:28 am
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I'm going to go against the grain here. I apologise in advance.

I think what we have here is an attempt to study that which does not exist. I do not believe that Bombadil represents anything deeper than the nonsense character Tolkien created to amuse his children. The crucial part of Voronwe's quote above is this:
Quote:
In historical fact I put him in because I had already 'invented' him independently (he first appeared in the Oxford Magazine) and wanted an 'adventure' on the way.
Everything else is a rationalisation or an excuse after the fact that attempts to explain his presence. I don't dislike Bombadil. I quite enjoy the chapters involving him, but I don't try to pretend they are other than what Tolkien admits they are. An adventure along the way. The cold hard fact is that LotR was written in a rambling fashion and much that remains in the final version is either incongruous or downright contradictory. That's not a problem for me. The power of the book is that it can overcome it's own inadequacies and rise above them. What is great so far outweighs what is not that I'm willing to ignore them or simply enjoy them in their own right.

What I won't do is try to pretend that there is some deeper meaning and higher purpose behind this. There isn't. There doesn't need to be. I am sure the great minds here will make powerful arguments to prove otherwise, but they are illusions, simply an exercise in intellectual gymnastics. Tolkien has already told us why Bombadil is there and implicity explained why he is incongruous. He was created without the Mythology in mind as a cartoon charcter for his children. He was never intended for this tale but was later dropped in. This is why he feels like he does not belong. It is because he does not belong!

I find the Orcs a much more interesting discussion and I'll return to that later. Any chance we could split the two topics?

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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 9:42 am
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Alatar,

To some extent, because Bombadil is a window, each of us will find in Bombadil what he wants to find. So it is your absolute right not to find Tom worthy of discussion. But to say that any discussion of Tom is akin to " an exercise in intellectual gymnastics" is to miss the point. Tom's origin (ie, the fact that he was previously a doll) is irrelevant, just like the strange factual origin of many philosophical concepts or great books are in a way irrelevant. Nobody here is trying to reconcile Tom with the rest of the myths of Middle-Earth. We are just saying that Tom may be a form of "external" comment on these myths. These philosophical sentences about Tom ("He is" or "Who are you...nameless) or Frodo's dream in Tom's house mentioned again in the last pages of LOTR, there are there. You cannot erase them. You cannot ignore them on account of the origin of Tom. Tom belongs, as a form of comment (and not only as a form of whimsical adventure), which can make you reflect on the story (for those who wish too; as everything, it is a matter of choice), because he is there. In the story. As you know, the writing of LOTR was a long process during which Tolkien probably thought many times about the opportunity to get rid of Tom. But he did not get rid of him. You cannot erase Tom, you cannot hide him. For me, Tom is the moment where I am told by Tolkien that LOTR is more than a simple and entertaining adventure story.

EDIT: The first chapters of LOTR, as well as The Hobbit, were also created without the mythology in mind. Would you also say that they do not belong?

Last edited by Semprini on Fri 21 Oct , 2005 9:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 9:53 am
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In many ways they do not. There is no doubt that things like clocks do not belong in Middle Earth, but the tale transcends these mistakes.

To me, trying to explain Bombadil in Middle Earth is like trying to explain clocks in Hobbiton.

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Semprini
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Again, nobody here is trying "to explain Bombadil in Middle-Earth" (there is no perfect explanation for that, hence the mystery that he represents). We are just using Tom as a starting point for our thoughts on Middle-Earth. These are two very, very different things.

To clarify, are you saying that Tom is a "mistake" just like clocks in hobbiton? Tom adds a lot to the book in terms of atmosphere and themes; to put him on the same level as clocks in hobbiton is... strange. :) I do not think that the word "mistake" is a good choice of word to analyze a specific choice made by a writer in a book, especially when the writer perfectly knew that his choice would raise some thematical and coherence issues in the overall context of his mythological framework.

If Tom's words, as proposed by Jn in her post, can be the basis of an analysis of the Orc problem, which you would find satisfactory, would you still say that Tom is a "mistake"? Isn't it a good thing that Tom makes you think, if you want to think?

Last edited by Semprini on Fri 21 Oct , 2005 10:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 10:15 am
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Lets firstly not assume that I believe Toms words can be the basis of an anlysis of the so-called "orc problem", a problem that I do not see. I find the origins of the Orcs and their motivations interesting, but I do not believe they are a problem per se.

To answer your direct question with a direct answer. Yes, I believe Bombadil was a mistake in LotR. I do not deny that his presence allows many interesting themes to be explored but I think those themes could have been explored in a way that was consistent with the mythology. That said, I will repeat myself and say the LotR transcends the Bombadil problem. But I do consider him a problem.

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Semprini
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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 10:47 am
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I guess we just differ in our approach of literature. I do not think that complete consistency exists in any work of literature. All the great books of literature have sections that are incoherent in comparison with the other sections. But to cut this apparently incoherent part is to reduce the power of the book.

In addition, LOTR is not a real mythology, as we know. It is a mix of many different things. If you really want to make everything coherent in LOTR (and I do not know why you would do that), you would have to cut or change many other things in LOTR. Ie, you would have to write your own book,... which others will perhaps find inconsistent.

Bombadil is a formidable literary character, richer and more interesting than many other characters of LOTR. Therefore, not only is he not a problem, but he is an asset to this book, regardless of the question of consistency. He makes LOTR a greater book. Tom asks questions as do all great books. Without him, the book would be less interesting; it would thus be a lesser book.


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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 11:12 am
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Semprini wrote:
Without him, the book would be less interesting; it would thus be a lesser book.
We will simply have to agree to disagree on such a fundamental point. Would LotR be a greater book if Sauron were depicted as a Nazi? It would certainly be more "interesting" from an intellectual standpoint but I think it would be a lesser book.

I do not feel that Bombadil adds to the book. In many ways he detracts from it. I think LotR may well have been a better book without him. No argument has yet convinced me that he has any benefit to the tale other than as a mild diversion or (as in this case) an exercise in intellectual extrapolation.

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I have to quote Montaigne here: "contradiction is what awakes me" (free translation). Tom Bombadil, because he is mysterious in the context of Middle-Earth, because he asks fundamental questions to the readers, awakes the readers to thoughts, which would have remained hidden, or which would not have been possible, without him. Tom is so many characters, has so many different shapes, at the same time. Philosophical thoughts born from the reading of a book can never detract from a book, on the contrary. These thoughts enrich the perception of such book. More articles have been written on Bombadil than on any other part of the book. He obviously is a source of inspiration; he obviously speaks to many readers, who look behind the simple narrative. He is the Socrates of LOTR in a way. :) TB in all its contradictions is the perfect symbol of LOTR, which cannot be really categorized or clearly defined, as it is part a heroic romance, part a mythology, part an adventure novel, part a fictitious historical account, etc...

Anyway, you are right of course, we will simply have to agree to disagree (for the record, LOTR would have been a far less interesting book if Sauron had been depicted as a nazi, since the strength of LOTR's metaphors lies with the fact that they are not bound by history (due to the use of mythological creatures or objects, which serve as metaphors) and are thus applicable to all historical periods). As Tolkien said, LOTR is not a historical allegory).

Last edited by Semprini on Fri 21 Oct , 2005 12:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Dindraug
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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 12:49 pm
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Not sure Tom should be seen as a mistake, more like bad editing ;)

Personally, I think when Tolkien wrote the Old Forest chapters, his overall plan for the book was something different from what it became, more more like the Hobbit.

When the full version was published, the problems with Bombordil had not been sorted out, or possibly the full story had not been sorted out. How different would the book have been if it had been a quest rather than a quest with a metaplot of war. But by the time FOTR was released, an idea of what people wanted from the book became apparent. Obviously he could not re-do FOTR, so it was left.

It was a clumsy plot device, but LOTR is full of them. Paths of the Dead, Eagles rescuing everybody (now that is something that bugs), masked stranger in inn turns out to be King with magic sword etc etc etc.

I do however thing LOTR would not have worked so well without the wimsicle first bit, you need calm in the world just as much as you need Orcs ;)


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Alatar
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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 1:31 pm
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Thanks Din. What you said spoke a lot more to me about LotR the book as opposed to LotR the metaphysical journey that everyone else seems to be on.

To me it is and always will be, first and foremost an excellent story, with great charcters in a wonderful world. I don't use it to challenge my perception of the world although I respect others desire to do so.

However, I hold to my original opinion that Bombadil is not worthy of the deep philosophical discussions that are being applied to him. To me he is and always will be one of Tolkiens many mistakes, but one that I'm perfectly willing to forgive him for. :)

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yovargas
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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 1:35 pm
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Quote:
The power of the book is that it can overcome it's own inadequacies and rise above them. What is great so far outweighs what is not that I'm willing to ignore them or simply enjoy them in their own right.
Maybe PJ was a purist after all. ;)

I tend to agree with Al but one does get the impression that, once he was in there, Tolkien later tried to make something more significant of his presence. Whether or not he succeded, I'm not sure...


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Sassafras
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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 4:19 pm
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Sitting on the fence. :D

On the one hand I agree with Alatar and Din that the simple answer is that Tom Bombadil was only included at his children's request when Tolkien intended LotR to be a sequel to The Hobbit. (A book, I must confess to only having read once since it is so clearly written as a young person's book)
On the other hand, Tolkien, apparently, was almost as suprised by Tom as he was by Faramir .... and upon greater reflection decided that Tom was indeed an integral part of the mythology ... that his enigmatic nature was purposeful. There are three instances in FotR where Tom's identity is questioned. Twice by Frodo and once by Elrond.

From Letter 153:
Quote:
"I don't think Tom needs philosophizing about, and is not improved by it. But many have found him an odd or indeed discordant ingredient. In historical fact I put him in because I had already 'invented' him independently... and he wanted an adventure on the way. But I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out.

"I do not mean him to be an allegory -- or I should not have given him so particular, individual, and ridiculous a name... [he is meant as] a particular embodying of pure (real) natural science: the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature, because they are 'other' and wholly independent of the inquiring mind, a spirit coeval with the rational mind, and entirely unconcerned with `doing' anything with the knowledge...
Semprini stated it well:
To some extent, because Bombadil is a window, each of us will find in Bombadil what he wants to find.

So. Being me, I want an answer to the puzzle. And so much is dependant on the right question.

Who is TB? Or what is TB?

Let me just say that either question cannot be answered (to my satisfaction) without also including Goldberry.

Is Tom merely intended to embody nature? In which case he would be a 'what' ... a fragment of Arda Unmarred. And would then Goldberry also have been a relic of the first pure incarnation (before Melkor began his discordant song)?
Perhaps Tom was a creation of the first music ... an echo, if you will either inadvertent or deliberate makes no difference. It certainly could explain all of that singing ... and the intrinsic power contained within the songs.

Tom put his mouth to the crack and began singing in a low voice <snip>
"You should not be waking. Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! Go to sleep!
Bombadil is talking!"


In fact, imo, it is an example of magic. Until, as with the Istari, one begins to understand that what appears to the human sense as magic is simply another form knowledge posessed by these different beings. Is Tom a lesser maia? (and Goldberry too, by extension) who entered into Arda with the Valar in the beginning. His name would suggest he must be.
Iarwain Ben-adar Eldest and Fatherless.

Who are you, Master?"

"Eh, what?" said Tom sitting up, and his eyes glinting in the gloom. "Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer
......

A Zen koan. In other words .... what is the sound of one hand clapping?

Just a few random thoughts.
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Again agree with Alatar. Could we please split the Orc dilemma off into a seperate thread. The only correlation I can see at this early stage is that Tolkien, for his own reasons, deliberately left them as enigmatical as Tom.


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eborr
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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 10:04 pm
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I think if you are trying to understand Bombabadil using some notion of what one might describe as a "rational" pov then you are doomed to fail.

Tolkien well understood, better than most of us here I would guess the benefits and the failings of plantonic ( socratic ) perception

If you try to describe Catholicism or indeed any of the major groupings of the Christian church in a contest of rationality you will come up short.

Bombadill represents a much more fundamental essential truth - perhaps only seen in it's full glory through the childs eyes.

He is the inexplacable the manifstation of faith above reason which must alway's be present in a universe which is created by one whose tenet of being is faith in spite of all.

Jacko's failure to enter this territory is understandable- but not excusable it is this together with the notion of the unwinable struggle which disntinguishes Tollkien ( sorry if that sounds pompous) from every other writer of the 20C


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Sassafras
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Posted: Fri 21 Oct , 2005 11:07 pm
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eborr wrote:
I think if you are trying to understand Bombabadil using some notion of what one might describe as a "rational" pov then you are doomed to fail.
I dunno about anybody else but I work with what I've got. :D And what I've got is a brain that likes to connect the dots in order to understand how I get from here to there. Especially when the end result is based upon 'a leap of faith'.

An analogy: Once upon a time in the far distant past, I took a mighty hit of LSD and sat, for the better part of a summer day, upon the top of a mountain in upstate New York. I 'saw' the divine fabric of life. I knew myself to be a thread in that fabric and I rejoiced in the knowledge that all life was intertwined. I approached something very akin to ecstasy as time stood still. There was no time. There was simply being at one with the moment. Never before, and never since has that experience been duplicated and I believe it to be crucial to my particular understanding of life in this cosmos.

Later I discover (probing for explanations from the Havard chemist who, with Leary, was instrumental in bringing the pychedelic movement to the forefront in the mid 1960's) that the reason my brain, and by association my consciousness/soul, experienced these truths so convincingly, so vividly ... is because lysergic acid is a massive seretonin re-uptake inhibitor. My brain was quite simply awash in seretonin which, in turn, stimulates other emotive areas in the frontal lobes.

Does knowing the how of my vision negate the truth of it?
No, it does not.
To this day, I still do not subscribe to any deistic/theistic first cause. In other words, I have no religeous faith ... but what that day upon the mountain showed me was that I am not other, I am inextricably and gloriously connected to the whole.
Quote:
Bombadill represents a much more fundamental essential truth - perhaps only seen in it's full glory through the childs eyes.

He is the inexplacable the manifstation of faith above reason which must alway's be present in a universe which is created by one whose tenet of being is faith in spite of all.
I use my analogy, clumsy though it is, to disagree and to say that it is possible to use reason in order to understand a metaphysical truth. Indeed, for me, it is not only desirable, it is required.
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Um. Sorry. But I had to respond. :)


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BrianIsSmilingAtYou
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jnyusa, your comparison of Bombadil to the Orcs is interesting, but it does not carry things to the furthest extreme.

Bombadil could be seen, not as the opposite of the Orcs, but of their "maker".

As Gandalf the White was "Saruman as he should have been", Bombadil was Melkor as he should have been.

He is the Master, but he does not seek possession or control. Thus he has the power, one could say, of Melkor, but not his failings.

The Ring, as the ultimate manifestation of Melkor's power (via Sauron), would certainly have no hold over the true Master.

He is Melkor as he should have been. As such, the Power is his, but undiluted (whereas Melkor allowed his power to diffuse throughout Arda in an effort to achieve mastery and control). Bombadil chooses not to use this power.

Goldberry, in this view, is the symbolic representation of a feminine coeval for the uncorrupted Melkor, as Varda is for Manwe. Presenting her as the "daughter of the river" ties her to Arda, and thus his relationship with her, as spouse, represents the ideal relationship of uncorrupted spiritual power in relation to Arda, as opposed to Melkor's relationship with Arda, which was one of domination.

This completes the harmonious image of Melkor as he might have been.

BrianIs :) AtYou

Last edited by BrianIsSmilingAtYou on Sat 22 Oct , 2005 4:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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