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.