h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"people are so negative about poor old Tom"

- something else you missed in the backlog was a comment that Bombadil represents Jack In The Green, aka some distinctly Old Skool religion. He's a pagan figure, connected with nature, and Prof Tolkien shows some respect for the ancient traditions of his home country by including him, but points out that Tom will not leave the borders of his land - i.e. his time is past - and is waiting for the world to change.

I think Bombadil is disliked because he's a proto-hippy and because he's jarring difference to the more serious figures that we meet later. He also gets some of the more annoying songs, which in itself is reason enough to not put him in the movie.

Lets get this straight now. Tom Bombadil is a nonce.

Having left the cheerfulness of the shire and headed into the dark woods, pursued by riders in black, the group get attacked by a tree as they mysteriously fall asleep. Then, for no reason what so ever, a man with yellow boots and a blue hat appears and sings a song, making all his lines ryhme (hes a bit of a mong..... see i tired a tom impression, and its just annoying)

I was glad to see the last bit of toms poem (about roots going to drink deep) going to Treebeard in the extended TTT

Bistroist
Yeh your probibly right, sorry not been back to you sooner bout this.

Hmmm, I do not know why but I always thought Tom was cut from the same cloth as Gandalf, Radagast and Saruman (are they called the Maya?) but arrived in Middle-Earth much earlier and so was debased sooner (but in a good 'love this girl' similar to the 'love the birds' Radagast way, rather than the 'love this power' way of Saruman). I think I picked this out of the Silmarillion - but it was long ago that I read it so I am not sure Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

Tolkein never really identified who or what Bombadil was. "Even myths need an enigma".

He's probably not a maia because the ring doesn't affect him, whereas it apparantly does Saruman, Gandalf etc.

Someone, probably Gandalf, mentions that Bombadil was old when the world was young. It's entirely possible that he's...ooo...what are they, from Silmarillion?...Valar?

I have a soft spot for Bombadil, even though I find his appearance in 'Fellowship' a little annoying. I think I'm mellowing with age. He used to annoy me greatly.

There's a lot of debate about what Bombadil is scattered around the internet. He doesn't really fit with any of the Valar though, plus he appears to have been around before they came to Ea.

I'm wondering how that's possible, since I thought they created Ea. But that's probably down to me misreading Silmarillion. Again.

Ah well. I sort of liked the idea of Bombadil being a leftover god, just sort of ambling about the place and having fun.

Thanks a lot, Della. Just shoot down every thing I say.

Tolkien was definitely an old guy at one point in time.

<> Yes, I did say "in his spare time".

And it is true that Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion by himself; but C.T. did contribute to a lot of his posthumously published books.

The Bombadill question is like trying to find the missing piece in a jigsaw, he doesn't fit and I wasn't surprised he was excluded from the film in the least. My best guess about him is that Tolkien had some sort of plan for him at first, but somehow got sidetracked. I think he left him in because he liked the idea of a poetic character, much of the old saxon texts Tolkien translated and lectured about were in ryme and I think Tolkien wanted to put something of that in the book. I think he loved it so much that he would have been heartbroken to loose it. It turns up other places as well e.g. three rings for the.......etc etc.

Another possibility is that he wanted a character that was absolutely untouched by the nastyness in the world, it might have represented a hope for himself, as a WW I vetran I imagine he may at times have found it hard not to have some anger and spitefulness. Bombadil may be an idealised version of himself rescued from such feelings pure and unsullied by some of the horrific things he must have seen.

I still like tom.

Ramble away, we're the right people to ramble too.

I didn't get to last night, I got sidetracked into something else. My bad.

I watched the barrel thing: I think you can set your heart at rest now. When SamandFrodo are talking they are in one place, when the barrels have apparently disappeared, they haven't because SamandFrodo are in a different (barrelless) part of the cave.

Oh, now I'm going to go into one: totally totally off topic. Is "barrelless" a word? I had difficulty writing that, and the part of me that is teaching (and learning along with her) Gruesome #1 to write German got stuck because Barrell has a double-l at the end. Less has an L at the beginning. In newGerman, that would be Barrellless. Which is plain absurd. Perhaps I should stop now and get on with the parts.

I think as long as everyone else can understand what you mean spelling isn't that important on some trickier or made up words.

As for Christophers Tolkiens works I did appreiciate the 2 books I read of his where he did a breakdown of how JRR Tolkien created the Lord of the Rings from 1st to 3rd/4th draft (can't remember which) - some interesting chapters he ditched and the various endings he created before settling on the whole finale (no spoilers) at mount doom

Okay, I admit. He wasn't a bad writer; it's just that the History Of Middle-Earth books were realy strange and confusing; I just didn't like them. Not to put C.T. down or anything.

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With the Tom Bombadil thing...I'm surprised that almost no one I know of has heard of the BBC radio show they did of tLotR. They left old Tom out of that too (which I was surprised at but not at all disappointed).
(Interesting side note: the guy who played Biblo in the movie, Ian Holm, did the voice of Frodo in the radio show.)

Yes I know - I own a copy on MP3 of the entire thing - good show.

As for Tom Bombadil I do find it interesting being compared to Pagan relgions as JRR was a very devout cathlic. (He even converted CS Lewis (I think) to Catholism as well.) So maybe he is there to say this is Paganism and this is where it stays out of mind and no longer playing a part in major events in the world.

I think Lewis converted from agnosticism to the Anglican Church, I doubt Tolkein was responsible for that then.

He was - read a book by CS Lewis (could have got the religion wrong it is years ago when I read it (and must admit only skimmed read it) called God on Trial.

Basically JRR and CS used to meet together alot (met through other work) and discuss ideas for books etc in a sort of informal writers collab. Then as there became better friends and Tolkien started putting forward his arguments for believing in god and eventully converted CS Lewis. CS Lewis then wrote a book on these arguments and discussions he had with JRR and got it published.

how long is an MP3 of the whole thing? and where can I get one (don't mind buying it legitimately) - I was given an MP3 player for Christmas, and I have no idea how to get stuff for it.

I did not get it legit.

Copy from a friend of a friend. It is about 12 hours long, though you can buy it legit if you order it - try amazon over the net or some good bookshops should be able to order it. Expensive though.

ah ok
I'm just confused by all this modern fandangle MP3 stuff
I have shedloads of CDs & LPs... I'm blowed if I'm going to fork out for more copies of the same stuff.

OK, all you Bombadillo fans: what is it you like about him? He reminds me of when you go out in a group and one of you gets just a little too drunk. Not falling over puking in the gutter type drunk, just more exuberant than the rest of you.

That's so annoying. And that's how Bombadill annoys me. It's not that I'd probably dislike him if he'd concentrate and stop skipping around and singing.

Obviously his heart is in the right place, but he just doesn't seem to be taking the potential end of Middle-Earth as we know it seriously enough.

Ah, I'm letting the yellow booted one get to me again.

Could be he is so old that he has seen it threatened so many times (by all the events in the simalarion) that it just the same old same old for him. What would be really freaky is if every person who went on to save middle-earth had there lives saved by a mysterious yellow booted twerp.

MP3 is just basically a term for a type of file that stores things like songs in a small space. So you could fit for example 5 of your Cd's of songs in one CD in MP3 format - that is how I was told it (with more techno babble that went over my head faster than an accellerating thing travel at very fast speed.)

I wouldn't know either - I copyed the CDs my library had. It is pretty long.