Who put all these elves in my hobbits?

[rpgdemon]

Originally Posted by Shyria Dracnoir

It's noted that Tolkien thought of the world of Middle-Earth as a sort of mythical past for our own planet, and the retreat of these more mystical elements sort of supports it.

Yeah, I have a friend who's really into the Lord of the Rings supplementary stuff, and he was telling me about how eventually the stuff leads into our world, and WWII actually happens sometime in the ninth age, or something?

Originally Posted by Aerozord

Bombadil was never a fully formed idea to start with. Tolkien himself said he couldn't explain what his purpose was in the story, only that he felt something would be missing with his removal otherwise he wouldn't have been left in.

I'm betting he was just an idea he wanted to use so he tossed him in without much regard to his nature in the grand mythos

Didn't Bombadil come from a short story he wrote, originally, with no ties to the Lord of the Rings? I honestly don't remember where I heard this, but I thought I did, somewhere. Also, I feel like if he was taken out, the entire book would feel far too tense and as if there was no way the Hobbits could have survived far enough to hit Elrond.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Also Tom's bit is the only good bit in the trilogy.

[RickZarber]

Originally Posted by Melfice

Yes, but the real kicker is, Beorn is the Old English form of the Scandinavian name Björn or Bjørn.

Which means... you guessed it, "bear".

Well, duh. :P I'm just saying it makes a certain amount of simplistic sense, seeing as, in fact, the real kicker is that in OE, "Beorn" as a surename was taken to mean: "a warrior, a hero, a man of valour" (also, poetic "man").

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

Didn't Bombadil come from a short story he wrote, originally, with no ties to the Lord of the Rings?

This is correct. Bombadil predates LotR, and first appeared in a poem published in the Oxford Magazine in 1933. (So he actually predates The Hobbit, too.)

About Tom Bombadil's nature, esp re: the reference to Tom:God, in Tolkien's own words, from a letter written in 1954 (Letters of JRR Tolkien No. 153):

Frodo has not asked 'what is Tom Bombadil' but 'Who is he'. We and he no doubt often laxly confuse the questions. Goldberry gives what I think is the correct answer. We need not go into the sublimities of 'I am that I am' -- which is quite different from he is. She adds as a concession a statement of part of the 'what'. He is master in 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. [...] 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 wanted an 'adventure' on the way. But I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out. [...] [He is] an expampler, 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. Even the Elves hardly show this: they are primarily artists.

[RobinStarwing]

I think I will just drop out of this discussion before my brain implodes.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I refuse to believe that Bombadil is Eru Illuvatar. No fucking way!

[Seil]

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Hawk

I refuse to believe that Bombadil is Eru Illuvatar. No fucking way!

Santa Claus is also the Easter Bunny. Think about it. It makes sense.