Originally posted by BlackCaptain
The Valar removed themselves from ME, and the only Vala that would want anything to do with ME would be Ulmo, and he has no spouse.
These are weak arguments on which to discard the plausibility of Aulë being Tom and I will quote from Gene Hargrove's essay to rebut them.
...Aulë delighted in making, not possessing, and "he did not envy the works of others, but sought and gave counsel.
"Like Aulë, Tom is not possessive. Although his power to dominate and control is always stressed - he is the master - he does not interfere with other beings except when they directly interfere with him. Although he has the power to possess whatever he may desire, he does not chose to possess or own the forest. As Goldberry explains, the animals, plants, and natural objects of the forest are all allowed to belong to themselves. This distain for ownership or possession is the reason why Tom is able to handle the ring without fear.
"We should not forget that of all the Valar Aulë was the one most eager to see the Children of Iluvatar. He is also the only one to make sentient, rational beings of his own. Given his interest in such creatures, it is not unreasonable to assume that, like Gandalf, he found Hobbits fascinating. As Hobbit songs about Tom Bombadil suggest, moreover, he had plenty of contact with Hobbits in Buckland and the Marish, no doubt allowing ample opportunity for Hobbit study.
Melkor.Originally posted by ithrynluin
So tell me which Vala DID delight in possessing then? Which Vala DID envy the works of others?
The second sentence is almost unintelligible and contradicts Tolkien’s indications that Bombadil’s morality of pacifism and minimal interference may be a proper moral stance, but it is not the only proper moral stance.On the surface, this view of Tom seems to make him unrelated to all other things and events in Middle-earth - indeed, anomalous. As Aulë, however, Tom is not beyond and unconcerned anomalously, but rather is located at the core of morality as it existed in Middle-earth, as the ultimate exemplification of the proper moral stance toward power, pride, and possession.
From Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, letter 144:That is the reason why I think Tom is a manifestation of something REALLY powerful, Valar-level at least. Scanning through the earlier posts in this thread, it seems that Tom has characteristics of several Vala (Ulmo, Aule, Yavanna, Tulkas even). Why not reconcile all of that with the idea that Tom is the Big Cheese (Eru) himself?
This largely explains Tom’s being immune to the Ring, as it is also explained by Gandalf in the chapter “The Council of Elrond”. Remember too, Dwarves were also mostly unaffected by the Great Rings, not dominated by them and not subject to fading or invisibility. There is nothing in Tolkien to indicate great power alone enabled one to escape from the lure and domination of a Ring. Gandalf an incarnate Maia was probably more subject to the power of the Ring than Frodo, a Hobbit who had never sought power.Tom Bombadil is not an important person –– to the narrative. I suppose he has some importance as a ‘comment’. I mean, I do not really write like that: he is just an invention (who first appeared in the Oxford Magazine about 1933), and he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function. I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were taken ‘a vow of poverty’, renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless. It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war. But the view of Rivendell seems to be that it is an excellent thing to have represented, but that there are in fact things with which it cannot cope; and upon which its existence nonetheless depends. Ultimately only the victory of the West will allow Bombadil to continue, or even to survive. Nothing would be left for him in the world of Sauron.
So Bombadil is certainly not Eru. This discussion indicates quite well what Bombadil did mean to Tolkien, and it was not craftsmanship and the stone of the earth and making things.As for Tom Bombadil, I really do think you are being too serious, besides missing the point. (Again the words used are by Goldberry and Tom not me as a commentator). You rather remind me of a Protestant relation who to me objected to the (modern) Catholic habit of calling priests Father, because the name father belonged only to the First Person, citing last Sunday’s Epistle – inappositely since that says ex quo. Lots of other characters are called Master; and if ‘in time’ Tom was primeval he was Eldest in Time. But Goldberry and Tom are referring to the mystery of names. See and ponder Tom’s words in Vol. I p. 142.²
You may be able to conceive of your unique relation to the Creator without a name – can you: for in such a relation pronouns become proper nouns? But as soon as you are in a world of other finites with a similar, if each unique and different, relation to Prime Being, who are you? Frodo has asked not ‘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 am’ – which is quite different from he is.* She adds as a concession a statement of pan 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. He hardly even judges, and as far as can be seen makes no effort to reform or remove even the Willow.
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 (he first appeared in the Oxford Magazine)³ 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 ridiculous 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. 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 fundamental – 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.
* Only the first person (of worlds or anything) can be unique. If you say he is there must be more than one, and created (sub) existence is implied. I can say ‘he is’ of Winston Churchill as well as of Tom Bombadil, surely?
2. ‘“Don’t you know my name yet? That’s the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?”’ 3. i.e. the poem ‘The Adventures of Tom Bombadil’ was first published in that magazine in 1934.
From the “Ainulindalë”:"The Valar arrayed themselves in the form and temper some as of male and some as of female [although, physically, they were neither]."
Tolkien’s Valar had gender even when pure spirit. At the time he wrote The Lord of the Rings they were still thought able to have offspring, some of these offspring born before the descent into Eä, including Oromë who was the son of Yavanna, but not by Aulë.But when they desire to clothe themselves the Valar take upon them forms some as of male and some as of female; for that difference of temper they had even from their beginning, and it is but boded forth in the choice of each, not made by the choide, even as with us male and female may be shown by the raiment but is not made thereby.
She is a real person in the poem “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil”.The claim that Goldberry is the Riverwoman’s daughter needn’t be taken literally.
There is nothing to stop Bombail and Goldberry being aliens for another planet if you are going to invent a story and ignore Tolkien’s own words whenever they conflict with the invention.There is nothing to stop Yavanna from visiting and Aulë from being there for the purpose of studying Hobbits.
There is nothing to stop Bombail and Goldberry being aliens for another planet if you are going to invent a story and ignore Tolkien’s own words whenever they conflict with the invention.
The passage states that Valar have gender even as spirits and the bodies in which they clothe themselves match that gender.As I wrote, that they had physical gender isn't inferred by the passage you cited.
Aulë and Yavanna are the other persons. Were you not supporting the plausibility of identifying them with Tom Bombadil and Goldberry?Which other persons? I think you misconstrued what I wrote?
I was referring to Gene Hargrove’s identification of Bombadil with Aulë; and Goldberry with Yavanna which seems to me groundless, therefore an invention. Phrases like Gene Hargrove’s “It is not unreasonable to assume ....” in any writing set off warning indications that unfounded speculation will follow.What story did you think I invented? You started off well, but went off on your own tangent.
Nothing indicates that all the greatest Maiar would have been tempted by the Ring.
Welcome to the forums, Elwë!
The question you posted is probably the most commonly debated subject among Tolkienists, followed by whether Balrogs had wings.. If you have the time and patience, please read through these (rather extensive) threads.
What IS Tom Bombadil?
Thoughts on Bombadil
Tom Bombadil: A character for generations past
Who is Tom Bombadil really after all the debate?
Have fun.
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