"The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil"

[huinare]

bunn kindly apprised me of the existence of this Bombadil speculation.

Thoughts:

- Many of the respondents have taken this way too seriously (particularly Mr. Osborne on pg. 6).   I don't see any assertion on the author's part that this interpretation is the best one or even a tenable one; I just see a wonderfully creative and unique (albeit dark--but obviously that's why I like it) approach to Old Tom here.

- This seriously would make for an excellent "AU" story.  I'd read the h*ll out of it.

- An anon on pg 5 says: If we are going to do a sinister interpretation of Bombadil, why not go into full crossover territory and postulate him as a renegade Time Lord, who is hiding from the Doctor behind amnesia and in an alternate (story-)universe? In the book itself Goldberry explicitly states that Tom is the master...The Master... Reborn! (cue the drums, the drums, the neverending drums)
^ THIS.   I love The Master and his insane drum motif.  I can totally hear Bombadil's song set to The Master's drumbeat, but I don't even know what weird tempo that would be.  =D


- This caused me to (I think re-) read this one: "Who Is Tom Bombadil?"  So now I'm just going to say that "Tom and Goldberry are actually Aulë and Yavanna" makes least sense to me out of all the speculations.  Aulë?  I'll accept the "Tom is Eru" line before I accept a conflation of Aulë with Tom Bombadil.

- I just wrote a crack!thing.  It's not fancy, but it's the first thing I've written in weeks and it addresses my thoughts on the Aulë-as-Bombadil speculation more amusingly than a nonfiction rant would.


Sauron: So you know that eccentric fellow who sings and capers in the Old Forest?
Saruman: I wish I didn't, what of him?
Sauron: if you're drinking something, set it down, I don't want you spitting kahlua all over the palantír screen again.
Saruman: That only happened the once...Fine.  Now what is this stunning news of yours?
Sauron: Well.  As it turns out, Bombadil is actually Aulë.
Saruman: PFFT?!
Sauron: Told you so.
Saruman: But that makes no sense.  What the eternal flame would a self-possessed, logical chap with a penchant for bioengineering, chemistry, and geophysics be doing running around in the woods like a hippie and singing inane verse?
Sauron: That's what I said.  But unfortunately, it is true.  Aulë evidently emerged from Valinor sometime after the Darkening, and came to abide here in Endórë along with his intolerable tree-hugging wife.
Saruman: Her, too?  Fuck.
Sauron: Exactly.  Apparently, what with that Dwarf-Ent drama before the count of time, and then the whole Curse and Kinslaying associated with the Elvenfolk Aulë had been hanging about with, Yavanna was beginning to feel "less invested in the relationship." The noble lady insisted they take an extended holiday in Midde-earth in order to work out their differences and reclaim their youthful passion and all that crap.
Saruman: Ew.
Sauron: Yes, let's not dwell on that.  So clearly, us both being turncoat Maiar once associated with the Smith of the Valar, we must be passing careful not to let our schemes or deeds fall upon Aul--er, Bombadil's ears.
Saruman: Wait, back up, there's something I don't understand.  Aulë and Kementári were both present in Valinor in the early Third Age, when my colleagues and I were selected to journey to Middle-earth for the purpose of--um, well--
Sauron: Yes, how's that going by the way?
Saruman: ...
Sauron: Oh come on, I'm just toying with you like a cat with a self-important little--that is to say, I'm just messing with you.  You know, like pals do.  Anyway, you were saying?
Saruman: Well, that all happened less than two millennia ago, so Aulë would have had to depart from Valinor sometime after that.  So how is it that he traipses around the Old Forest calling himself "eldest," when Middle-earth had been home to sentient life-forms for thousands of years already?
Sauron: Precisely.  Aulë has apparently thrown all trace of reason out the window and can no longer form coherent, verifiable assertions.  This, in addition to his taking up habits he never formerly showed the slightest interest in nor inclination toward, and assuming personality traits which are at utter variance with his historic character.
Saruman: But why should he do all this?  Is he that desperate to spy on us and undermine our workings in stealth?
Sauron: You'd think so, but no.  The Aulë we knew was concerned for the earth and its inhabitants, and would also not fail to be cognizant of our presence here in Endórë.  Yet this Aulë who styles himself Bombadil not only seems unaware of us and our doings, he seems completely indifferent to anything outside his little realm.
Saruman: I'd like to say I am relieved, but I must admit my primary reaction is one of bewilderment.  Are you sure this Bombadil creature really is Aulë?  What would compel a person to draw that conclusion?
Sauron: Well, Radagast told me that Yavanna--that is to say, Goldberry--told him all about it after she'd ingested quite a bit of mead along with some of Radagast's special mushrooms.
Saruman: So you've got hold of Radagast?
Sauron: Of course I have, he keeps wandering into my various strongholds in pursuit of moths or bats or other creatures.  Not the brightest little fellow...But! he's also Yavanna's dealer.  He provides all that she needs to keep Aulë rhyming and capering and complacent.  Pretty dysfunctional, when you think about it.
Saruman: That relationship was never not dysfunctional.
Sauron: Quite.  But this new level of spousal abuse and control works to my benefit, and yours too I might add, so it will behoove us both to allow Radagast to come and go freely.
Saruman: I can see the necessity, though I like it not.  I'd planned to imprison Radagast on the roof of Orthanc next time he showed up here to bother me.
Sauron: Why the roof?
Saruman: Why not?  To see what he would do about it.
Sauron: Good answer.  Save the roof for someone less innocuous though.

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I'd not read that Bombadil=Master comment - love the idea of dark Bombadil's songs to the sound of the drums!

Of all the people Bombadil could be, Aulë? Seriously? That seems like, hmm, here is an immortal non-elf couple. What other IN-EC's do we know of? Oh yes, Aulë & Yavanna, they must be the same people.

Anyone proceeding on that sort of basis in daily life must get *SO CONFUSED* :-D

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Of all the people Bombadil could be, Aulë? Seriously?

Exactly. I can only speculate that someone thought Yavanna would make a good Goldberry and decided to bring Aulë along.

[shadowbrides.livejournal.com]

Heh! I hadn't heard of that post before, it's amazing. I love the idea of dark lord Bombadil. It's hilarious yet also ominious. Imagine being tortured by someone who keeps laughing and making silly rhymes about said torture. This is how I imagine it. Which might actually be more frightning than a serious dark lord who actually seems to care about your lack of wellbeing. Ahem.

I've always gone for the idea that Tom a very powerful Ainu unassociated with any side in particular - I believe there is a line somewhere about the spirits and came into the world and lived in the land or something like that. One quite possibly as powerful as the Valar but simply a lot less interested in participating. Can't think of what it was exactly, but...I like the Eru theory too. God as a merciless, terrifyingly cheerful quiet observer of everything going on around him is quite dark, actually. I mean, that makes his eternal good cheer and laughter rather obscene. "hahah I'm totes repsonsible for melkor and death you guys haha I guess you'll just have to suffer while I watch heybomodillo ringadillo! Oops almost got choked by a tree huh? Must really suck huh? Haha!" For some reason that reminds me of Sunday in Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday.

Lemme quote the quote I posted from that book a while ago;
“Now absent-mindedness is just a bit too awful in a bad man. We think of a wicked man as vigilant. We can’t think of a wicked man who is honestly and sincerely dreamy, because we daren’t think of a wicked man alone with himself. An absentminded man means a good-natured man. It means a man who, if he happens to see you, will apologise. But how will you bear an absentminded man who, if he happens to see you, will kill you? That is what tries the nerves, abstraction combined with cruelty. Men have felt it sometimes when they went through wild forests, and felt that the animals there were at once innocent and pitiless. They might ignore or slay. How would you like to pass ten mortal hours in a parlour with an absent-minded tiger?”

I feel like that is what Dark Lord Bombadil would be like. :P

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Imagine being tortured by someone who keeps laughing and making silly rhymes about said torture.

Surprisingly enough, I hadn't yet got as far as imagining that. And yes, it is rather horrifying in a funny way!

God as a merciless, terrifyingly cheerful quiet observer of everything going on around him is quite dark, actually. I mean, that makes his eternal good cheer and laughter rather obscene.

OMG that's true, it would actually be pretty messed up, wouldn't it? Love the quote.

[pandemonium-213.livejournal.com]

Ah the old Bombadilian origins chestnut! Always a favorite, and there are some real doozies in there. From Letter 144 to Naomi Mitchison:

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.

He has no connexion in my mind with the Entwives. What had happened to them is not resolved in this book. He is in a way the answer to them in the sense that he is almost the opposite, being say, Botany and Zoology (as sciences) and Poetry as opposed to Cattle-breeding and Agriculture and practicality.

I would surmise that JRRT himself had not really defined what TB was, but one of the commenters (on page 6, I think) said something about "time and nature," which might fit with what JRRT wrote. Frankly, I like the ambiguity of TB.

But really? It's your fabulous crack!fic that made me LOL this morning! That's great!

But! he's also Yavanna's dealer. He provides all that she needs to keep Aulë rhyming and capering and complacent. Pretty dysfunctional, when you think about it.

AH HAHAHAHAHA!

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I've seen that passage before and quite like it.

It seems people either love or hate Bombadil's ambiguity. I was in the latter camp until I'd read into the more obscure corners of the Legendarium, at which point I decided it was more fun to imagine where on earth Bombadil emerged from rather than be annoyed about him.

Glad my crack!dialogue elicited some amusement. =D

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

"Tom and Goldberry are actually Aulë and Yavanna" makes least sense to me out of all the speculations.

Good Grief!

To quote Saruman, "What the eternal flame would a self-possessed, logical chap with a penchant for bioengineering, chemistry, and geophysics be doing running around in the woods like a hippie and singing inane verse?"

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I'm so relieved I'm not the only one who can't fathom the Bombadaulë (yes, I went there) hypothesis. For some reason I've read more Bombadil speculation than a healthy person ought, and I've seen the Aulë thing seriously put forward in a few places. It's never made a jot of sense to me.

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard this speculation before, although I loved, loved, LOVED your crack-fic. I have thought sometimes that Bombadil might have been Orome, returned to Middle-earth because he loved the land, but I also love the idea that another Vala entered Arda, not just Tulkas, or that Eru has an alter-ego and his name is Bombadil.... Whichever way you go about it, he is a character of enigma and mystery clothed in some really horrible music and rhyme.

- Erulisse (one L)

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I find Oromë quite a bit more severe than Tom, but they do share an affinity for the land it seems, yes.

...but I also love the idea that another Vala entered Arda, not just Tulkas...

I think you're the second or third person in this thread to bring up the idea that Tom's a Vala. I hadn't thought of that before but I rather like it; after all, it's never quite seemed to me that there's a Vala in the panthoen who quite represents the poetic inclination.

In my own headcanon, he's a Maia who came into Arda at the same time as Tulkas did. Once I meant to write a bunch of short stories about him, one bearing out my headcanon, and a few just being kind of satirical. So many things I never get around to writing..