[ SECRET POST #3994 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3994 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 49 secrets from Secret Submission Post #572.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. https://i.imgur.com/v8EHDTy.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Amen. Tom was a big very Stu.

[(Anonymous)]

Gary Stu freaking auto correct.

[froodle]

Both correct tho

[(Anonymous)]

That seems like it's massively stretching the definition of "Gary Stu"

[tree_and_leaf]

... yeah.

I assume OP is focussing specifically on his resisting the ring, but it's made quite clear that it's not because he's super-powered, or at least not in the Gary Stu sense. He resists the ring because he's literally only interested in one tiny patch of Middle Earth and doesn't care abut anything else. He's weird and kooky and you're not obliged to like him, but he's not a Stu.

[(Anonymous)]

I like him in the books. He's this big weird inexplicable spirit guy. It's cool to have a big weird inexplicable spirit in Middle Earth, and I think the parts of the story that he features in are generally entertaining and atmospheric.

It would have been completely impossible to adapt any of those things into film, and I'm glad that they didn't try.

[(Anonymous)]

Same, OP. He was... idk, jarringly out of place, I felt? It’s been a long time since I read the books, but I remember feeling like he’d killed any sense of pacing that had managed to be built, and that he was extraneously ridiculous.

[(Anonymous)]

One of my all-time favorite fan theories is that Tom Bombadil was a character from a totally unrelated story that got interpolated into the Red Book centuries later.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Ahahaha, I could buy into that. Maybe some pages got stuck together somewhere.

[ketita]

It's funny, I used to feel that he was super out of place, but on a reread I liked his part of the book. It made it seem like there were bigger things in the world, and really separated out for me the different "layers" that the story was operating on. And the idea that you have beings and spirits who are just not interfering, for various reasons.

[(Anonymous)]

I like it too. The idea that there's something mysterious and unknowable right on the very borders of the Shire segues very well into the vast history of Middle-earth. Also you get to see a lot of very cool stuff through his eyes. I like the little room when the hobbits sleep as well - it seems such a comfortable place to spend a couple of nights.

He and Goldberry come into "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" too (duh) so it's not as if he has no other interaction with the story and the Shire.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm so glad you said this so that I don't have to try to put it into words myself. Couldn't agree more.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm glad he's not in the movie because he wouldn't fit. But I am sad they didn't do the barrow-downs and the wight because that would be awesome to see on screen (especially from PJ. I don't like many of his decisions but he is good with horror - this is his wheelhouse).

I actually like Tom's section more these days because I like seeing the Hobbits on their own. They did get Tom's help but not much. They had to escape without Aragorn or Gandalf to help them out, which I think is interesting to see.

[type_wild]

He was the last bits of LotR that bore some resemblance of the tone of The Hobbit, which was why I was there in the first place when I was thirteen.

[froodle]

Yes, an anti Tom Bombadil secret! Hate that fucker, what a waste of a chapter.

[(Anonymous)]

I liked the character and the interlude, but not in the context of the book if that makes any sense? Like I'd be fine with reading more about Tom and Goldberry as a separate tale, but it doesn't fit in the quest narrative of LOTR, IMO. Especially when you then have to explain away why Tom Bombadil seems impervious to the Ring's power but still can't be a solution to the problem of the One Ring.

[(Anonymous)]

I think the only real core issue with Bombadil is that while he absolutely fits the trope of the Threshold Guardian from Campbell's Hero's Journey, he doesn't fit the rest of the book's tone. He's important in a symbolic and narrative way, but once the "tale grew in the telling" as Tolkien himself put it, he began to no longer fit the tone. But Tolkien, writing a modern version of a Norse epic saga, couldn't bring to cut him because he fit a very particular role that he recognized, pre-Campbell, as being "part" of the narrative structure.

I'm drunk so that might not make sense but heroes' journey tropes, blah blah blah. Bombadil is the guardian of the border between the hero's old life as a common bumpkin and his new life as the chosen one called to action. Analytically, he makes sense. Contextually, at least tone-wise? not so much. And I say this as someone who actually likes his annoying ass.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, I thought Rivendell was more the border between his old life and new quest. Frodo wasn't really changed at all by his encounter with Bombadil. It was just a pleasant respite.

[(Anonymous)]

When I first read LotR, Tom's part stopped me dead in my tracks and it took me a year to resume reading. I only managed that when I decided to skip over his part and go back to it when I'd finished. I'm glad he wasn't in the movies.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadiller!
Bright blue his jacket is, and his chapter's filler!

[vethica]

pffff A+

[tree_and_leaf]

But the bit on the Withywindle and the Barrow Downs chapter are just so beautifully written. And genuinely horrific in places!

(That said, A++ parody).