Short video with interesting insights:
Eric does say something, though, that gave me pause: as he was talking about good changes, from book to film, in the Peter Jackson LOTR trilogy, he mentioned (1) having Arwen be the one to stop the Ringwraiths at the river and (2) omitting Tom Bombadil. I think I understood his argument for Arwen, but personally, I wouldn't have minded seeing Tom Bombadil who, if I'm not mistaken, is actually a primordially cosmic being of immense power. I suppose the problem is that the hobbits' encounter with Bombadil doesn't lead to any sort of Old Testament-style hierophanies—we merely get hints about the character's ancientness and puissance. So Bombadil—at least in The Fellowship of the Rings—is little more than a sideshow, and since his presence doesn't really affect the larger story (or does it?), the choice was made to cut him out. Still, leaving old Tom aside feels a little bit like driving by the Washington Monument or the Eiffel Tower and never remarking on the sight.
Yeah, I felt the same way when I saw the movie without Bombadil. It would have been good to hear him singing his songs.
ReplyDeleteThat whole Tom Bombadil sequence is one of my favorite parts of "Fellowship." The hobbits are going into danger--a danger from which they may never return--and we are able to spend this time with them in a place that seems very far removed from the dark "outer" world. Yet Tom's world is not without its own dangers: Their meeting with him is brought about by their capture by Old Man Willow, and their parting happens after he saves them from the barrow wights. This shows us that, no matter how stout and brave they might be, the hobbits are still woefully unprepared for the quest ahead. But these encounters change them, and I believe they represent the first real step on their journey to become who they will eventually become. So I would disagree that the sequence is a sideshow (which I suspect you might disagree with yourself, given your italicized parenthetical), and I think that Tolkien would have been pained to see Tom left out.
ReplyDeleteAll that being said, there was no way that Tom was ever going to be in the film. The filmmakers had the unenviable task of trimming down a massive, sprawling story to something that would make sense on screen. At this point in the story, just as the great adventure was beginning, Tom would have indeed felt like a sideshow, a detour that slowed down the pace of things before the film could build up any momentum. It would have been disastrous. (I haven't watched the video yet, so apologies if I'm just repeating what Eric said.)
And, to be fair to the filmmakers, I think they were aware of the momentous decision before them, as they did include a tribute to Tom and the hobbits' encounter with Old Man Willow in the scene with Treebeard at Wellinghall (although I don't think they named the location in the film).
Still, I will admit that I have always wanted to see Tom on the big screen. I would love to see a standalone film dealing with Tom that features that little adventure with the hobbits. It would never be made, of course, but I fantasize about some talented indie filmmaker doing it as a side project someday.
My question is: could Bombadil have solved the Sauron problem himself? Or are we treading into theological territory, as with the question of why God doesn't seem to intervene in times of human suffering and disaster? Would Bombadil's intervention somehow have caused some sort of cosmic imbalance?
ReplyDeleteThis is the sort of question that Stephen R. Donaldson often dealt with in his Chronicles of Thomas Covenant series: with great power necessarily come great constraints. For Donaldson, power is (1) a function of the nature of the wielder and (2) circumscribed by that very nature. In his universe, the Creator cannot put his hand through the Arch of Time to deal with his Enemy (who is trapped inside the Arch) because doing so would destroy the Arch and undo all of creation. Instead, the Creator sends a champion from our world who is given no clues so he that he may save or damn creation via the full use of his free will. Essentially, the Creator takes a gamble because Thomas Covenant—the champion—isn't necessarily a good person. He is "crooked timber," capable of making choices that might doom the Creator's cosmos (an alternate universe à la CS Lewis).
Anyway, my point is that the Creator is constrained by his own power from acting directly against his Enemy, the Despiser. Could Tom Bombadil be in a similar position? Is this why a Maiar like Gandalf has arguably more agency because he is, despite being a powerful spirit himself, enfleshed and mortal? (Although Gandalf, too, is loath to engage in a "vulgar display of power," to slightly misquote The Exorcist. For the most part, he shapes events through counsel, generally relying—like Donaldson's Creator—on the free will of others to propel circumstances.)
My question is: could Bombadil have solved the Sauron problem himself? Or are we treading into theological territory, as with the question of why God doesn't seem to intervene in times of human suffering and disaster? Would Bombadil's intervention somehow have caused some sort of cosmic imbalance?
ReplyDeleteI am partly tempted to launch into a dissertation about Bombadil, but it would be way too long and I'm not even sure I am of one mind about the whole matter anyway. I can say this, though, in answer to your first question: Definitely not.
At the Council of Elrond, they debate whether they should send the Ring to Bombadil, and Gandalf counsels against it. Galdor adds: "Power to defy our Enemy is not in him, unless such power is in the earth itself."
I'm not sure how to read your reference to the issue of why God allows suffering in the world. Are you saying that Bombadil occupies a similar position as such an omnipotent Creator? There are people who believe he is a Maiar, at least, but the evidence for that is not convincing (for one, he was in Middle Earth long before it was deemed necessary to send the Maia--why would he have been there?). I am more sympathetic to the idea that Bombadil is an earth spirit or a genius loci, but that is just a guess. Some go as far as to say that he is the spirit of Arda itself, which I suppose is a possibility.
At any rate, Bombadil is certainly not a Creator in any sense, nor does he exercise power over other beings. When Frodo asks Goldberry who Tom is, she replies: "He is. ... He is, as you have seen him. He is the Master of wood, water, and hill." I will grant that there are similarities between the Biblical "I AM" and "He is," but I think that is where the similarities end. "Master" is also an ambiguous term, but when Frodo seeks clarification by asking if all that land around them belongs to Tom, Goldberry quickly dispels the notion: "The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves. Tom Bombadil is the Master. No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hill-tops under light and shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master." In other words, as Gandalf puts it later at the Council, "He is his own master," and nothing--not even the Ring--has power over him. Yet he also does not exercise his power over others, except to help those in need. He operates outside the normal power structures of Middle Earth. Thus he does not act against Sauron not because he is in some way constrained, but simply because that is not who he is.
I'm not sure how to read your reference to the issue of why God allows suffering in the world. Are you saying that Bombadil occupies a similar position as such an omnipotent Creator?
ReplyDeleteI freely admit I know next to nothing about Tom Bombadil, but my foggy recollection of The Fellowship of the Ring leads me to think Tom is ancient and fantastically powerful, but his power is very understated in the story: it's hinted at or implied. I may need to go back and reread the story to see if I can dig up some more details.
I don't know where Tom sits in the celestial hierarchy; perhaps he's a being so far outside of that hierarchy that, in some weird Taoist sense, he simply is. I'm aware he doesn't have the stature of Eru Illúvatar, but if I'm right that he's a powerful being, then questions of power and agency naturally arise, as they would with any potent cosmic being. So on that level, I draw the parallel between Tom Bombadil and God.
I am more sympathetic to the idea that Bombadil is an earth spirit or a genius loci, but that is just a guess. Some go as far as to say that he is the spirit of Arda itself, which I suppose is a possibility.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a sanshin writ large.
I wonder how one reconciles the ideas that (1) Tom is Master of wood, water, and hill and (2) he is only his own master. I'm tempted to go Taoist and suggest that "mastery" may connote something other than control, dominion, or rule—a surfer "masters" a wave not by telekinetically manhandling the water molecules, but by understanding the wave and, with that understanding, moving freely along its length with no fear. This Taoist notion of mastery blends the ideas of knowledge, wisdom, and harmony. It has nothing in common with, say, a slave owner's power over a slave. In fact, the Taoist notion of mastery might be a way to reconcile the two ideas of mastering nature while also mastering the self. The surfer has to understand himself along with understanding the wave in order to harmonize with the wave; perhaps in a like manner, Tom Bombadil "masters" nature by also mastering himself. Looked at that way, there's no contradiction in saying the trees, grasses, etc., belong each to themselves even as Tom "masters" them.
Thus he does not act against Sauron not because he is in some way constrained, but simply because that is not who he is.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as if you agree with Donaldson, then, that power is circumscribed by its very nature. But a circumscription is a limit, a constraint. I'm a free human being, and there's an infinity of actions I can perform with the body I have, but the same body that frees me also constrains me: I can't write my signature simultaneously with eight arms, for example, because I have only two arms. So as to the practical question of fighting Sauron, then, it seems to me that, if the idea of fighting Sauron would never even occur to Tom Bombadil, well, then we've found a boundary, a limit, to his power. Whether not fighting Sauron is a matter of can't or won't is immaterial: it's still a limit.
This is an ongoing question in Christian theology—the question of the limits of a God who is supposed to be omnipotent. According to philosophers, God can't violate the logical principle of noncontradiction, but (say the philosophers) this inability does not violate his omnipotence. More theologically, many people of the cloth will argue that God cannot sin—it's not in his nature to do so (personally, I think the Bible gives plenty of evidence of God acting in ways that would be considered sinful were the acts done by mere mortals, e.g., visiting his divine wrath on such-and-such people). But this inability to sin does not detract from God's omnipotence. Does inability make God somehow unfree, or is the nature of freedom itself dependent on the nature of the being in question? And how about Tom Bombadil? Is he a free being capable of choice, or his he simply the product of—or a slave to—his nature? (Always keeping in mind that the either/or dualism I'm laying out here is rooted in a Western worldview.)
(I broke my response up into three parts because I was over the 4,096-character limit.)
ReplyDeleteFascinating to read these comments, stuff I've never even thought about previously. Thanks, Charles and Kevin!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as if you agree with Donaldson, then, that power is circumscribed by its very nature.
ReplyDeleteI should have written, "It sounds as if you agree with Donaldson, then, that power is circumscribed by the nature of its wielder."
John: Glad someone else is enjoying this dialogue!
ReplyDeleteI'll try to keep my reponses relatively brief, as this is getting a bit unwieldy.
I freely admit I know next to nothing about Tom Bombadil, but my foggy recollection of The Fellowship of the Ring leads me to think Tom is ancient and fantastically powerful, but his power is very understated in the story... but if I'm right that he's a powerful being, then questions of power and agency naturally arise, as they would with any potent cosmic being. So on that level, I draw the parallel between Tom Bombadil and God.
Tom is indeed ancient, but whether he is "fantastically powerful" is another story. Going back to Galdor's statement that Tom does not posses the power to defy the Enemy, I think we can reasonably state that whatever power Tom might have, it is not "power" in traditional sense--that is, the ability to exert his will freely over other beings. I'll come back to this down below, but I personally would not describe him as "fantastically powerful." He does not create, nor does he rule. His power, such that it is, is of a different kind. As such, I would be very hesitant to draw a parallel between Tom and the Christian God as he is generally understood.
I wonder how one reconciles the ideas that (1) Tom is Master of wood, water, and hill and (2) he is only his own master. I'm tempted to go Taoist and suggest that "mastery" may connote something other than control, dominion, or rule—a surfer "masters" a wave not by telekinetically manhandling the water molecules, but by understanding the wave and, with that understanding, moving freely along its length with no fear.
Yeah, that's exactly what I was trying to get at in my comment. That explains it a lot better, I think (although I doubt Tolkien was specifically thinking of Taoism when he created Tom).
It sounds as if you agree with Donaldson, then, that power is circumscribed by the nature of its wielder.
Well, I suppose it's hard to argue against that idea, although while we are freely admitting things, I will freely admit that I've never read Donaldson's "Covenant" series. So I can't really say with certainty how I feel about his arguments.
...it seems to me that, if the idea of fighting Sauron would never even occur to Tom Bombadil, well, then we've found a boundary, a limit, to his power. Whether not fighting Sauron is a matter of can't or won't is immaterial: it's still a limit.
Well, if you put it that way (and I think in Tom's case it is probably a matter of both can't and won't), sure, there are limits to his power. There are limits to the power of every being in Tolkien's universe, even Eru. In my comment I was just responding to the idea that Bombadil's intervention might have somehow caused a "cosmic imbalance." Basically I meant that the limits to Tom's power were likely not imposed on him from outside (how I intended "constraint"), but a natural result of who he was.
And how about Tom Bombadil? Is he a free being capable of choice, or is he simply the product of—or a slave to—his nature?
Who knows? If you want to know what I think Tolkien thought, I would say that Tom is a free being capable of choice. Tolkien definitely believed in free will, or at least that was how he shaped his universe, as choice is an extremely important theme in LOTR (and The Hobbit, too, for that matter). Gandalf's comments on Tom having withdrawn into a small land, perhaps to wait for the change of days, would also seem to indicate that he chose to sit things out, regardless of what his capabilities might have been. A deus otiosis, if you will (although I am still very leery of giving him the label of "god," even with a lower-case "g").
I'm now enjoying Wikipedia's entry on Tom Bombadil.
ReplyDelete