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What is Tom Bombadil? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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He is not a hobbit, neither a man, but what is he? Is he a dwarf? A wizard? A god? Something else entirely?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

This comes closest of the answers in this thread, imo. Tom Bombadil was a figurine/puppet Tolkien or his kids owned and he would devise stories around it. He included it in the main narrative as a sort of mental resting point, where both the reader and the hobbits come at peace for a brief moment. It's completely separate from the main narrative and it doesn't cleanly fit in the story. I think of it as Tom Bombadil, Goldberry and their house basically being in another dimension, which is why neither time nor the ring affect them.

If you are interested in it, Tolkien discussed the nature of Tom Bombadil in several letters and there are some decent youtube videos on the subject.