LotR Movies Ignored Tolkien's Most Mysterious Character For No Reason At All
Peter Jackson didn't include many characters from the books in his movies, but it was this enigmatic, cheerful fellow that fans most wanted to see on the big screen.
Tom Bombadil is one of the most mysterious characters in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Even the wisest of the wise, Gandalf, said he knew little about him except his name.
Tom Bombadil lives in the forest near the Hobbit settlements, but none of the Hobbits had ever heard of him. And, as far as is known, he has never left the boundaries of his possessions.
Tolkien wrote that Bombadil knows neither fear nor a shadow of the desire to possess and subjugate – he simply knows and understands everything that concerns him in his small kingdom.
There is no Bombadil in Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. The swords he gave to the Hobbits in the books are given to them by Aragorn in the movies. And some of Tom's lines were put into the mouth of Ent Treebeard.
Why did such a bright character not fit into the movie version of the Lord of the Rings? First of all, because Tolkien's Bombadil is too cheerful and comical, while Jackson's cinematic epic is rather dark and harsh. Where Tolkien is having fun, there is a disturbing sense of unknown menace in Jackson’s movies.
Who is Bombadil in the world of Tolkien? There is no clear answer to this question.
He could not have been one of the Maiar, much less one of the Valar, for in that case Gandalf could not have failed to recognize him. Obviously Tom Bombadil is not one of the Elves, and certainly not one of the Mortals.
At the same time, the Ring does not affect him at all, while Gandalf himself was afraid of its power and refused to take it in his hands.
Many assumptions have been made about Bombadil's true nature, up to the fact that he is an avatar of Eru himself. The most common opinion is that Bombadil was born at the time of the creation of Arda and is its guardian spirit.
But in this case, it is not too clear why Bombadil is referred to in the text as the owner of only a small area. All living things in his domain serve and obey Tom, but outside it he has no power.
This gives rise to a number of assumptions. For example, that he was originally imprisoned by the Valar or even by Eru himself. But why was he punished and why was he so guilty? Tolkien didn't answer.