That's not an uncommon theory, but I personally interpret him as just a part of the world that is outside the knowledge/mythology of the elves. He wouldn't be the first character that's true of. For all of her impact on the story, the Elves don't really know what Ungoliant was, exactly.
thanks for the context of other similar characters.
It's been a long while since I was big on all my Tolkien... is Bombadil seen as roughly as powerful and capable as others outside the knowledge of elves, or is he still particularly powerful when comparing to those sorts of mysterious characters?
Bombadil's magic is tied to his home in the Old Forest. He's a nature spirit, I suppose. He's not affected by the Ring's power of temptation (the temptation of power?), and I guess could be called an unfallen being in a Christian sense (unlike Men or Elves).
The creature I brought up, Ungoliant, is an incarnation of all-consuming darkness. She doesn't want power, she just wants, and that is her power. I don't think they can be given relative rankings the way that Men, Elves, and Maiar can because they're fundamentally different.
The Legendarium is enhanced overall by having these kinds of "holes". It shows that the cosmology the elves know is incomplete. For example, they don't know the circumstances under which Men "awoke" in Middle Earth. All they know is "Oh, and one day these hairy dudes showed up and they die for, like, no reason."
Which leads me to my pet theory that Tolkien left the origins of Man misty so that Paradise Lost, the great work of English literature, could be more or less canon. Paradise Lost also has these personification-characters, namely Sin, Death, and Chaos, who exist outside the families(?) of Men and Angels.
Damn, this is a really good post and I love the comparisons to Paradise Lost in that way. I enjoyed reading Paradise Lost but had never conceived of Bombadil etc in the same way, so you have given me a lot of interesting stuff to mull over.
That's not an uncommon theory, but I personally interpret him as just a part of the world that is outside the knowledge/mythology of the elves. He wouldn't be the first character that's true of. For all of her impact on the story, the Elves don't really know what Ungoliant was, exactly.
thanks for the context of other similar characters.
It's been a long while since I was big on all my Tolkien... is Bombadil seen as roughly as powerful and capable as others outside the knowledge of elves, or is he still particularly powerful when comparing to those sorts of mysterious characters?
Bombadil's magic is tied to his home in the Old Forest. He's a nature spirit, I suppose. He's not affected by the Ring's power of temptation (the temptation of power?), and I guess could be called an unfallen being in a Christian sense (unlike Men or Elves).
The creature I brought up, Ungoliant, is an incarnation of all-consuming darkness. She doesn't want power, she just wants, and that is her power. I don't think they can be given relative rankings the way that Men, Elves, and Maiar can because they're fundamentally different.
The Legendarium is enhanced overall by having these kinds of "holes". It shows that the cosmology the elves know is incomplete. For example, they don't know the circumstances under which Men "awoke" in Middle Earth. All they know is "Oh, and one day these hairy dudes showed up and they die for, like, no reason."
Which leads me to my pet theory that Tolkien left the origins of Man misty so that Paradise Lost, the great work of English literature, could be more or less canon. Paradise Lost also has these personification-characters, namely Sin, Death, and Chaos, who exist outside the families(?) of Men and Angels.
Damn, this is a really good post and I love the comparisons to Paradise Lost in that way. I enjoyed reading Paradise Lost but had never conceived of Bombadil etc in the same way, so you have given me a lot of interesting stuff to mull over.
:gold-antifa:
Thanks a lot for the response
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