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Who is Tom?
| Vala |
| [ 2 ] 10% |
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| Powerful Elf |
| [ 0 ] 0% |
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| Something else |
| [ 18 ] 90% |
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Total Votes : 20 |
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| macheteman |
![]() Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 7:33 am |
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Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 1200
Location: The Jungle
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Celebrimbor wrote: Good inspiration. Everything (almost) throughout LOTR is very alleghorical.
Melchizedek In the Bible was supposed to be a pre-carnate form of Jesus.
I know this is really weird, could he be a form of Iluvatar himself?
Just laying out the possibilities, though I still think Tom is a Valar.
actually, i believe in the forward of LOTR by tolkien he says that LOTR is NOT an allegory. i could be wrong, but... |
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| donimator |
![]() Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 7:52 am |
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
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Celebrimbor wrote: ....
I know this is really weird, could he be a form of Iluvatar himself?
Just laying out the possibilities, though I still think Tom is a Valar.
If a Valar then which one - Manwë, Ulmo, Aulë, Oromë, Mandos, Lórien, or Tulkas? There were only seven (assuming Tom’s gender is not in question). Valar were the ’Great among these spirits’ and ’the Powers of Arda’. They were the leaders of the Ainur.
Many other spirits (the Ainur) came to form Ea - the Maiar and lesser ones as quoted several posts above from the Silmarillion. Unless Tom is one of those named above he most likely is of the lesser Ainur. |
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| gil-estel |
![]() Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 8:02 am |
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Joined: 25 Apr 2007
Posts: 545
Location: Groningen, the Netherlands
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He wrote it indeed, but there is a line (although thin) between allegory and inspiration. He never intended to write a story that represented Christian dogma’s. That is one reason why Tolkien despised (hope that’s the right word) the work of Lewis. But this is about inspiration. Everyone who reads the books can see where Tolkien got his inspiration. He grew up in a industrial countryside, though he was fond of nature. He adored ancient literature, which can be found in his tales. He was in a war. And he was a very, very convinced Christian. His faith was very important for him.
So these ingredients all added to the person Tolkien. So I don’t find it hard to believe that he found inspiration in his own life.
So I still stand my point. Don’t think he is Iluvator, a Maia or a Valar. He is one of a kind. Which reminds me of a story. When you read the Letters from Tolkien, somewhere he described the coming of Faramir. It was in a letter to Christopher. He almost wrote like Faramir walked in accidentally, never thought of him and liked him so much he could stay. I can imagine that Tom B. wandered in the story the same way..... |
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| sickofpalantirs |
![]() Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 1:03 pm |
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
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Location: somwhere, over the rainbow way up high. There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.
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| actually another reason he hated Lewis’s books was because none of the creatures were original. |
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| Celebrimbor |
![]() Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 4:06 pm |
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Joined: 12 Sep 2006
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Well yeah Chronicles of Narnia were so completely allegorical they seemed much more mythological than LOTR, and harder to believe.
LOTR is allegorical in a sense, because all good literature must contain some of that material, to borrow Tolkien’s words. |
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| yerkamig |
![]() Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:06 am |
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Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Posts: 240
Location: Corvallis, OR
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For me, to try and nail down what Tom is takes away from his role in the book. There will always be the unexplainable, and that’s what Tom represents. The inability to explain what Tom is focuses your attention on what he does: to utterly resist the ring. That leads to the familiar metaphors about what the rings represents: desire; greed; selfishness; etc. Tom is immune to these things.
Tom’s like the ascetic who stands out from the yearning masses. But that’s just what I bring to it. He could easily be God for some people who want to see that sort of thing.
He is whatever you want him to be. |
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| BattleWarg |
![]() Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:12 am |
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Joined: 11 Feb 2007
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Well, on Lewis, I seem to remember that they actually got along fairly well, and if I’m thinking right, helped each other write the books to a (very) limited extent.
As for Tom, yeah. He doesn’t actually have a complete background, and was left unexplained in order for him to be the force of neutrality in the world.
He’s to Sauron and Aragorn (I suppose any of the Free Peoples, but using Aragorn as the ’key’ Free) what Radagast is to Saruman and Gandalf. The neutral party that mostly keeps to themselves, but is friendly and helpful in their own way.
Much like the Hobbits (in general), he’s perfectly happy with what he has. A place to live, (more than) enough to eat, and someone to share it with - key being ’a place to live’ and not ’his own land’. He doesn’t even imagine he controls the land - he doesn’t need to. What good would power over other people have? They’re just as free as the land.
For the same reason the Hobbits are resistant, Tom is immune to the Ring. Which is an interesting thought...
Tom being immune to the ring makes him unable to take it and do anything (guard, destroy or use) with it. So, because the Hobbits could be corrupted by it, but were resistant made them the perfect Ring-bearers. They are the only ones that know what it does to people that could hold out against its power long enough to destroy it.
I may have to do something in some section on Alternate Ring-bearers and the results had they taken the Ring... (in my opinion) |
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| sickofpalantirs |
![]() Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:38 pm |
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
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Location: somwhere, over the rainbow way up high. There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.
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| for lewis, they were great friends, tolkien just didn’t like lewis’s books. Tolkien was the main reason lewis became a christian. |
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| gil-estel |
![]() Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 4:03 pm |
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Joined: 25 Apr 2007
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Location: Groningen, the Netherlands
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| To go a bit further on the whole Lewis/Tolkien discussion (they could have an own topic). They were very good friend. As SoP said, Tolkien was a reason for Lewis being a christian. His was a bit younger then Tolkien, but he was very familiair with the family. But when the presure increased on Tolkien to write LotR -it took him almost 15 years- and he saw that Lewis was succesful with Narnia with books Tolkien didn’t like, he couldn’t deal with it. Our hero was a jealous man, and very strict. A book should live up to his expectations. So they grew apart. He regreted it though. |
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| NBarden |
![]() Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:55 pm |
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Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 5468
Location: I don't know...
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Lord of the Rings is an allegory. It wasn’t written as such, but when you believe the Bible, it so permeates your writing that you can’t write WITHOUT it being an allegory.
When I first began reading the Silmarillon, the first thing I thought was that this was Genesis from Scripture. The allegory is so clearly there, and Tolkien was such a Christian that everything he wrote reflected that. Whether he intended to or not. |
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