Hello, and welcome a Mythic Mind, where we pursue wisdom on the past
between primary secondary world. I'm your host, Andrew Snyder, and as always,
I am truly grateful for your company. All right, so let's start
out by thinking all of my patrons, and especially my super patrons and greater
which includes Mark Jeremiah, Aaron, Aaron and Aaron, Andrew Clinton, Emmy
Harrison, I and Jamie, Jocelyn, Matthew, Paul and William and I
could not keep this up without all of my patrons. I have so many
plans for what is now the broader Mythic Mind community, as well as personal
creation goals, including a book that takes a Christian existentialist look at Talkien's idea
of fairy. It's well as a novel idea, but more on that another
time. But right now I really can't afford to do nearly as much as
I want to do, and so these plans can only be actualized with your
patronage, and so to support my work and to become a participant in the
Mythic Might Communities Guild and go to patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind. I
go into that right now and then come back. All right, so today
we're gonna be revisiting Tom Bombadil, who honestly cannot receive enough visits, and
this time I'll be joined by Jeremy Key, who is the host of the
Through the Keyhole podcast. I previously went onto his show to discuss Tolkien,
Lewis and topics related to the idea of the true myth and so be sure
to check that out and to subscribe to Jeremy's podcast. But for now,
let's go ahead and get right to it with my conversation with Jeremy Key on
Tom Bombadil. All right, it's likely go ahead and welcome Jeremy Key onto
Mythic Mind. So Jeremy, welcome. I'm happy to be here. It's
been a long time coming. We finally made our schedules work, and I'm
I'm happy to be here. I'm honored to be here, and I'm excited
to be here. Yeah, it took us at least a few months to
make this one happen, but hey, that's been than our track record,
because yeah, your show that was like a years in the making of Think
about a year to get you on my show and just just a couple of
months to get me on years. So yeah, we're cutting it down a
little by little Jeremy, Well, go ahead and let the mythic mind listeners
know a little bit about kind of what you do, who you are,
where you want to go with that. Yeah, So my name is Jeremy
Jeremy Key. I'm a counselor or a therapist, I think, is what
we call ourselves here in Dallas. I've been doing that for two or three
years. I've kind of lost track at this point. When I'm not counseling,
I have my own podcast. Kind of we're in a bit of a
hiatus, but when we're operating, it's called Through the Keyhole. We talk
about mental health stuff. We talk about literature, We talk about history,
philosophy, current events, and how those all intersect, because it seems like
it seems like in our modern world there's a lot more intersection with old ideas
and old beliefs than people give credit for, and so I like to explore
that on my podcast. I'm a writer. Occasionally I have a sub stack.
I do a lot of reading, but yeah, I try to live.
I have something that I call an October mindset, and what an October
mindset is is. It's it's a mindset that stipulates it's always October, and
so I try to live my life in that October way where it's just like
you're surrounded by good books and you're engaging with ideas. That's why I'm a
therapist. That's why I'm a writer. It's because the life of the mind
is a life pretty well lived. In my opinion. Yeah, that's who
I am. That's what I do. I think, I write, and
I speak. It's quite the heroic venture to carve out your autumnal sanctuary in
Middle Texas. It is it is considering that that autumn itself only lasts for
three or four broken up weeks between October and November. You gotta work real
hard to maintain an October mindset. Once you get in that rhythm, it's
like anything else. The hard part is getting started. Once you do it,
it's it's a hard habit to break. Yeah, as kirk Gar tells
us, the task must be difficult, for it only the difficult inspires the
noble hearted. Ah, I need to write that down. I need to
write that down for my client's sake, because I tell them that sort of
thing often but it never comes out near that poetic. It's always like you
gotta do the hard stuff because good stuff is on the other like, it's
just very crude when I say it, but I like the way here regards
a better Well, okay, so let's go ahead and put it, get
into it. So you know, I've been doing a series on Tolkien's Tales
from the Perilous realm um. And you know I previously had cr Wiley on
to talk about Tom Bombadial, but of course he's not somebody that can be
exhausted, and I think Tolkien would absolutely agree with that that sentiment. Yeah,
yea, even and not even commis. Tolkien had a clear understanding its
exactly who Tom bombadal is. And so that's what we're here to discuss today.
But before we do that, I'd always like to start on the broader
level, um, And so tell us a little bit about what pulled you
into Tolkien originally and also what keeps you there all this time later. Yeah,
So I came to Tolkien. My Tolkien testimony, if you will,
I was given after the Fellowship of the Ring came out in theaters. I
was given all three volumes and a single all three books in a single volume,
and I read Fellowship of the Ring and I thought it was great.
And then I then because I wasn't I wasn't raised right when where Tolkien is
involved, so I had to figure everything out on my own. And so
I read Fellowship of the Ring. And only then did I learn about the
existence of the Hobbit, and you know how it existed, you know,
chronologically, it happened before the Fellowship of the Ring. And so I thought,
well, I have to take a break, and I have to go
read the Hobbit, because I saw my brain works. And I read the
first couple of chapters of the Hobbit and absolutely hated it. So I tried
to read the Hobbit and I failed, and I tried to read it again
and I failed again, and I tried a third time kind of and I
just kind of gave up at that point, thinking well, maybe I'm just
not for the Hobbit. And so I've finished two Towers, I finished Return
to King, you know, saw the movies as they came out, and
then I decided, Okay, one more time, I'm gonna go do the
Hobbit. And somehow, you know, grace of God, whatever, you
want to call it the Hobbit finally stuck. And so coming back to your
question, what brought me into Tolkien? What keeps me in Tolkien? I
read the Legendarium every year, so marillion, Hobbit, all three Lord of
the Rings books. I've done that every every autumn. There's that word again
for the past seven or eight years, maybe nine years. And the reason
I do that is because, and this goes to your question. I mean,
it's it's a cop out to say that there's just something magic about Tolkien,
but there really is just something magic about Tolkien. It's you re Tolkien,
and it's a world that I at least recognize, but at the same
time, it's a world that I I don't. And what I mean by
that is is, you know, Tolkien loved nature, right He his friends
couldn't go on walks with him because he would stop and just look at every
tree along the path, and so they couldn't get, you know, twenty
yards in an hour, so they just stopped going on walks with him.
One of my favorite stories, he loved nature. And you know, regardless
of where you jump into the Legendarium, nature is itself a character in that
book. If you're reading the Silmarillion, there are literal chapters just about the
geography of Hilarioned right like you read you read the Hobbit, and you don't
have to strain your imagination to picture the Shire or to pickure Rivendell, or
to pickure the Lonely Mountain, because because Tolkien went to such great pains to
paint the picture in the reader's mind of exactly what those spaces looked like.
Same obviously for Lord of the Rings. And I grew up outdoors. I
grew up working on my grandparents farm. You know, being outdoors, being
in nature is something that I place a high premium on. And now I
live in Dallas, Texas, where the closest thing we have to nature anywhere
within about an hour's drive is surrounded on all sides by high rises and apartment
complexes and and just all sorts of things that remind you that you are not
in a place like Middle Earth. And I know, like we can't all
go to New Zealand, so it's hard to be in a place like Middle
Earth. But there is still you know, you don't have to go there
to be in a place that reminds you that a good life can be a
very slow life. You know, what is it? Um? What is
it that Thorn says his last words, If more people I can never remember
the exact quote, but some the valuing food and cheer above horded gold exactly,
the world would be a merrier place. Right in the movies. I
think it's just in the movies. I don't think Bilbo says this in the
books, but in the movies he says, it's no, it's no bad
thing to enjoy a simple life, like this is this is something. And
you know, you read about Tolkien's life, he was he designed the shire
for his early life because he grew up in the country and he grew up,
you know, without all the industrialization. He moved into that eventually once
things started going off the rails with his mom and all that. But he
grew up and he understood he had this contrast in his own life between quiet,
simple life and you know, industrialized hellscape. And and so I think
like that, like I love the characters. Obviously, the story is rich
enough to give you a stomach ache, like there's that stuff goes without saying.
But it's for me personally, and that's why I do my read through
in the autumn, because the autumn is my favorite time of year. Everything
seems quieter, slower, more peaceful, and and it just for me that
accentuates what I get out of reading the Legendarium, which is this reminder of
um, It's just it's a reminder of how beautiful life can be, even
without all of the stuff. I think. I think that's that is what
I think brings me back to Tolkien keeps me coming back more than anyone I've
ever read, more so than his contemporary Lewis. You know, I think
only Wendell Berry, as far as I can think, really challenge Tolkien in
terms of bringing out that quality that a good life, a good life may
objectively be a quiet and simple life. And and that's a reminder that I
need daily. So yeah, that's that's what drew me in. That's what
keeps me coming back, is just that reminder. Yeah, I mean,
it's I think one thing really unique about Tolkien is that he didn't just write
enchanting stories, but he was himself enchanted by the world of Middle Earth.
Right. I not long ago read the Carpenter biography and Carpenter recounts at the
beginning of the book his interaction with Tolkien, where talking will just kind of
wander off and start staring off in the Middle Earth. It's essentially it's it's
the world that he lived in and kind of invites us to visit as well.
Um. You know, I often think regarding Tolkien, there's a reason
why, you know, in the Pagan past, you know, your your
Homer, and you know you're you're great poets were almost considered well, we're
considered profits, right, because the idea that they receive something. And I
think that, especially in Tolkien's Christian context, that's even more true. Um,
that there's something true coming into his mind and coming out through his words.
Uh, and that in turn enraptures us to something similar. Yeah.
Yeah, I like the I like the line that you drew there, um,
incorporating that that prophetic aspect, not the sense of what people normally think
of when they hear the word prophetic, but just in the sense of and
he even thought, you know, I don't know if he thought thought this
or if he just acted as though this was what was happening, but that
was how he wrote so much of a Legendarium was he felt he believed that
the story was being given to him, like he was discovering it rather than
creating it. And that's, you know, that goes in line with this,
this prophetic air of a person who is being given something. They're being
given some sort of secret or you know, privileged knowledge to share with others.
I don't know if you meant to call Tolkien a prophet, but I'm
gonna go with it. Yeah. I mean, obviously, I'm not saying
that Lord of the Rings is biblical canon, obviously, but there certainly is
a prophetic element there, and I think, um, that goes very much
along with Tolkien's literary philosophy that you know, a good story is something fundamentally
true, and so if you connect that with the idea that you know he
was discovering it, then there absolutely is a prophetic element there. And of
course one of the more explicit examples of this would be his comments on Fairmere
Right, who he says basically sort of showed up and he wasn't expecting it.
But you think he likes them, Yeah, yeah, he couldn't wait
to learn more about him, right, which is out the way you're talking
about your own character, unless, of course he's not your own at least
not entirely. I mean I've often, I've often wondered about that. Um,
yeah, I'm not gonna go so far as to say that he that
he was receiving these stories or characters from some other place, but yeah,
just the way that he approached them, the way that he he thought about
them, but also the depth to the clarity with which he he you know,
laid out all these characters. This wasn't just Pharomer, and he's the
brother of Boomer. This is Faremer, brother of boromir son of this guy.
You know, this is his profession, This is where he was,
like he everyone in that everyone who has a name, I think, and
in the Legendarium, seems to have such a fleshed out background, a fleshed
out story that even though they're not real people, they're not you know,
they didn't exist. But it seems like we know less about some people who
did exist than we know about these people who are just you know, figments
of his imagination. And that is really that is a rarefied feat no matter
how you look at it, right, it is kind of interesting that for
people who really make Tolkien their you know, profession or you know, to
really delve into the history and the genealogies and whatnot. No one just feels
like you're doing history. Yeah. Yeah, I mean we have Tolkien Skollar,
we have people learning the language the language is, we have people,
you know, writing dissertations about this fictional world that he created. That's impressive.
That that's I mean, obviously that's impressive, but that is something that
might just be unparalleled. Hmm. Yeah. I really found it disappointing that
I didn't really discover the value of fiction until just recently, you know,
growing up in school, you know, I was always taught that, Okay,
the big divisions of literature, you've got nonfiction, which is true,
and then fiction, which is not true. It's it's made up. Um,
But that's just an entirely wrong way to think about it. That.
You know, Ultimately, fiction, at least good fiction is really a hyper
real where it takes the narrative of real life existence and kind of amplifies it,
makes it more explicit. Um. The yeah something told Hans really been
helping me with. Yeah, now the stories aren't true, but the lessons,
the ideas, the morals, the philosophies, they all are, right.
It kind of brings up the question of what do we mean by truth?
Right? Are we defining that strictly in material um, you know,
literal historical terms or I mean metaphysically existentially and true can mean different things while
still dealing with reality. And the question is what is reality fundamentally? Well,
let's not remember, let's not forget what Indiana Jones said. He said,
he's an archaeologist. He deals in facts. If you're looking for truth,
the perfect the philosophy classes down the hall, it seems like it seems
like we've we've conflated fact with truth in the modern mind. And and that
is that is something in dire need of a divorce. I would say,
absolutely, And that has all kinds of what I would call dangerous implications philosophically
as well as theologically. But I don't necessarily go that right now. Um.
Now, more to the our primary topic today, which is of course
Tom Bombadill. Um. So you know, when we were talking about when
you might come on in the series, you know you mentioned you wanted to
talk about Tom Bombadill and so what is your particular attraction to him? I
was thinking about this earlier today, and I think, my what attracts me
to Tom Bombadill. Is it kind of goes along with with what I what
I said a few minutes ago regarding what brings me into Tolkien, the the
reminder of the simplicity and you know, the good things that can come from
at there's a lot, there's so much of that in Tom Bombadil, Like
this was a guy who who was completely unaffected by the ring. This was
a guy who, you know, his entire day consisted of wandering through the
forest, singing and picking flowers for his wife. And of course there's a
million layers Tom Bombdill. I'm sure we'll get to about five of them.
But just that that simplicity, the simplicity on the surface, I think is
maybe a better way of saying, because again, a million layers to this
guy. But on the surface, he's just a dude who sings and picks
flowers like that, and he laughs a lot. He's jolly, you know,
Tom Bombadill is a jolly fellow um Like he's he's unbothered by the fact
that that the ring has been found and and you know, Barradoor is active
again, and the fire and the Mountain of Fire has reignited and orcs or
roaming the hills. He's unbothered by any of that, because he echoes the
sentiment. I don't know who said it first, but I know it from
Russell Kirk Brighten, the corner that you're in. You know, don't worry
about the goings on of the wider world, because you're probably not going to
have much, if any effect on it. Just beautify, make make good,
capital, g good the place where you are. And you know,
he even says I think he says it, or maybe Gandolf says it,
maybe they both say it. But his corner of the world is a pretty
well established but carved out place, right, Like, he doesn't go to
Rivendell because one, he would be useless there because he would just be laughing
the whole time, but because his power doesn't extend beyond borders, and so
like, he's this mysterious, obviously immensely powerful individual. But but he's untouched
by the power that he contains. He may not even be aware of the
power he contains. It may not mean anything to him. But in spite
of all that he could do and all that he may or may not represents,
he is just interested in taking care of his animals, tending his lands,
keeping his wife happy, you know, entertaining guests as they wander through
the Old Forest. And there's something there's something equally appealing and mysterious about that
to me. Yeah, it's it's the mystery and the mystery, the complexity
of his simplicity all rolled into one that he embodies so fully. Yeah,
and obviously a lot about this idyllic life and sanctuary that he's established in the
edge of the old Forest. But would you say we can totally leave him
off the hook for not using his power to go vanquish evil. I mean
even in his own territory, right, I mean, he could have driven
out the barrel whit. It's a long time ago. I mean, I've
wondered about that. But to my mind, however, powerful he was,
and I think that he was quite powerful. Again, I don't know what
Tom Bombadile was exactly, but I suspect it was something of note. But
power wielded irresponsibly is dangerous to say the least. And again, like he
took the ring from Frodo and performed like close hand magic with it, made
its appear. This this is a guy who didn't who didn't either respect the
power that he had, which I don't think is a terrible thing um to
have that sort of remove from from power. He either didn't respect it or
didn't understand it. But either way, like clearly he could he could put
the Barrow Whites in their place. We saw that he demonstrated that. But
I also just it doesn't seem like his mind operated in that sort of that
sort of power aggression through power as a means of positive change. I don't
think he thought with that sort of that sort of a political mathematics and so
so, yeah, it would be cool if someone could have given him like
a PowerPoint presentation. But like you are this, you are capable of this.
Here's a problem, go solve it. But I just this is such
a childlike element to him that I don't think he can be I don't think
he can be really held responsible for not using his power for some sort of
martial objective, right. And I'm just thinking about this now. It's like
he didn't recognize evil as his abstract force to fight against. He fought against
evil to defend his friends, the Hobbits. It makes you think a fairmere
right, you don't love the sword for its sharpness, or you could buy
quote it better than I could. That goes back to Chesterton who said,
you know, the good soldier doesn't fight because he hates what's in front of
him, but because he loves what's behind him. Yeah, Tom Bombadell,
he only confronted evil when he did confront it to the degree that he did.
He only confronted it when it was at his border because he didn't he
didn't confront it because you know, there's a there's a district of the of
the county that has some really bad elements that need to be taken care of.
Because he didn't hate what was in front of him, He just he
loved what was behind him. Hilt Like, if the Barrowhites came to Casa
de Bombadill and we were trying to start something, I have no problem believing
that Heaven and Earth would probably be moved. But he didn't see the need
for it to come to that. He didn't he didn't see the need to
seek out that adventure. If it came to him, he would have handled
it, but he didn't seek it out. And I think that again,
I think that that is a a childlike approach. But in that childlike approach,
I think that I think that there's a good lesson there to to you
know, again, Chester ten, be ready to fight, be ready to
defend, but don't necessarily seek it out because it's gonna come eventually. You
know, there's always there will eventually be a time to stand up straight and
to you know, puff out your chest. Don't rush it, I think,
is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, absolutely, you don't.
And I think that's such an important lesson today. Right, it's so easy
to play the crusader right, especially in the realm of the political right,
where you're fighting this abstract entity instead of um, thinking about who's actually in
your orbit and what do you need to serve them? Um. And I
think that's one thing we see here in in tom Um. Now, I
know there's really no way to answer this, but if this is even an
important question, what is tom in your estimation? I if there's one legendarium
question that I have puzzled over the most and made no traction whatsoever, it's
this question. I've heard a ton of good theories. Maybe he's maybe he's
an i knowre, maybe he's a Maya, you know, maybe he's a
magician, like he could be any number of things. I have no idea
what Tom Bombadill is. What I what I leaned towards is him being some
sort of some sort of manifestation of like the spirit of Middle Earth. And
again I was thinking about this today. In the Silmarillion, everything was brought
together, everything was created through song or it yeah, through song, it
was was revealed to evert to to all the einor like you know, you
were singing existence into being and and all through Lord of the Rings. Song
plays very important parts at very very critical junctures. You know, there there's
a song. Uh, there's some very important songs of similian Um. Sam
is able to locate Frodo by singing a song like it's there. There's whenever
a song appears in the in the legendarium, you know, pay attention because
something is happening. And you know, going back to Bombadill, what does
he do. He sings all the time, and if he's not singing,
he speaks in a sing song sort of way, and so and again his
life is as natural as you can imagine a life being in Middle Earth.
Like obviously they didn't have technology like we have it. They didn't have TV
and smartphones or anything. So in a sense, everybody's life was natural.
But but Tom Bombardill and Goldberry Goldberry Bombardill, that just it sounds weird.
I don't know if they took last names back then or not. But Tom
Bombadill and Goldberry in a world that everyone is living in some sort of communion
with the natural world, they lived in perfect harmony with it. And so,
you know, you take that aspect, you take you take the importance
of song and the legendarium, and the fact that Tom's character is introduced through
song. He is summoned at times of need through song, like that's he
is the embodiment of song, he might be able to say. And song
is the the vessel of or a vessel of of creation and hope and in
some cases even salvation in the legendary um. And so so the most confident
answer I have is that he is some sort of some sort of embodiment or
manifestation of of, you know, the transcendental reality of goodness or or beauty.
Um. And maybe that's just me, you know, placing him on
a on a poetic pedestal, But that's that's the that's the closest I can
come to making sense of Tom Bonondadill. I mean, honestly, I think
that's pretty good. I mean, he he definitely seems I mean undeniably he's
tied to the Earth, right, I mean, and so whether on a
grand or lesser scale, he's obviously some kind of nature, spirit, personification,
something of that nature, not one thing that just thinking about today,
and so I didn't prep you on this ahead of time, but I was
kind of thinking about the different perspectives between the Elves and Tom Bombodale regarding immortality.
And so we noticed that over time, especially by the Third Age,
you know, the Elves are almost weary of Middle Earth, right, and
so they're they're kind of winding down over time. And you know, we
see throughout the Legendarium, even back to the Summarlion that for the Elves,
immortality wasn't always a joyful gift, right, It's wearysome. Whereas Tom bombadal
who it's apparently the first creature and Middle Earth maintains the joy from beginning to
end. So what do you think it counts for that kind of different perspective
that Tom by no means seems to be winding down by the third age.
Well, let me ask you this, do you think that Tom Bombadill was
even aware of the reality or maybe the finality of death, because he seems
to carry himself around as if that doesn't even occur to him. And maybe
he's made peace with it, you know, maybe he's just like when my
time comes, it comes, and so he is. But it really like
hearing you, hearing you ponder that, I have to wonder if you know,
being the father of the fathers or however l Ron refers to him,
he's older than the nts for crying out loud, that's pretty sinken old.
I wonder one if time has any meaning to him, and by extension,
if death has any meaning to him. Um, Which is not to say
that he's immortal. I just don't know that he's ever that he's ever considered
the reality of death. What do you think? Yeah, it's possible,
And I also kind of think it's tied to his understanding of mastery. And
so we're connecting a number of themes together here. But you know, when
when fred To asked Goldberry, you know who is Tom um? And you
know she says, well, he is, But then um, yeah,
which is a great response. Uh yeah, he's he's Tom. Uh.
You know, she talks about how you know he's the master and you know
no one's ever caught him. Um, and at that idea of never being
caught is something to do with his mastery. And Fred says, you know,
so what all these trees and animals would not belong to Tom, And
she says, no, of course not. And so his mastery is a
in his release of control, the fact that you know, he has this
power but willfully surrenders it, and that in turn is what gives him mastery
over the world around him. To kind of tie back to Kirkgard a little
bit here. You know, in his book Fear and Trembling, which is
principally about the sacrifice of Isaac, you know, he he contrasts and of
these two figures, you've got the Knight of infinite Resignation, which you know,
this is the one who gives up all of his worldly ambitions, gives
up all this worldly control. Left to that state, he's basically the stoic,
right, And Kirkgard makes the point that that isn't the Christian hero.
The Christian hero is the one who goes one step further, who resigns his
ambitions to this world with the hope that somehow, by faith, will receive
it back in the end, right. And this is of course the Abraham
and Isaac story. And so in many ways I think that Tom Bombadell is
the night of faith. He's the one who surrenders his ambitions for the world
and in turn gains the world back. Hm. And that comes with a
certain impenetrable joy. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. I can
see, I can see that's that's really well put. And you know,
I'm I'm I'm thinking about and think about something that Goldberry said that you touched
on that may or may not be tied to this as well. But the
comment that she makes, uh, he's never been caught. That's never like,
that's never stood out to me until just now because on this, on
this topic of of you know, death and eternity and time and all this,
I can't help but think of one of the ways that death is normally
portrayed, which is, you know, death comes for us all. Well,
that's that's the language of a chase. You know, death is it's
always it's always coming for us. It's going to catch all of us,
but Tom has never been caught, and so like through that lens, like
I say, I may I may be making something out of nothing, but
it's an interesting it's an interesting contrast. Here's an ageless being who has never
been caught, but death is inevitable, and so what happens when the inevitable
catches someone that can't be caught? I don't know, but that's a curious
thing to think about. It is interesting that, you know, Gandalf makes
one last stop at Tom Bombadel's house before heading off to the Undying Lands.
Yeah, And I don't know exactly what to make of that either, but
I think it's something to do with the fact that something about who Tom is
in this sort of sub world that he's created is repertory for eternity. Yeah.
Um, I mean that again, that's everything about Tom Bombadill stands out
right, Like there's nothing about Tom Bombadill that you just kind of skate over,
but that particular aspect that Gandalf, Yeah, like he he departed from
the Hobbits to go talk to Tom Bombadil instead. Um. Yeah, like
that that's such a weird thing because it's unlikely that they were just like having
tea and chit chatting about the goings on. It seems like, again,
like when when the song appears in the legendarium, you pay attention. When
Gandolf appears in the legendarium or disappears, you pay attention to that as well.
And yeah, yeah, I want I've often wondered, like, what
were they talking about? But I never considered the possibility that there was something,
as you say, preparatory about about meeting up with Tom. After all
this stuff has happened and before you know, this final voyage takes place.
That's a that's a curious, a curious, a curious plot point that I
had not really paid too much attention to. And I don't know that we
can't say much more than that, because again we're not given the conversation,
but it does seem like, well, obviously Gandalf does things intentionally. Sure,
he arrives precisely when he means to, exactly late, never early.
Yeah, okay, we've kind of talked all around this, but to make
it a little bit more explicit, why do you think Tolkien included this strange
character who you know? You ask Peter Jackson, You take him out,
the plot doesn't change. Yeah, so what do you think he's doing in
the story? If that's even a legitimate question. I I wish I had
a good answer. Obviously, any of us can only speculate. And so
when I when I think about that question, I try to put myself in
tolkien shoes, and I inevitably fail, because I'm not fit to carry his
shoes, much less aware of them. But again, he he puts in
this incredibly enigmatic character at at a time, at a transition period. You
know, it's it's a transition period, and the story it's a transition period
visually and narratively, Like obviously they're on the move, but they're they're they're
no longer in the Shire, They're not yet in the wider world of Middle
Earth. They're in this weird almost sort of like purgatorial place um And and
why why put that there? Why couldn't they have just you know, figured
out how to how to get past old Man Willow and just you know carry
on their merry way like they they they weren't benefited aside from being given the
the tom Bombadill's summoning song to get them out of the barrows. They weren't.
They weren't imparted with any kind of knowledge or insights so far as I
can recall that benefited them on their quest. They weren't told like anything that
that came into came into consideration later again unless I'm forgetting something. So yeah,
why that go back to your question, why is this incredibly enigmatic figure
in this fairly pivotal point pivotal taken and have taken literally enigmatic figure in this
pivotal point of the story for what reason? And you know, I was
racking my brain. I was trying to think of things that that Tolkien said
in interviews or in his letters about Tom Bombadill. But he was notoriously kind
of like age. You know, he didn't really say a whole lot about
Tom Bombadil, And so I have to wonder if he even had a full
understanding of why he was there. And I'm sure that he did. You
know, that seemed like something that he would just happily take to his grave
as kind of like an inside joke with the whole world. But I don't
know, like every story needs that, you know, Hero's journey. You
know, we can we can plug, we can plug the Hobbits story into
the hero's journey. They've left home, you know, they're out in the
wilderness, and they've met that reclusive wise old Hermits. But even then,
the wise old Hermit plays some sort of role in the larger quest, and
again Tom Bombadville seemingly didn't aside from again getting them out of getting them out
of the scrape and barrows. And so I don't know, what do you
think, like, maybe you can fill them some some spaces that I'm overlooking.
What do you think? Well, I think there are a couple of
ways to go at this. For one, I remember reading I feel like
it must have been one of his letters, but I just can't recall where,
you know, he asked the question or is responding to the question of
you know, basically, why did they run into Tombombado the old Forest?
And I remember his responses that's where he lives, just like that's just like
Goldberry saying, who's Tombambodo? He is right, And so the certain truth
behind that they get to go back the idea that Tolkie's just discovering this world
along with the Hobbits and with us um but on it's more of a higher
view on it, on the kind of literary criticism here. I think that
he provides, there's such a powerful foil against all the ambitions of power that
we see throughout the legendarium um. And I knew Tolkien, you know,
writes one of his letters that you know, Lord of the Rings is not
fundamentally a story about freedom, but about God's soul right to divine honor right.
And so all of the villains great and petty throughout his legendarium are these
people, or at least these beings who are grasping at power and in turn
become graphs by power. Yeah, right, whereas Tombombodo stands as such a
contrast to you know that that pride, and so he provides that kind of
character foil. Even though he doesn't necessarily advanced the plot, he defends it,
I suppose, Yeah, yeah, yeah, he provides. And going
back to my earlier response regarding him being this embodiment, he provides a sort
of encapsulation of of what the Hobbits are going out to to do. Because
I've always I've always entertained the pet theory that that the Lord of the Rings
is not principally about destroying the Ring, but it's about defending the Shire because
spoiler alert, after the destruction of the ring, story isn't over, Like
it's not the structure of the ring, and then everybody goes to separate ways
and the stories. Ever. Oh wait, what was that? Was that
a post credit scene? I don't remember? Yeah, no, it was
a It was a It was a ten second clip that that Sam saw in
the last year. Yeah, yeah, that could have been so much more.
But like people just skate over that that portion, and because they've seen
the movies and the movie skate over that portion. But you know, from
from a from a narrative perspective, from a from a maybe not a narrative
perspective, but from a a I hate to say it like this, but
a consumer perspective, it seems odd to structure. Uh, you know two
and a half books about this one thing. You gotta ring, you gotta
throw in a volcano. That's what the book is about, right, No,
it's not because all of that that they went through, all the all
the near depths, all the captivity, all the fights, all everything was
to prepare them to take back the Shire. It was to prepare them to
fight for the good the beautiful on the truth, which obviously the Shire intentionally
or not represents. And so yeah, I have I have a lot of
thoughts and they come at me fast, they leave me just one thing another.
Um. But yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's I think
that's right. And I've long thought that if we could make three movies out
of the Hobbit, we can get at least one out of the Scouring of
the Shire. Seriously, well yeah, like, yeah, come on,
man, it doesn't it doesn't take it doesn't take a filmography like Peter Jackson's
to know that you can make something out of the Scouring of the Shire.
It's it's all. But yeah, I mean, as you said that,
ultimately that is the climax of the story that, um, you know,
the hero's journey, it's not over until you take the victory back home,
right, You have to take the spoils of Mortar back to the Shire before
it's over. And when you do that, you come to find the ultimately,
the home that you're defending is not the same place at the beginning of
the story. So I ultimately pro to us to leave all together. Yeah,
but if you fight for it, if you fight for it, you
might be able to make it better than when you left it. It won't
be to say it'll be different. It won't be the it won't be the
shire that you left, but it can be restored and may be made better.
Right, and certainly can be argued that the Hobbits of the shire Um
ultimately were better for you know, what they went through compared to the beginning
when they're so naive and passive and really concerned about self preservation because they never
had to actually deal with any conflict m serious sense. Frodo even says,
is it Froto, Yes, it Froto? Maybe it's Bilbo. I think
it's Frodo, though who says that, or he thinks to himself that it
would be it would be good for the Hobbits as a whole if some sort
of difficulty was visited upon them, because they're so content, they're so comfortable,
they have so few real problems, and they've just become lazy. They've
become they've become contented in their simple life, and you know, Frodo saw
that that's not that's not good for a soul. That's not good for a
person to just be fat and happy, which you know, that's the hobbit
is fat and happy um. And he got his wish because the the shire
was for a little while destroyed, but it emerged not just victorious, but
stronger. You know. Now they had they had malaren trees from from from
Gladiel, they had, they had all these improvements, and that only came
because they had. What they loved was taken away from them, and it
was the you don't know what you got, tell it's gone mentality. They
saw how good they had it, and they fought for They stood up and
fought for it and took it back, made it better, and yeah,
they're again there. Every chapter in the Legendarium has so much that you could
just pick apart. It's unreal. And you know, along the same lines,
maybe that is precisely why Tom Bombadle left the barrel Whites on his borders,
because they served a purpose in teaching the Hobbits to call out for the
light amidst the darkness. Yeah, I had never thought about that. But
again, like he could have, he could have just snapped his fingers,
popped over there and you know, taking them out, robbed all the barrows
and come home or rich and happy man. He never did that why because
yeah, maybe maybe in his in his immense power, he saw that there
was some benefit to leaving this threat in the world because maybe someone would come
along, and maybe he knew it would be at the Hobbits. I don't
know, but he knew maybe he thought or suspected that someone would come along
who needed that challenge, right, and so maybe that was teaching them something
where you know, it's almost a similar picture where you know, the Hobbits
are kind of grow uping in the darkness, and then you know, fast
forward to say Sam in the later Shilo, you know, calling out for
the light of her end um. And so I think it could be argued
that kind of existentially, the barrel whites almost served a good purpose within Tom's
designs, if he even had designs, And again that's kind of up for
debate, right yeah, and I yeah, and that's a that's a big
bit whether he had designs or not. But that's an interesting thought regardless.
If nothing else, I think we can chalk it up to a providence in
the grand scale, which again we see throughout the Legendarium. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, Tom Bombadill, he wasn't there because that was where he decided
to lay down his roots. He was there because that was where he was
supposed to be. Whether it was his design or luvatars or you know,
any any mixture or any cocktail of complex uh complex involvements, he was where
he needed to be, and it was for a purpose. Before we wrap
it up, we haven't said a whole lot about Goldberry. Do you need
just general thoughts on Goldberry? I have. I have read some interesting things
about Goldberry, mostly surrounding the the imagery and presence of water wherever she is.
You know, she like before we even meet her, Tom is collecting
well she's the river's daughter for one um, but Tom's collecting flowers from the
river to take to her whenever, whenever she is, is it when she's
around it's raining, or she's around and it's not. I think it's when
she's around it's raining. There's this something very liquidy about her descriptions, very
fluid, very very aquatic, and so you know, I go along with
my to go along with my bombadil as as spirit of earth or of goodness
or beauty. I think that I don't know what she's meant to be in
terms of like an embodied thing. But narratively, gosh, Tolkien was such
a such a crazy man. I don't know, but I think that narratively
she's meant to serve and maybe compliment or maybe represent her own form of just
natural beauty. Because again, the like the way she's described so it it's
so velvety, right, Like it's so just just smooth and like in my
mind, whenever I whenever, for my first time on whenever I read about
Goldberry, like she was never standing still like she she like her her essence
was just always kind of rippling um, because that's just the aura that she
has in the story. She's just this this ethereal thing um, which makes
all the all the sense of the world. Why she would be with Tom
Bombadill, and you know, she's she's almost like like, uh, the
embodiment of of like femininity contrasted with Bombadill's embodiment of masculinity, right, because
like he's always out, he's beaten up old man Willow, he's going out
and saving the Hobbits, he's getting dirty, he's out in the mud,
he's walking through the forest. But Goldberry is out in the garden, right
and she's she's she's sick and creating the rain. She's doing all these all
these very soft and and you know, creative in the in the natural sense,
while Tom is out there ordering and putting things right. Um. So,
yeah, I don't know what Goldberry is. But but you know,
you read, you read the chapter that she's in once, and I don't
know how people can read that chapter and then not go back to it and
subsequent readings. Um, if only for the imagery in the presence of Goldberry,
because like the Hobbits are immediately captured by her, you know, they're
immediately enthralled by her. Um, And I don't know how the reader could
not be equally enthralled. Just so, she's she's other. She's other in
a way that I can't quite describe, right, She's very much the ideal
of beauty to the point where, you know, when I'm just reviewing the
Shop for Today, where you know, Frodo first encounters her and he just
starts speaking these poetic praise to her to the point where he's surprised about the
owned words that he's saying. And then, of course, if you read
The Adventures of Tom Bombadelle and the Tales of the Perils realm. You know,
she is kind of playing around with Tom but really drawing him in,
right, he has to chase her and catch her. And I know that
there are you know, some old I think finished tales about you know,
this water spirit where you know, if you're able to catch her, she
has to marry you. And so there are some mythological connections there, but
not really qualified to go in there too much, but I know there's something
there. But yeah, and so she really plays around with him, draws
him in, and so something like she's beauty, he's goodness, and they
create this true realm together through that dialectic she's beauty, he's goodness. Together
they create truth. M I like that. I like that. I like
that equation. Um, I like that a lot. I like that way
of thinking about it. Well, before we wrap things up, do give
any other thoughts anything that we didn't mention that you want to bring up?
Mmmm so much, But I'll keep it on topic. I know that there
are there are people out there who who skip the poetry and lordings and they
skipped the Bombadil chapter. And I think that those people are doing themselves a
catastrophic disservice by doing so. Because yes, Tom Bombadill and Goldberry, they
are both enigmatic characters. There is no manual on who they are, what
they are, why they are, But they are. Who is Tom?
Who's Tom Bombadill? He is? Who are you? I am? Like
they just are. And and as our conversation this evening I think demonstrates there
there's a lot of value that can come from encountering that sort of difficult,
that sort of difficult transcendental fact in wrestling with it. Because again, I
don't know who Tom Bombadilla is. You don't know who Tom Bombadill is.
We can speculate until you know Gabriel blows his horn, but we're not going
to get any closer more than likely. But good things can come from speculating.
That's something that you're never going to get the answer to. And like,
if nothing else, I think that that is obviously I think that he
serves other purposes. But if nothing else, I think that he serves this
amazing purpose his chapter, his presence, it serves this amazing purpose of just
shifting, shifting the reader's perspective, because up to that point in the story,
it's very nuts and bolts. You know, it's Gandalf arrives at the
Shire. There's a party. Gandolf comes and goes for about seventeen years.
They finally decide to leave, and then they're running away from Ring Race in
the Old Forest for one of the most horrifying chapters in all of literature.
Like, that's the story up to that point, and then you get to
Tom Bombadill and everything completely shifts, like the tone, the style, everything
about the story shifts. But as soon as they leave, it goes back
to what it was just before. And so he's like this page break.
He's like this metaphysical page break right in the middle of the first book of
the Lord Rings, like right when things are getting going told teams like okay
and sidebar Tom Bombadil. But again, Tolkien never wasted a word, so
it's unlikely that he would waste a chapter. What would then be the point
of including a person like Tom Bombadill. Maybe it's just to meditate on beauty,
on goodness, truth, on love, on hospitality, on power or
the lack thereof. Maybe it's just supposed to be a meditation. Again,
I don't know, but you're not going to You're going to rob yourself of
that pleasure by skipping over it, because the introduction is hey doll, dairy
doll ring and dog billow like, don't let that fool you. There is
some heavy stuff to be taken from the life and the chapter of Tom bomb
Bill. Don't rob yourself of that opportunity, That's what I was saying.
Yeah, And you know, so many of Tom's little rhymes sound like nonsense
to us, but it might be the you, we who've lost the right
sense to understand the significance, and so sometimes we need to It was C.
S. Lewis who said I hope one day to be old enough to
read fairy fairy tales again. You know, there there's something, there's something
great about being able to return to a state of childlike wonder, right,
and that escape enables you to recover something that then you can bring back into
your main narrative. And so time spent in the world of fairy is not
necessarily wasted, and less of course you wasted. Yeah, and that's that's
entirely on you. What you do when you get to the careless realm is
up to you, and you can look for a way out, or you
can go further up and further in Yeah, it's Tolkien sets in non fairy
stories that the realm of fairy is neither heaven nor hell, is something like
the crossroads, right, it's something like the path, and so the world
of fairies where you kind of get your mornings and figure out which direction you
need to be going. Yeah. Yeah, And you know, I often
wonder, I often wonder what would what would our world look like with just
a bit more fairy in it? What would what would our our world look
like if we just introduced a little bit more of the fantastical into into our
day to day Um, and again I have I have no answer, but
it's fun to think about. Yeah, I think that's a great place to
kind of leave things off. And so Jeremy mean, I've enjoyed this conversation.
I felt like it was a meaningful escape. I agree, this was
This was a necessary and much appreciated for a into other other areas of reality,
other areas of existence that I don't get to spend enough time in.
So this was again my pleasure, my privilege. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.
All right, appreciate it, and I'm sure we'll do it again. Look
forward to it. I believe that that was a worthwhile conversation about this mysterious
figure who is worthy of regular conversation, and be sure to subscribe to Jeremy's
podcast through the Keyhole as well as a substack at Keyhole dot substack dot com.
With my schedule constantly shifting around, it's hard to say for sure what
the topic will be for our next full episode, but you should be able
to count on it either being River Random or Smith of Wooten Major. But
that's it for now, and again, be sure to head over to Patreon
dot com slash smithic Mind to lend your support, and until next time,
I wish you many meaningful trails ahead.