So is it just "Never have an overpowered NPC?" or is it more "Don't have an overpowered NPC without a function valuable enough to justify their existence? Or a third thing?"
I think he's a fine aside and a welcome tone shift between heavy parts of the book, but he definitely deus ex machinas up the whole barrow wight scene, which is disappointing every time I read it. He already saved the hobbits from Old Man Willow, we don't need to have him sweep in again.
I probably shouldn't need this sort of affirmation in my life but it feels great. Bombadil is probably my least favorite thing about a story that I loved so well it started me reading for pleasure in the first place. How do you feel about the eagles? (Not the band.)
I do appreciate the later take that Bombadil not only would not be tempted if given the Ring, but that he would be mentally incapable of taking it seriously and would just throw it in a river somewhere and forget about it.
Gandalf was all "yes, he's powerful, but mentally he's a parakeet."
Okay, but what about Xenk from D&D: Honor Among Thieves? Is it acceptable if the creators know he's an overpowered NPC and use that for comedic effect?
I maintain that Tom Bombadil serves no narrative purpose. Why introduce a character who could short circuit the story, just to hand wave him away and never mention him again? The fact that he’s absent from the movies and it affects the plot not at all proves me right.
In the book Tom Bombadil, if nothing else, rescues the hobbits from the Barrow-Wights & gives them knives from the barrow as swords. Frodo uses his to attack the Lord of the Nazgǔl at Weathertop. Merry more successfully uses his to help kill the Lord of the Nazgûl. No Bombadil, no swords.
There are other ways they can get swords, which they do in the films (Strider gives them to them). Another option is to simply have them find them on the corpses of previous victims in the barrow and get them themselves.
Yes, but those are not the ways Tolkien gave them the swords, & the swords coming from the barrow is significant because they are linked to resistance to the Witch-King. I don’t remember Aragorn having some handy hobbit-sized swords about him in the film but it would fit with its utter randomness.
They’re elvish short swords, which he gives to Frodo and Merry. He had them because he’s a Ranger. Makes perfect sense, and a lot more than some random super powered hippie showing up and not helping any other way but as a sword delivery system.
I suppose it makes sense if Rangers generally carry spare short elvish swords with them, or if Gandalf told Aragorn to have a couple with him in case he ran into Frodo & Sam, which is credible, but neither Aragorn nor Gandalf would have known Merry & Pippin were involved.
But…he’s not all that powerful? He takes out a Balrog I guess but we only have his word for it. He raises the spirits of the armies around him, but that’s because of the ring he carries. He can withstand Saruman’s voice but not his prison. Mostly the rest is swordplay. At which he is mediocre.
Madness! He speaks to moths and giant eagles. He keeps ancient knowledge alive, and knows how to ID the ring. He saves and rouses Theoden. He gets Aragorn involved. He’s a kingmaker!
Someone, somewhere has to have proposed that Bombadil was The Logos (i.e. Christ), who always existed from eternity, according to Christian doctrine. I don’t think that’s right, but I’m sure someone must’ve thought of it because of Lewis’s Christian theology permeating so much of his work.
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Gandalf was all "yes, he's powerful, but mentally he's a parakeet."
(Okay just kidding, but you are wrong.)