who/what is Tom Bombadil

Dean wrote: if there was an option for damn annoying I would have picked it

I suspect Peter Jackson agrees with you

No

Bombadil is Tolkien's private joke on his readers. Tolkien actually mentioned in his letters that Old Tom is  "the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside", a physical manifestation of the Oxfordshire Tolkien loved and remembered from his youth. Bombadil was added in because Tolkien thought his spirit was "important" and not necessarily germane to the story as a whole. Tolkien requested the addition of the character to Lord of the Rings in a letter to his publisher dated 16 December 1937.

In addition, Bombadil himself mentions in the book that he is the"eldest", which is literally true. Tom is neither Maia, Vala or Eru himself; in fact, he predates The Lord of the Rings and many elements of the Silmarillion as well, first appearing in a series of poems Tolkien wrote in 1934. Bombadil was originally named in honor of a doll in his children's bedroom.

Finally, the One Ring does not affect Tom because he is not part of the story, but rather an entity unto himself within a self-contained land whose boundaries he alone has set.

CPicard wrote: Something else: J.R.R. Tolkien, creating a Gary Sue character acting as a Deus Ex Machina.

Huh? He doesn't do anything. That kinda precludes him from being a Deus Ex Machina.

He does rescue them from a tree and a barrow wight, but those threats were not really necessary to the plot and seemed to only be there to give old Tom an excuse to show up, so not really a Deus Ex Machina.

Let's call Treebeard "Exhibit B."

thellama73 wrote: He does rescue them from a tree and a barrow wight, but those threats were not really necessary to the plot and seemed to only be there to give old Tom an excuse to show up, so not really a Deus Ex Machina.

Yeah. Neither that or the willow were central conflicts to the story. And even so his means of rescue didn't really involve anything out of the ordinary. You could argue the barrows was important because of the nazgul killing daggers, but still ya know?

Epignosis wrote: thellama73 wrote: The Ent language is one of the most interesting things in the book, I think. That's fine, but when you're knee deep in orc blood, you don't want 30 pages of a linguistics lesson. Or a philosophy course.  Isn't that right, Ayn Rand?

I do! It's why I love Victor Hugo's lengthy digressions on the Paris sewers or the history of the octopus.

thellama73 wrote: Epignosis wrote: thellama73 wrote: The Ent language is one of the most interesting things in the book, I think. That's fine, but when you're knee deep in orc blood, you don't want 30 pages of a linguistics lesson. Or a philosophy course.  Isn't that right, Ayn Rand? I do! It's why I love Victor Hugo's lengthy digressions on the Paris sewers or the history of the octopus.

Explains why you like Moby Dick then. 

thellama73 wrote: Epignosis wrote: thellama73 wrote: Epignosis wrote: thellama73 wrote: The Ent language is one of the most interesting things in the book, I think. That's fine, but when you're knee deep in orc blood, you don't want 30 pages of a linguistics lesson. Or a philosophy course.  Isn't that right, Ayn Rand? I do! It's why I love Victor Hugo's lengthy digressions on the Paris sewers or the history of the octopus. Explains why you like Moby Dick then.  Indeed. I'm of the opinion that plot is only one feature of many that are important for great literature.

That's fine, but don't bore me.