October 15, 2002

On Bombadil
Dave M.

Sorry Danny, I just can't agree with the way you dismiss Bombadil as an Isolationist. The key to Bombadil, it seems to me, is what Goldberry says - 'He is.' In other words, he isn't making a choice about not taking the ring, or about anything else. The key to him is that he has no 'subconscious' processes going on, there's no analysis. no weighing up of alternatives. He doesn't take the ring seriously, because he doesn't. He only cares about Goldberry & the Old Forest, because he only cares about them - not because he's 'decided to be an isolationist'. Everything about Bombadil is entirely on the surface. He is. So, when he tells Old Man Willow to release the hobbits, he does. He 'is', in a way more so than anything else - more real than the ring, not more powerful. Bombadil is as he is, & does what he does, because that's his essential nature. He can't do anything else. Some things cannot be analysed for subconscious motives & drives,because they don't have any, & therefore cannot be judged on their behaviour. Maybe its better to think of Bombadil & Goldberry more as aspects or manifestations of the natural world rather than as people. You wouldn't call a tree, mountain or river 'isolationist' for refusing to take the ring.