June 26, 2002

Re: Rights for Bombadil, Thought On Lothlorien
Danny

I recently discovered something very interesting about Lothlorien.

It was attacked three times before Sauron fell. I am getting this right out of the appendix. I am puting together a calendar of my artwork, and puting the dates of the events in the story on the calendar. I discovered this when I compiled the dates for the calendar. If you haven't gone through the appendix, you are missing out on some cool stuff ie: Gandalf arrived at Lothlorien the day after the fellowship left. Anyway back to Lothlorien. The first assault happened about the time Frodo was leaving Ithilien heading for Shelob's lair. The other two happened after Minas Tirith. Lothlorien repelled all three attacks succesfully. Go elves! I thought that was very interesting. I am going to speculate about this one. I believe that Galadriel said that Sauron suspects she has a ring (I don't have the books handy so I can't find the quote), but that her mind remained closed to him as long as he didn't have the one. What if Sauron was hoping to capture Galadriel's ring? It is not the one, but it would have most definately aided him in finding the one, and been a fatal blow to the resistance had he succeeded.

Another thought. Minas Tirith was almost overthrown on the first assault. I don't think the attacks on Lothlorien neccesarily compared in strength to the attack on Minas Tirith, but it is still interesting to note that Lothlorien fought off three attacks. It is sort of ironic because so many counseled Frodo to take the ring to Minas Tirith where it would be safe, and it appears that Lothlorien was more prepared to defend against what was thrown their direction. Of course they were wise enough to not want the ring to stay there. I just thought that was really cool how Lothlorien proved to be stronger than I would have thought in terms of military resistance.

Okay, now to Bombadil. I love Bombadil now, but the first few times I read the book I hated that diversion. As I said, I love him now, and enjoy the old forrest and the Barrow Downs and all that a lot, but for me on the first few reads, it was not very interesting to me. I wanted to get back to the quest for the ring, and back to being chased by black riders. The diversion from the plot felt too long for me at that time. That was partly because I was 12-15 years old when I read the Trilogy the first two or three times. I don't really feel like Bombadil not being in the film was too sad. It wouldn't have matched the mood of the film. It would have been really strange to suddenly have Robin Wiliams dancing and singing right after sinister Black Riders almost capture the ring. Sorry to all the Bombadil fans that are really sad that he wasn't in the film, but I just don't think it would have worked. It took one of the greates authors of all time to pull it off in writing. I don't think that even PJ would have pulled it off on Film where time is crucial and the overall feel of a film is a delicate thing to maintain.