The Bee Reads LOTR Episode 7:Tom Bombadil Is Awesome
Kyle and Dan, from The Babylon Bee, along with Jonathan Watson, from TheOneRing.Com where you can join a growing fellowship of Tolkien fans, get to one of their favorite chapters of The Lord of the Rings: In The House Of Tom Bombadil! Who the heck is this weird guy dancing and singing in the old forest? What did Tolkien say about who Tom is and what does he have to teach us? How is this detour in the old forest to Tom's house essential to the story? Tom Bombadil is awesome and by the end of this episode, we think you'll agree. Chapter 7 summary: The hobbits enter the house and seem to be enchanted by Goldberry. Frodo even bursts into song when he sees her. Frodo asks her who Tom Bombadil really is and she tells him that Tom is simply Tom: the master of wood, water and hill. He has no desire to own anything and he has no fear. Frodo asks Tom if he had heard their cry for help or if he had just happened to come by at the right time. Tom said that he had been expecting them. They eat and go to bed. The Hobbits all have nightmares, except Sam. Frodo dreams of man on a tower taken away by a large eagle and then black riders, Pippin is back in the willow tree, and Merry thinks he is about to be drowned.The next day it rains, so Tom begins to tell them stories. He tells them about the old forest and the trees like Old Man Willow. He warns them about the barrow downs and the spirits. The Hobbits lose track of time. Frodo once again tries to find out who Tom Bombadil is by asking him directly. Tom asks Frodo to show him the Ring. He is completely unconcerned about the ring or Sauron. He teaches them a rhyme to call him for help and tells them they must leave the next day. Topics Discussed Who the heck is Tom? "Tom was a paradoxical creature, one moment defeating ancient forces with hardly an effort, the next capering and singing nonsensical songs." "Eldest, that's what I am... Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn... He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside." "He is Master of wood, water, and hill." But he doesn't own it! "That would be a burden," says Goldberry. He also "just is as you have seen him" and is "not afraid." Tom always seems preoccupied about his own business and seems to forget the needs of his guests. 'Tom, Tom! your guests are tired, and you had near forgotten! Who the heck is Goldberry? She is full of joy and laughter and is described as "enthroned." The paradox of Bombadil in that he is good but is not concerned with the shadow vs the Hobbits "you cannnot shut the world out forever" Kyle's tweet thread about his favorite passage in Lord of the Rings: (though he reserves his right to say that a lot over the course of this show) Dan thinks it is odd that Tom just happens to have a feast set, four mattresses, four pairs of hobbit slippers, vessels of cold and hot water just waiting for the hobbits in the guest room. Tom says he was waiting for them. "Farmer Maggot, whom he seemed to regard as a person of more importance than they had imagined. 'There's earth under his old feet, and clay on his fingers; wisdom in his bones, and both his eyes are open,' said Tom. It was also clear that Tom had dealings with the Elves, and it seemed that in some fashion, news had reached him from Gildor concerning the flight of Frodo." Our zeitgeist and its need for big, epic heroes, and its intolerance of quirkiness and things that are uncool. Whether the morning and evening of one day or of many days had passed Frodo could not tell. He did not feel either hungry or tired, only filled with wonder. 'Who are you, Master?' he asked. 'Eh, what?' said Tom sitting up, and his eyes glinting in the gloom. 'Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? But you are young and I am old. Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless – before the Dark Lord came from Outside.' Tom holds up the superweapon of Sauron and laughs at it like it's child's play. And can even make it disappear??? Tom can see invisible Frodo? Some stuff from Silmarillion is mentioned like Valar and Maiar and hopefully the slides on the video help. Tom doesn't fit any established category in Middle-Earth. Is Tom Bombadil right to be unconcerned with fighting evil? Subscriber Portion We "solve" who Tom really is (become a subscriber)Tolkien's own words about Tom Bombadil Subscriber Questions, fan theories, and tattoo suggestions for Kyle The Hobbits' dreams in the house of Tom Bombadil
From the heart of the Shire, through the depths of Moria, to the ends of Middle-earth.
It's the Babylon Bee Reads the Lord of the Rings with your hosts, Kyle Mann and Dan Coates.
Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow.
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
That's awesome.
Where's the cow?
Where's the whole getup?
I didn't know that.
We missed it.
We're going to do that in After Effects.
We're going to put a simple really still.
Got it?
Okay, now we're going to put the hat and the coat.
Guys, welcome to the Babylon Bee Reads.
We are reading Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring.
We're in chapter 7 in the house of Tom Bombadil.
This is the Tom Bombadil special.
The Tom Bombadil is awesome show.
The Tom Bombadil is awesome.
That's going to rename the whole podcast.
Tom Bombadil is awesome.
I'm Kyle Mann.
This is Dan Coates.
This is Jonathan Watson.
He runs a website called TheOneRing.com.
If you want to check it out, it has a lot of information on the books and it craps all over the movies.
So I'll take it.
Sure.
Occasionally we do.
All right, so we're at this part in the story now.
We finally run into Tom Bombadil in the old forest.
The hobbits have left the shire officially when they left Crick Hollow, and they go through this hedge into the forest.
And we are in the old forest.
The old willow tree tries to curb stomp Frodo into the water and swallow up the other two hobbits.
And Sam's running around, you know, trying to light the tree on fire with Frodo.
And then they hear this little merry guy skipping along the way and he starts beating the tree with a stick to get the hobbits out.
How'd I do?
That's perfect.
Yep.
And we ended up last chapter where they go into Tom Bombadil's house.
They see the lights coming from this place and they hear a voice singing and they walk in.
Yep.
And they step on the threshold of the door and they are covered in light.
And they are arrived in the house of Tom Bombadil, chapter seven.
So here we are.
So we establish Tom Bombadil as this character whose presence kind of represents a safe haven, both in his protection over this strange, mysterious, ancient old forest, and in his house.
Seems to be this kind of place of refuge.
Goldberry, we meet Goldberry, who seems to be Tom Bombadil's wife.
And she introduces herself as the daughter of the river.
And she closes the door and says, let us shut out the night, for you are still afraid, perhaps, of mist and tree shadows and deep water and untamed things.
Fear nothing, for tonight you are under the roof of Tom Bombadil.
This is kind of how Tolkien introduces us into this concept that now we're in a safe house.
We're fine for a chapter.
You're going to be okay.
Yeah, I like his approach of how we are in such dire straits for the entire length of the entire chapter.
And now we can just breathe a side release of understand, like, okay, now we can just relax and understand maybe what's been going on and take a little step back.
Although, the very first thing is that there's still, we don't know who these characters are.
So maybe there's still a little bit of tension in that.
Even where Frodo says to her, Fair Lady Goldberry, Goldberry said Frodo at last.
Said Frodo at last, feeling his heart moved with a joy that he did not understand.
And so the mystery of them, the enigma is still there, and we don't know any of that.
And that's one of the things that's great about this chapter is.
Well, the enigma is still there.
There's very few entries that you can pull up on like a Lord of the Rings wiki and they're like, we don't know anything about this guy.
Yeah, right.
Tom Bombadil is almost one of those things.
I mean, there's a lot of information on Tom Bombadil, but at the end, you read any article or entry on Tom Bombadil, and it's like, honestly, nobody really knows.
But there are so many articles of people there who are trying to figure it out still right now.
It's just a great point of discussion, which I think that alone justifies him as a great character.
I mean, anything you're still talking about, and it's hotly debated decades later.
I mean, that's great.
Yeah.
We actually reveal what the true answer is in the subscriber portion.
Yeah.
So if you subscribe, we figured it out.
Yeah, we figured it out, and you got to subscribe to figure it out with us.
Although we do actually have a lot of interesting subscriber comments and theories on who Tom Bombadil is.
And we have some comments from Tolkien himself that you pulled up.
On exactly who he thought Tom Bombadil was.
So that'll be interesting.
Yeah.
One of my favorite lines right in here in the beginning where Goldberry is, or Frodo talks to Goldberry, is where he says, the spell that was now laid upon him was different.
Less keen and lofty was the delight, but deeper and nearer to mortal heart, marvelous and not strange, which is an interesting statement because it's his mortal heart.
It's not, right, which means not elvish.
And so something about them touches him more deeply than even the elves, I think.
I think that's what Tolkien was trying to say.
I'm not exactly sure, but that was a statement I'd never really noticed before.
But something about Goldberry was so, I don't know, it thrust into him so deeply.
And maybe that's because she's this earthen figure, right?
A representation of, not a representation, but someone who's in touch with the earth.
I mean, she's the daughter of the river.
And he says, now the joy that was hidden in the songs we heard is made plain to me.
And that goes back to the songs being the things that created the earth.
And the song is so important.
And it touches Frodo so deeply, just her singing and her being with him.
And he breaks out in a song.
Oh, Slender is a Willow Wando, clearer than clear water.
Oh, read by the living pool, Fair River Daughter.
Oh, springtime and summertime, and spring again after a wind on the waterfall and the leaves laughter.
And it just springs out of him.
And he didn't know what overcame him.
And it's funny that just her presence brings that out of him, right?
This serendipity of song and joy.
You can try that as a pickup technique at bars.
Yeah, it doesn't work.
No.
No.
You just see a girl and you just start.
Oh, Slender has a willow.
I don't think that has the same effect nowadays as it might have during the age of Middle Earth.
I thought you would say the 90s.
No, it's not.
Well, Middle Earth during this period that that actually happened.
Well, okay.
At this moment.
Okay.
In the third age.
Yes.
The tail end.
Okay.
So Goldberry says the trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves.
Tom Bombadil is the master.
No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hilltops under light and shadow.
He has no fear.
Tom Bombadil is master.
So we get this, he's almost like in this domain at least, he's almost like omnipotent in some way.
I mean, I don't know if omnipotent is the right word, but definitely close to all-powerful over this domain, which is interesting.
Yeah, she says he is the master of wood, water, and hill.
And then she goes on to say, well, Frodo goes on to ask, oh, he owns everything.
And she goes, oh, no, that would be too much of a burden.
So it's like this weird thing where he's just like a part of it.
But like, I don't, it's just, I didn't really, yeah, it's just kind of interesting.
Like, he doesn't own it.
He's not responsible for it, but he's the master somehow.
Like the Good Shepherd.
Well, I don't know.
That might be a little too much.
Well, but, and right before that, Frodo asks her, you know, who is Tom Bombadil?
And she says, he is.
And Frodo looked at her question.
Is as you have seen him, she said in answer to his look, he's the master of Woodwater and Hill, right?
The he is.
I don't think Tolkien meant like he is, like biblically speaking, he is, right?
Yeah, I am, he is, right?
Um, but just he is Tom Bombadil.
What do you want me to say?
He's the guy who's leaps from you know, leaps from hill to hill, so to speak.
Um, and uh, um, it's hard to understand.
I mean, this is where we get into the depths of what is Tom what is Tom Bombadil?
And that's what the point is, like he didn't ask, What is Tom Bombadil?
He asked, Who is Tom Bombadil?
Tom Bombadil is Tom Bombadil.
That's what I'm saying.
I think it's interesting that Tom Bombadil seems to be operating like on a different level.
Like when he first rescues him from Old Man Willow, and then he just books it and runs ahead of him, just leaves him behind.
He's like, Oh, don't worry, you guys will make it to my house eventually.
Yeah, yeah, and then they get to the house, and he's like, Oh, is the table ready?
Okay, great, let's eat.
And then Goldberry is like, Well, don't, your guests are not ready.
He's like, Oh, right, I forgot.
I know you guys need to, you know, so he takes him back to the guest room.
There's, there's the bed, there's all the slippers laid out already, there's the hot and cold water so they can wash and do whatever they need to do.
It's like everything's all so that's one of the things I wanted to kind of talk about in this chapter that's super weird to me that everything is just ready and waiting for them.
And then I think he says later on in the chapter, like, I've been expecting you.
And there's, there's elements of that where it's like, that's that's kind of creepy and weird to me or mystical, I guess.
Yeah, if you go into a hobo's house in the forest and he's got beds lying out for each one of you, like he's got matching slipper, like four sets of hobbit-sized slippers ready to go.
That's when you want to call the police.
But isn't it kind of like it's like going to grandma's house, right?
Nobody ever stays there, but when you get there, she's always completely ready.
Yeah, yeah, and that's what kind of what it feels like to me.
Well, he even says, Did I hear you calling?
No, I was too busy singing.
Just he says, Just chance brought me then.
If chance you call it, it was no plan of mine, though I was waiting for you.
Yeah, we heard news of you and learned that you were wandering.
So he knows about them, he knows they're going on this journey.
He had heard about Bill Bob and Frodo and all this.
And he's just like, Well, it was just chance that I happened to be there at that moment.
If you want to call it, chance.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Does that answer your question, Dan?
Is that like when Tom Bombadil breaks the fourth wall and stares at the camera?
He's like, if you want to call it, he winks, winks at you.
Yeah.
Something like that.
And then all Hobbits are like, who the heck are you talking?
By that pool long ago, I found the river daughter, fair young Goldberry, sitting in the rushes.
Sweet was her singing then, and her heart was beating.
So he like found her at the withy window or whatever it is.
Yeah.
He just found her sitting there.
He's like, oh, I guess he'll be my wife, you know?
Yeah, there's, I mean, that goes back to the poem that Tolkien had written in the early 30s, I think it was, about Bombadil, where Bombadil is on an adventure and he gets pulled down into the water kind of playfully by the river daughter.
And then, you know, he ends up like marrying her after she toys with him a little bit.
And one of the commenters actually had a really quick overview of the whole story of Tom Bombadil.
But yeah, it's like the story of Tom Bombadil seems a little, you know, it's different than what we were used to in The Lord of the Rings.
But there's the history to it still that Tolkien had still written.
And so he inserted him with that history already in mind when he wrote who Goldberry was and how she and what the relationship was already established to be.
This is a little out of the box for my little fan theory here.
But I wonder if one of the things that inspired Tolkien to make Tom Bombadil this almost eternal immortal character, the firstborn, you know, he's like the one who's there when it's created and he's there throughout.
I wonder if just because this is based on this childhood toy, you know, that it kind of represents this thing from childhood.
And Tom Bombadil being written so early in the progression of Tolkien's Middle-earth, you know, how he's actually writing and crafting these stories.
Tom Bombadil being written, I mean, it's almost a meta-element where the reason that Tom Bombadil is from the beginning is because he was from the beginning, you know, in terms of him writing the story.
He's built a lot of this around this guy.
And the story grew so much in this big epic myth of Middle-earth, you know, mythology of Earth.
And Tom Amadil is just still, this toy is just still sitting in the forest, you know, in some way.
And it's really interesting if you think about the way that he crafted the narrative, feeds into how Tom Bombadil sits in this timeline.
Yeah.
Or am I just high?
I don't know.
Like, I hate trying to say like this, like coming in and like making myself come to a point on what Tom Bombadil is or who he was.
And the way I kind of look at it is, you know, in the history and the cosmology of Middle-earth, all the Ainur sing the earth into existence, right?
And it's kind of like the way I look at it is like he's like a beautiful stanza that becomes part of the earth, right?
Yeah, it's like that sort of thing.
But trying to understand what that's supposed to be is sort of a fool's errand, right?
We're never going to get there.
But.
Well, I almost feel like a less fanciful, more disciplined author would have cut Tom Bombadil.
You know, somebody who is like trying to craft this tight narrative.
And any editor that read this book would have been like, we need to cut the Bombadil.
He doesn't fit the tone.
He doesn't fit the style.
I think for Tolkien, Bombadil is central to Middle-earth.
He's there because he was there since he's been creating this world.
Right.
Right.
And he sits outside the bounds of good and evil and the battles that are there.
And he's a representation of the basics of Middle-earth, right?
He's part of that song.
Yeah.
And he doesn't get affected by the ring.
He asks Frodo for the ring, and Frodo's like, oh, sure.
Like, he brings it out and he's like, I guess.
And then he sees it grow in his hand.
And Tom Bombadil is just laughing at it.
He's like, huh, look at this little trifle.
And then he sticks it on, and everyone realizes, oh, he's not gone.
And so he's not more powerful.
He's other powerful.
It's just like the things of the good and evil that the Ainur have been fighting against and the Mayar and all that sort of stuff.
It doesn't matter to him as much, just because he's there to enjoy the world.
He's sort of like the massive hobbit, right?
It's like if you could become a, if a hobbit could have sort of a control over his own life, this is like he'd be singing, he'd be enjoying the food, he'd be enjoying the land.
Yeah, to me, in a lot of ways, he represents the good.
You know, he's the good that is outside of and above all these conflicts that are coming and going.
Right.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's one major theme that I wanted to talk about with Tom Bombadil is that I think, and I think this is good for us just in an application sense today, is that we get really caught up in our little political battles, even serious ones.
You know, we can really look at all the things that are going on in the world and we can be like, this is bad, you know.
You know, whatever the political thing is that's going on in our age, it's like, this is a real challenge and we need to find a way to fight this battle.
But Tolkien wants us to pull back and remember that there is this good that is going to be there regardless, you know, and that there may be darkness for 100 years.
There may be darkness for 200 years, but it'll fade away.
It'll go away.
And the good will still be there.
You know, the world is, as Chesterton says, the world is originally good, not just ultimately good.
It's not just going to a good place.
It started as a good thing.
GK Chesterton.
Yeah, people act like if their political campaign or party or tribe or whatever you're going to call it, people act like that is ultimate, that if we don't win, good will go away.
And I think for Tolkien and for people that are in Christ, it's like good's eternal.
You can't make it go away.
It's always going to be there.
And I think that's kind of what Tom Bombadil represents to me.
Absolutely.
And I think that's a constant theme through the books.
You know, you get in Return of the King where Sam is looking up and he sees the star through the shadow, through the clouds.
And he remembers that there's light and high beauty forever beyond the reach of the shadow.
I think that's an important lesson for us.
For Tolkien, it wasn't good and evil are in this perpetual struggle.
It was good.
The world is good and things are good.
And evil is this twisting.
It's trying to take it over, but really has no chance ultimately.
Long term.
Yeah.
It's not the yin and the yang.
You know, they're two equal forces.
It's like, no, good is above and beyond everything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
The smallest good can win out over the greatest evil in the long run.
And that goodwill endure.
Yeah.
So I want to read, this is my favorite passage in Lord of the Rings.
The entire book.
This is my favorite passage in Tom Bombadil.
Sit back and relax.
Now, this will be the first of many times I say this probably.
But Tom Bombadil is explaining the forest to them.
And what's interesting is Tolkien doesn't actually do like the long expositional quote from Tom Bombadil.
He just kind of relays, he just kind of summarizes what Bombadil is saying.
And then at the end, it kind of says that they don't know if they've been sitting there for hours or days as Bombadil's been kind of almost implanting this imagery in their minds.
And he's going on and he goes on and on about the forest.
And then he starts talking about the barrow downs that are nearby.
And I think Tolkien's kind of almost extrapolating this beyond the barrow downs and just saying that of all these kingdoms that are rising and falling around the old forest.
And I just love like this theme that we're talking about, that he's like, the old forest is still there, the good things are still there.
Bad guys are taking over and then kings are coming in and conquering them.
And then the kings are dying and then civilization is fading away and then being built again.
And Tom Bombadil is just sitting there singing and collecting flowers.
So it says, suddenly Tom's talk left the woods and went leaping up the young stream, over bubbling waterfalls, over pebbles and worn rocks, and among small flowers and close grass and wet crannies, wandering at last up onto the downs.
They heard of the great barrows and the green mounds and the stone rings upon the hills and in the hollows among the hills.
Sheep were bleeding in flocks.
Green walls and white walls rose.
There were fortresses on the heights.
Kings of little kingdoms fought together and the young sun shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords.
There was victory and defeat and towers fell.
Fortresses were burned and flames went up into the sky.
Gold was piled Piled on the bires of dead kings and queens, and mounds covered them, and the stone doors were shut, and the grass grew overall.
Sheep walked for a while, biting the grass, but soon the hills were empty again.
A shadow came out of dark places far away, and the bones were stirred in the mounds.
Barrow whites walked in the hollow places with a clink of rings on cold fingers and gold chains in the wind.
Stone rings grinned out of the ground like broken teeth in the moonlight.
Like, what a masterful passage.
I mean, you just get this image of these, almost if you're watching a movie and the time-lapse of the things being built, and then the kings coming and fighting, and the grass growing over it, and the sheep come, and then they're gone, and then these ghosts move in, and you're just like, I mean, and for me, that's just such a thematic passage with what we're talking about.
That Bombadil doesn't seem to care, as we've seen with the ring.
He doesn't seem to care about the current struggle so much because he's been there and he knows the shadows.
He's seen it come and go the entire time.
It's beautiful the way he writes that the kings of little kingdoms fought together, little kingdoms, right?
And it's going through the Silmarillion.
There are no little kingdoms, right?
But Bombadil's perspective is like, oh, these guys, they're going to be gone soon enough.
The young sun shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
The young sun.
So we're talking thousands of years of this that he's seen.
He's seen the kings will come and go.
It's kind of his commentary there.
Trump will go, but Trump will come.
It's all good.
Absolutely.
And we did see that with the media where every little thing with Trump was, you know, wherever you land politically, every little thing with Trump was like, this is the end of democracy.
You know, Tom Bombadil would be like dancing like, oh, whatever.
He'd just be living life.
He'd be enjoying life and picking water lilies for Goldberry.
And it's the same thing that conservatives probably are tempted to do now with Biden.
Every time he signs, oh, here he is.
Executive order.
3,000th executive order of the day.
Everybody going like, oh, this is it.
You know, the end of democracy.
And Bombadil's like, do, you know, dancing around.
This is why we need more Tolkien.
This is why we need more Tolkien in our lives.
So another interesting thing about this passage is now Tolkien is using this safe house and this kind of fatherly, not fatherly, but guardian character as he's using him in a narrative sense to foreshadow what's coming up with the Burrowdowns.
And he does do this again in Rivendell and in Loughlorian, a foreshadowing what's to come.
You know, whatever you guys do, don't go up on those hills there.
If you see here in the hills, you're in trouble.
So now as the reader, you're looking out for that in the next chapter.
Going back to that kind of that eternal perspective of Tom Bombadil, how he's just joyful and laughter and nonsense while the whole world's fighting and good and evil is duking it out.
Do you guys think that Tom Bombadil is right?
Yeah, there's a lot of criticism about like, oh, well, he was, you know, looking at stuff in our recent past, like with the Nazis.
Yeah, right, right.
What would Bombadil have done with the Nazis?
Would Bombadil have killed baby Hitler?
Gone back and murdered.
So like, I know like us as Tolkienites, we're like, we're like inclined to look at Tom Bombadil in a positive way, but maybe somebody's reading this and they go like, well, you can't be like that.
You got to do things in the world and take action.
Yeah.
And didn't we pull up a quote from earlier in the book?
I think to contrast with there's that famous quote about you can't fence the world out forever.
Yeah.
Yes.
Right.
And it's very different with the old forest where he is kind of in some sense.
I think Bombadil is sort of like utopia in a way, right?
If this is the way we could have it, then that's the way it is.
But it's not real, right?
We still have to fight.
We still have to do the right things.
But it doesn't mean that, you know, Bombadil sees the things and he never lost hope in a sense, right?
never lost his ability to enjoy life.
It's sort of, you know, you fight with the hope of the future, but with the knowledge of the present in a way.
Well, he's also not an avatar for us.
Yes, he's exotic.
That's a good way of putting it.
Like he represents something more eternal.
He's not affected by the ring.
We are.
And so we live in a different, we're on a different plane or a different reality.
I hate using the word fate again, but our fate is going to be different than his because we're a different part of that song, right?
He has a different, his role is different in the song of the cosmology of Middle-earth than the other characters, even the elves.
Yeah.
Some people are called to throw the ring in the cracks of doom.
Crack of doom.
Some people are called to pick water lilies.
Some people are called to dance around the forest.
So I wonder if Tolkien, in a way, is kind of saying like, okay, for the people that their part of the song is to do the fighting and to go through life and go through all the hard stuff that Tom's not.
He's just on a different level.
I wonder if we're still supposed to learn something from Tom that even though we're fighting and we're going through all these hard things in life, you know, all these difficulties and hardships, that we're still supposed to have, or we're still supposed to look to like an eternal perspective that he's joyful and he's happy and that we somehow, even though we might not see how, we're still supposed to be in some ways as well.
Yeah.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
Yeah.
Disagree.
I disagree.
Yeah.
No true.
That's how we get the views of.
You're wrong.
Yeah.
I concur.
I definitely concur that, yeah, yeah.
Because like he was saying, in some ways, he's the ultimate perfection of what the hobbits would be if they could.
And so like in times of peace, this is what you should be doing.
But that ideal always exists.
You know, the good always exists.
It's always there.
And we believe that for our world, the good is there.
The eternal truths are there.
And you notice Tom Bombadil didn't say to the Hobbits, come on, stay with me.
Live with me in my life.
He's like, no, you got to go tomorrow.
He's got to go.
Yeah, he's like helping them.
He gives them the song to help them out of a jam.
He knows that they have to do something.
He does help them through that.
But he also knows what his place is.
And it's not outside the old forest.
This is what he's been called to.
So maybe we need to be like happy warriors, whether that's happy warriors.
Whether that's in the culture or politically or like, I know people get really wrapped up into stuff, current events.
It's like you need to be happy.
You can't just fight, fight, fight, and be bitter and angry.
And I think also to be constantly, you know, what is Tom Bombadil doing?
He's tending his land.
He's going around managing this forest and enjoying it.
He's cleaning his room.
Yeah.
Making his bed, heading a cat.
You got to clean your kingdom.
Yeah, exactly.
A lot of those 12 rules, I think Tom Bombadil is doing that.
Listen up, Frodo.
You got to clean your room.
You got to clean up, Buckle.
You got to shape up.
Put that ring on.
That's not good.
It's not good.
It's not good now.
Yeah, but I think Tilkien would agree that like I'm not going to say what Tolkien would agree.
But I think that we were reading that Chesterton deal about conservatives painting the post.
Yeah.
You know, that's keeping it.
Yeah, like we're not.
Yeah, conservatism isn't just that the post is there and the white paint's fading.
That post has to stay there because we're conservatives, but conservatism is actually repainting the post over and over and over and maintaining its working for it.
Yeah, you're keeping it.
You're maintaining it.
So, yeah, it's something he's calling us to an active defense of the good things, not just reactionary, like.
Right.
You know, something bad's happening.
I guess we'll go put that fire out.
Yeah.
But defending the good things of the Shire and the old forest.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that's probably a good stopping point to break into our subscriber portion.
But first, let's summarize where we're heading next.
So there's a couple of dreams.
Maybe we'll talk about some in the subscriber portion that have some dreams in the which are interesting.
They have scary dreams and like Tom Bomadill comes and pokes it and says, hey, calm down.
Except for Sam.
Except for Sam, which I thought was interesting.
We'll talk about that a little bit, perhaps.
So they sleep one more time and then in the next chapter, they're going to be departing Tom Bombadil's house and absolutely not going to the Barrowdowns, whatever they do.
Whatever you do, don't go there.
And if you don't go there, here's the song you need just in case.
Yeah, just in case there's a song that you have.
So yeah.
So hopefully we have defended Tom Bomadil and you guys now absolutely love him and think he's the best character in I do think he's essential.
I think so too.
Yeah.
He is essential.
So perhaps we'll talk in the subscriber portion a little bit about Peter Jackson's decision to cut him out of the movie and our thoughts on that.
And we have some interesting behind-the-scenes stuff from Tolkien, his comments on Bombadil.
And we have a lot of subscriber comments to go through because people were passionate about Tom Bombadil.
It could be a while.
It could be a while.
So let's kept hitting refresh to read all your new comments.
He was arguing with all of you.
He is not Eru.
Absolutely flaming everyone.
All right, let's break into the Babylon B pub.
Sweet.
In and pub.
Find out who Tom Bombadil really is.
Here we go.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
In this sense, I think he represents something more than just being a straight-up allegory.
Yeah, I think when we use the term allegory, we think of it in terms of animal farm.
Yeah, or we're like, this horse represents this Russian general.
And it does feel like he built Middle Earth around this guy.
I've never seen Tom Bombadil and Ethan in the same room at the same time.
It's true.
I'm just saying.
And sometimes diving down deeply into that, we kind of go down paths we might not see.
I think the official term would be isogening yourself into the story, saying like, oh, I think he meant this here, and I think he meant this here.
When we have what Tolkien actually said, we've solved it.
Tom Bombadil is Azlan.
Kyle and Dan would like to thank Seth and Dan Dylan for buying us cool swords and paying the bills.
Adam Ford for creating our jobs.
Ethan Nicole for creative direction.
And all the writers at the Babylon Bee.
Matthew McDavid for guiding studio operations.
Patrick Green for show production.
Catlin Patty for Laugh Tracks.
The Babylon Bee subscribers who make what we do possible.
And you, the listener.
Until next time, this is Austin Robertson.
The voice of the Babylon Bee reads The Lord of the Rings.
Reminding you, a day may come when the courage of men fails, but it is not this day.