Tom Bombadil and the Ring

[Ephtariat]

@Chrysophylax Dives Yes, I think that the Ring has more power than Tom, because Tom's power is tied to the land that he rules and the Ring is not. Besides, Tom could not destroy the Ring in his land either, because even there I don't think he's omnipotent, he's just got the faierie to do a whole series of things of which destroying the Ring is not one. Remember our discussion of potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata? Tom has a great potentia ordinata, but it takes potentia absoluta (i.e. a miracle) to destroy the Ring.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I disagree!

Tom could have got rid of the Ring all along [?without further] ...... if asked! (War of the Ring, p. 98, note 5)

To argue I will have to marshall various quotations (and am hoping that if I procrastinate a bit on this someone else will do so for me). But what I think you overlook, and what is nearly always overlooked in all these discussions of Bombadil, is that Bombadil is not really part of the 'system of the world' - he is not Eru, nor a Maia, nor anything that we find in The Silmarillion. He appears in The Lord of the Rings because before Tolkien reached Weathertop the sequel to The Hobbit was a completely different story. Once the story took the turn that it did, Tolkien had the wisdom to retain Bombadil. Henceforth, he gave a few different spins to Bombadil (e.g. he embodied pacificism) but fundamentally, or so I suspect, Bombadil served to counter Tolkien's own Sauron-like tendencies to control everything. Bombadil is there to remind author and readers that whatever our sub-creative powers may be, it is not for us to achieve a perfect system.

[Ephtariat]

I think you say he's not Eru but then you attribute him Eru-like powers.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

@Ephtariat, I feel I am piling up debts to you. I have too much work (the kind that pays money) to dig up the quotes right now (and this is also holding me back from the neutral angels thread). I will get back to you on both. But I will make a brief reply to your post above, which seems to me to contain the same logical flaw as the argument that the Elves were correct not to invite Bombadil to be Council of Elrond because the Elves say that he does not understand things.

From the standpoint of the mythology of The Silmarillion your point might be valid. But my claim is that Bombadil does not fit into this mythology. So it begs the question to project attributes of the mythology onto him.

[Ephtariat]

The Lord of the Rings belongs to the "Elf-centric" (Letters) mythology just as much as The Silmarillion, it's just the ending of that mythological cycle, and indeed Christopher added the writing on "The Rings of Power" to his published Silmarillion. Moreover, the hobbits compiled the Red Book of Westmarch with the help of the Elves, so it's impossible to detach any fragment of this narrative from the Elven point of view. Even Tom Bombadil.