"went home, kicked sarumans ass for good, and then got to slammin…
Oh right, the whole battle of the shire isn’t a thing because some dork chopped it and Tom bombadil completely out of a movie script.
What? No… I’m not bitter… much
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There’s still hope for a Tom Bombadil miniseries that resurrects those scenes. Whether it would be good is TBD, but maybe Amazon pulls an Andor and gives somebody the creative freedom to make it that way.
Amazon’s made some half-decent shows, so it’s not completely unrealistic to imagine …
“So we decided not to actually read any of the lord of the rings books and instead imagined what a guy named Tom Bombadil would be like and thought up some zany adventures for him to go on. We really think the audience will respond to his soon to be famous punch line, ‘Gabbana doodle muk muk.’ Ahh old Tom ‘Cheddar Cheese’ Bombadil what will you do next? That’s right we gave him the nick name Cheddar Cheese, people are going to love it.”
‘Gabbana doodle muk muk.’
Not too far off from the way he talks in the books, honestly.
Amazon has made some decent shows, but has Amazon made any decent adaptations? Rings of Power wouldn’t be completely awful for example if not for the butchering of the pre-existing lore.
Vox Machina is the closest they have, but that’s kinda cheating, the VAs who originally created and played the characters in DnD are, naturally, the VAs for their characters on the show.
Is The Boys not an adaptation? I’m not a viewer, but I could swear I’ve seen a comic version of it at my local bookstore.
Fair, I forgot about The Boys. That being said, it still has the issue of not following the source material very strictly, it’s just that in this case it benefits from that. As far as “edginess” goes, the show is a dull butter knife and the comic is a freshly sharped sword.
A dull butter knife covered in tomato ketchup.
I don’t know if you would call it Amazon’s as it originally started at SyFy, but The Expanse was amazing.
Yeah, people forget there was a whole public begging of the audience for Amazon to save the show since they already had some distribution rights. It was a little desperate for money.
But the other thing is that Amazon still never really made the show, Alcon still made the show, in house production and payment and then Amazon was just footing the bill by paying for sole distribution rights. It’s not uncommon but it wasn’t Amazon’s show
Idk, I do wish Tom bombadill was in the movie since he’s probably my favorite character, but I was fine without the battle for the Shire.
It just seems too much too briefly even in the book, I think it would have been very difficult to include that organically in the movie.
I feel like Tom Bombadil is an interesting mystery in the universe, but they’re pretty easily cut out of the story without changing anything really other than getting rid of the question of “who’s this weirdo that the ring doesn’t affect?” The Scouring of the Shire is also arguably cut pretty easily, and I get why a lot of people don’t like it, but it seems more important to the themes in the book and to show how the heroes have evolved since they were last in the Shire.
I’m also fine with Tom not being in the movies, for exactly the reason you’re saying.
I also selfishly want him on screen just to stare at, I’d love like a whole 45 minute cutscene or entirely separate production laboriously following the details of his actions and behavior that are in the book. I don’t even care that his ultimate nature is a mystery. Honestly, I just love his buoyant singing and style.
Did you read that theory about him being the song of the ainur? It’s a great read. One of the nerd of the rings or other fans do a summary video of it on YouTube if you want to cut down the reading time.
I also selfishly want him on screen just to stare at, I’d love like a whole 45 minute cutscene or entirely separate production laboriously following the details of his actions and behavior that are in the book. I don’t even care that his ultimate nature is a mystery. Honestly, I just love his buoyant singing and style.
That’s totally fair :). You like what you like! I haven’t heard of many people who are big fans of Tom Bombadil, but it makes me happy to know you seem to love those chapters!
Did you read that theory about him being the song of the ainur? It’s a great read. One of the nerd of the rings or other fans do a summary video of it on YouTube if you want to cut down the reading time.
Yes, I’ve heard this theory! Honestly, when I first read the books I didn’t really appreciate Bombadil, and I think this helped me appreciate them a lot more. I think how weird Bombadil is made them hard to read for me. They’re so unexpected that it’s almost hard to fit them in your head and have a clear mental image of what’s going on, you know? Also I just find songs hard to read… Which is problematic for these particular books, haha.
Yeah, I totally get what you’re saying, his presence is a bit of a non-sequiter in the flow of a grand adventure getting underway.
I had the opposite reaction upon meeting Tom for the first time in the books, reading the Lord of the rings the first time was not exactly boring but felt more like a chore than many novels I read(and I do feel like if I went through them again, I’d enjoy them more now), but the section where bombadil showed up is like this bright light in my memory where some indefinable quality of the story fell into place for me and just made sense. I don’t know if it’s the musical nature of the elf language songs in every culture or how important nature is to the world without any obvious deities or practices of worship in the lotr, but when tom showed up I instantly felt like “oh, here he is”, and although I never got an answer regarding his ultimate nature, it always seemed like he played this indispensable role inside of that musical natural world.
Yeah. I think if nothing else it does really stand out! It definitely feels like it’s really important and significant… But in a way that sort of isn’t to everything that’s going on in the story? Which I guess is kind of exactly what Bombadil is… They’re some ultimate power that’s just there, but doesn’t really care too much about the goings on aside from in their little insular region. I think it didn’t really sit well with me that Gandalf was like “no, Bombadil won’t really care about the ring,” though… Because I think when we encounter Bombadil they’re a little sporadic, but they clearly care enough to help all of the main characters and didn’t really seem inattentive in any way to me.
I had read the books after I had already seen the movies so I was kind of confused when I first encountered Bombadil. I imagine that makes them stick out even more… Makes Bombadil seem weirdly non-canon, which is a bit of a shame, I think.
The first time I read the books I only got to a little after bombadil. Maybe halfway through fellowship, and then I quit.
And then the movies came out and I was like. Oh yeah this is way easier.
But then I was teaching a student who was obsessed with the books and had read every tolkien work related, so I finally went back.
And it’s so funny. You mentioned that quote by gandalf because again I had the opposite reaction. When gandalf said that Tom wouldn’t care about the ring, I just had this feeling of “Well of course not, that isn’t his concern.”
I just had this bizarre connection to how peculiar though powerful Tom was, I guess.
Yeah if they find a letter in 20 years that tolkien wrote to his editor that tells them to just take Tom out of the final draft because he’s still figuring out what to do with him ultimately, I would think" Oh of course, that Tom guy is practically an anachronism in lotr."
Structurally, sure, take him out, but for just my feeling of the whole world, I do like enigmas and idiosyncrasies and Tom is a haiku in a hurricane.
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The reason Sam could give up One Ring was because he wanted nothing more than a small garden to tend to. He never desired anything more. Hence, The Ring couldn’t tempt him.
Edit: To clarify, Sam never attempted to steal The Ring from Frodo. That is because Sam could resist the temptation of the ring because of his simple desires.
I thought it was cuz he never directly carried it, at least not for long. If The Ring couldn’t tempt him, why couldn’t he be the one to carry it instead of Frodo?
I think Sam wouldn’t have the conviction to get things done. He wasn’t the one who stood up and accepted the ring at the council. Sam was loyal and didn’t have lofty desires, but he didn’t have the spirit of adventure and perseverance that Frodo had. He was the perfect ally to help Frodo, but he wouldn’t have made a good Ring bearer himself.
sams greatest threat is gollum and frodo’s greatest threat is everything else.
Right he was too high a power level and just couldn’t take this boring adventure seriously when there was strawberries he could be growing.
Happy to help out his friend though.
The lost son of Bombadil
Unless Tolkien addressed this in one of his letters (I really wouldn’t be surprised), we don’t know for sure, but my guess would be that Sam’s resistance was mostly temporary. He could carry it for a short while without succumbing, and he could be around frodo for the whole journey with no issue, but he’d have eventually succumb to it.
Also worth noting that it’s heavily implied that the whole thing was predestined by Eru, and so with that in mind, it makes perfect sense that Frodo carries it instead of Sam, because
A) if Sam carried it, it’s unlikely he would have trusted Gollem, and his “help” was required in several ways to get the job done
B) Frodo being the carrier + Sam as his sole ally, while not intended by the council of Elrond, turned out to be a formidable match, thanks to Sam’s resistance to the ring and his loyalty to Frodo. Idk if when push came to shove, Frodo would have been quite as loyal to Sam as Sam was to Frodo (not with the ring doing it’s thing afterall.
Its also worth noting that Tolkien had some kinda weird views about the whole “servant & landed gentry” dynamics, as can be seen in just about every dialogue between Sam and Frodo lol - Sam being the effective leader, despite being a humble gardener and Frodo being basically a Lord in hobbit terms isn’t something Tolkien was likely to write
I like this idea. Is it canonical?
Not entirely. Sam was tempted, and if he possessed the ring long enough he would have been overcome like any other, but his Hobbit-sense saved him in that one small moment:
"“As he stood there, even though the Ring was not on him but hanging by its chain about his neck, he felt himself enlarged, as if he were robed in a huge distorted shadow of himself, and vast and ominous threat halted upon the walls of Mordor…”
"Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dur… He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be. "
"In that hour of trial it was the love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command. "
The One Ring fucked up. It needed to tempt him with a mountain of PO-TA-TOES.
Such is hobbit life.
Thank you very much for the disclaimer and the quotes, they explain a lot. Are there any clues in the text that gandalf knew exactly what he was doing when he chose Sam to accompany frodo. With respect to this honest sense, Sam has?
In the book, when he was carrying it temporarily for Frodo, the Ring did tempt him. He saw himself at the head of a vast garden, a garden rivaling nations, one that would be free of society and allowed to grow endlessly. The feelings of conquest were justified immediately by the retaking of nature.
Not too bad of a temptation, I dare say.
Geez, there’s so much I either missed or conflated with the movies since reading the series. Someone else included the quote where he just wants to be a small gardener with his own garden, but I don’t remember the garden to rival nations although it rings a bell.
Oh, found it, “and then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own”
That’s great, thanks.
It’s actually pretty funny to imagine the Ring searching his mind for ways to tempt him and being like, “This guy just wants a fucking GARDEN? What am I supposed to do with that?? Uhh, hey, Sam, you can have a garden that covers all of Middle Earth! (That’s so stupid, I hope he falls for it)”
True. But also, I believe he was pretty hungry by this point in the journey too, so being able to just grow thousands of fruit trees instantly might have been pretty tempting at the time
Hahaha, yea that’s hilarious
Yeah maybe I was inflating it just a tad, it seems he had the realization that he could have such a large garden, but conceded in only wanting a nice singular garden.
No, that’s great, I totally forgot about that point in his temptation, It’s great that his most fervent desire that the ring can discern is for a…just a giant garden.
Haha
The Ring tried to tempt him like you pointed out, but because he only wanted to tend to a small garden, he never attempted to steal The Ring from Frodo unlike Boromir.
Slammed prime Hobbitussy
That’s gotta be a brand new sentence
No one wanted to think about it given the amount of ill placed hair hobbits have.
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No sir, I imagine all alpaca sweaters sleeve pulled inside out and rumpled up.
Maybe something like a thneed.
I was going to make a muff joke but that might date me.
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With balls that big, I’m surprised he didn’t have 20 children at one go.
Side character
Definitely the main character.
Tolkien explicitly stated that Sam was the main character:
Tolkien said that Sam is actually the hero in LOTR
That’s fine. Sam didn’t do it for the fame, he just did it for his friend Frodo.
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Sauron wasn’t afraid of Shelob. She was a convenient guardian of the mountain pass. Sauron even sent her some prisoners as a form of execution.
Anon was thinking of Melkor and Ungoliant. Melkor really was afraid of Ungoliant. If Ungoliant’s insatiable need to consume didn’t result in her consuming herself, she would have been 1000x more dangerous and powerful than Sauron by the 3rd age.
A Silmarillion enthusiast in the wild!
If memory serves, it’s been a while, she became endlessly insatiable after consuming the two trees upon Melkor’s behest.
It took lashes of fire from the Balrogs to free him from her, since she wanted to consume the Silmarils as well and attacked him for them.
Ya, I think that’s the right of it.
In Deep Greek did a video on Ungoliant
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Sam was the protagonist of the story. Frodo literally did nothing notable in the entire story. He didn’t even throw the fucking ring into the volcano, which was the only job he had. Frodo was a rich asshole climbing Mt. Everest, and Sam was the sherpa who saved his ass but got none of the credit.
Eh, he had his moments.
He saved the party in the burrow, endured the Nazgul blade in his shoulder, decided to take the burden alone when it started to affect the fellowship, tamed Gollum and got them through Emyn Muil and the Marshes, convinced Faramir to let them go on and keep their guide.
Granted, after being stung by Shelob it was Sam that kept them going, but in the end Frodo even predicted (or maybe more than predicted?) Gollums demise on the slopes of Mt. Doom: “If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom.”
For me this is kind of the point of his whole character: He isn’t particularly strong or mighty, but he keeps going and eventually fulfills his impossible quest through courage, wisdom and restraint. He most likely wouldn’t have come far on his own, but without him there was no hope at all.
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someone is bitter :)
Yup. Frodo is seen as the main character but poor Sam does all the work.
GigaChad, Hobbit edition
Humanussy.
TIHI
I believe that can be simply shortened to “hussy.”
I’m really hoping someone else puts up some sidekicks that were half as cool as Sam, I can’t really think of any off the top of my head.
They all went home, because it’s a no contest. Except for Penfold - the world’s worst assistant. He stayed because there’s a punch bowl after the contest.
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