[Halfir]

Lhunbelethiel: Good point, particularly in our non-sexist world! Why not 'Father Nature' indeed?

Tolkien himself clearly saw an aspect - if not the aspect of Tom as one of Nature. He refers to him in a letter to his publishers in 1937 as "the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside."

Greyhavener: Tom is, as Goldberry rather unhelpfully says. Nature is, also. Tom is in ME because of his connection with Nature, not because he is a product of Iluvatar or the Valar. In that sense he is an external observer, from an older legend, humanized by Tolkien, through his views of the Englsih countryside and its somewhat gently aspected nature, as opposed say to the more violent and dramatic nature of Amazonian Brazil (see my earlier post in this thread).

The language that surrounds Tom is of Nature in general - trees, grasses, all things growing and living - which contrasts say with Beorn's very particualr connection with animals, specifically bears, in The Hobbit.

I don't think Tom is a cynical Olympian or an Elder God made dysfunctional through previously bad experiences with power. Tom is one with Nature, and Nature cannot intervene in the way that art e.g. Iluvatar, Melkor, The Valar,Sauron , can, although as Birdland has posted earlier, Tolkien's 'Anglicization' of Nature through Tom, gives him an unexpected humanity - which is demonstrated in his help to the hobbits in regard to Old Man Willow, and the Barrow Wight.

With regard to your comment on his self-imposed boundaries, this is very much the case as Gandalf makes clear at The Council of Elrond.

I do not think his lack of interest in the Ring is reprehensible. He is part of another, larger and more natural cycle, and the Ring pe se, does not feature in that. He is, however, obsessive about not being '
caught', and that aspect of his personality leads him to help the Hobbits - Tom likes all things to be fearless and free - like himself, again representattive of the freedom of Nature.