Boromir, you reminded me of something that I had meant to put into my first post and forgot. Though I do not own the
Letters myself, I came across this quote in one of the other Bombadil threads.
Quote:
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I do not mean him to be an allegory – or I should not have given him so particular, individual, and ridiculous a name – but 'allegory' is the only mode of exhibiting certain functions: he is then an 'allegory', or an exemplar, a particular embodying of pure (real) natural science: the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature, because they are 'other' and wholly independent of the inquiring mind, a spirit coeval with the rational mind, and entirely unconcerned with 'doing' anything with the knowledge: Zoology and Botany not Cattle-breeding or Agriculture
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This is at least one characteristic that Tolkien possesed that came out in Tom, and it is also the thing I love most about Tolkien's works. It is that same love of knowledge (whether it is useful or not) that drives me to study his lanquages and to discuss and ask questions about his mythology.
Your explanation of Tom being Tolkien, though probably true, is not enough for me. I feel the need to make him fit into Tolkien's mythology even though he was not really intended to fit. To learn those things about Middle Earth that not even Tolkien knew, so to speak.