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Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
Agree. In our haste to shove everything into a pigeonhole, we mustn't overlook that there are probably other cubbies Tolkien didn't see fit to tell us about, and other things that don't fit into any at all (Bombadil, the Nameless Things under Moria, Ungoliant)
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Exactly. The humorous thing about Bombadil is that Tolkien mentioned exactly what Bombadil was: "just an invention", "not an important person – to the narrative", even if "he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyse the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function." And in Letter #144 (to Naomi Mitchison), Tolkien wrote that he didn't think Tom was improved by philosophizing; he included the character "because I had already 'invented' him independently."
Yet folks have for decades wanted to put the Maia tag on ol' Tom, rather than just taking Tolkien at his word. When Bombadil mentions, "I am old, Eldest, that's what I am", he was -- having been invented well before Lord of the Rings was published.
Tom is an "enigma", and enigmas by their very nature are not decipherable. Or as Tolkien put it: "even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)."
But folks will argue themselves blue in the face, ignoring the author's obvious intention of not directly pigeon-holing Tom.