[jallanite]

I agree mostly with Galadriel55 as usual.

The problem as I see it is that Tolkien only explains Tom Bombadil as an enigma, which may be explained as a puzzle. The question then is whether Tolkien himself ever created an answer to this puzzle.

If Tolkien did solve the puzzle, then someone else in all the years since The Lord of the Rings was released ought to have been able to figure out the answer. None has, in my opinion, and I believe in the opinion of the majority.

And there is an additional problem: why did Tolkien not reveal his solution to third parties in correspondence or include it in his notes for his never-completed Silmarillion? Possibly he himself never solved this puzzle, which is what I believe.

If Tolkien did not solve the puzzle, then any attempt by a second party is only going to be fan fiction.

A secondary fictional world cannot be examined scientifically. If Tolkien had no answers to Tom, then there really are no answers. Tolkien, in his correspondence mentions several problems in his fiction to which he had no answer and his notes on the Silmarillion reveal many cases where Tolkien was inconsistent in his answers; that is he changed his mind. One cannot investigate non—public domain fictional characters created by a single author beyond the imagination of that author, or one only comes up with fan fiction. For example, Mark Twain’s character Huckleberry Finn presumably was imagined by Mark Twain to have had a mother, but Twain tells us nothing about her and one may investigate her only if some writing about her by Twain were to be found, or investigate only by unfounded speculation about her. Huckleberry Finn’s father is not even named in the book, being called only ‘Pap’.

I have read many speculations about the supposed reality of Tom Bombadil over the years, and none of them has impressed me to the point of seeming, to me, true. I have become tired of this discussion, of seeing yet another writer claiming to reveal the truth which Tolkien did not reveal, and failing yet again.

I could also easily invent fan fiction about Tom. Tom or Iarwain, might be one of the Ainur, and the first of them to come to Middle-earth. When the other Ainur who became the Valar and Maiar and Úmaiar came to Middle-earth, Tom had little interest in dwelling with them, preferring solitude. One at least of the Maiar or Úmaiar was a female who chanced to dwell in the Withywindle, she whom Tolkien calls River-woman. River-woman mated with an Elf and bore to him the daughter called Goldberry (for we know by the case of Melian that Maiar and Elves are fertile). Tom later married Goldberry, but they have no children because Ainur cannot beget children with other Ainur or half-Ainur (this last exception being my own invention).

This account which I just invented is only fan fiction, or perhaps an outline which might be worked up into fan fiction. If anyone despises it because parts don’t seem like Tolkien, I partially agree.