The Trickster in LotR

[Garen LiLorian]

Let us for a moment consider Gollum as the Trickster. He alone of all characters in ME seems to me to have the moral ambiguity neccessary to pull off this role. Indeed, by using Lmp's criterion at the beginning of this thread, he fits almost to a T

...is at one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others and who is always duped himself. He wills nothing consciously. At times, he is constrained to behave as he does from impulses over which he has no control. He knows neither good nor evil yet he is responsible for both. He possesses no values, moral or social, is at the mercy of his passions and appetites, yet through his actions all values come into being.'

What put me off of calling him the trickster from the beginning is that he is not of the same ilk as Coyote, Loki, Ananzi, etc. He is no god-figure, and no culture hero. He is clearly a mere creature like everyone else. His trickeries are not of the 'stealing the sun' variety, but small mischiefs. He falls under the dominion of others, notably Sauron, in a way that my reading of an archtypal trickster never would. The Trickster is almost definable by his independance from any power, whereas Gollum is almost definable by his subservience to one (the Ring). Yet for all that, I think, for the excellent reasons posted above by Fordim, Davem and others, that he may be the closest thing Tolkien will let us have.
He is a small trickster and in the whole history of ME, he is too small a character to fill these archtypal shoes. But in the context of LotR alone, he is a giant character, one of the more distinct and talked-about characters, who majorly influences everything he comes in contact with. In this limited context, he could be the Trickster.

[davem]

Fordim makes some excellent points about the nature of Middle earth precluding the existence of a true Trickster figure, but I wonder whether Tolkien, like Blake's analysis of Milton 'was on the devil's side without realising it'. He does introduce characters like Saruman who in a way wants to break free of the clearly defined rules & make up his own. He desires to 'break the Light'. Maybe he simply finds the 'rules' too restrictive & is trying to introduce chaos into the ordered world & find his own kind of freedom? Bombadil seems not to take the rules into account either, & simply go his own way. He certainly doesn't seem to live according to any pre-defined philosophy & simply lives out his own nature. I'm not sure he thinks of OMW or even the Barrow wight as 'evil' more as nuisances who need to be dealt with because they bother him.

Certainly he is not a typical Trickster - if there is such a thing - but he isn't 'good' by choice - he isn't aligned to the Good as such, he just happens to do good to the Hobbits he meets.

I don't know where I'm going with this...

[littlemanpoet]

davem:

[Tom Bombadil] isn't 'good' by choice - he isn't aligned to the Good as such, he just happens to do good to the Hobbits he meets.

Excellent observation. Don't know what to make of your Saruman comments, though.

I also appreciate Garen's ideas. Fordim's points are certainly on target, but I still wouldn't go so far as to say there's nothing there.

[davem]

Originally Posted by LmP

Don't know what to make of your Saruman comments, though.

Me neither. I just wonder whether, as a Maiar, bound forever within the circles of the world, he envied Men's freedom. Men are not bound by the Music 'which is as fate to all things else' - which probably means that within Arda things will happen & those bound within it cannot leave it & so are bound to live with its fate. Perhaps Saruman simply wants freedom over his life, freedom from destiny. I wonder if this was what originally inspired Melkor.

Its not much fun, being bound to fate, living within a controlled universe. Maybe Saruman just wanted to be allowed to 'grow up' & make his own choices? He makes the wrong ones & suffers for them, but he is something of a 'free-thinker'. He is a rebel against authority who is brought low & destroyed by his hubris - more & more like Milton's Satan, proudest, wisest & most beautiful of the angels destroyed in the end by his refusal to serve & his desire for freedom.

Perhaps in Tolkien's universe, like Milton's, the is no room for the Trickster only for the servant of, or the rebel against, The Authority...

[Child of the 7th Age]

Perhaps in Tolkien's universe, like Milton's, the is no room for the Trickster only for the servant of, or the rebel against, The Authority...

I think there is considerable truth in these words.

I don't know quite how to put this but much of Tolkien's world is so "moral'. There are definite choices to be made, and these choices have consequences. Saruman, as you indicate, is a clear example of this. He is no Trickster.

I am not quite sure what to make of all this. Let me ramble for a minute. I don't think I have any answers, but I do have a lot of questions.

Many of the archetypes identified by Jung have a certain moral ambiguity about them. This is particularly true of the figure of the Trickster. He is a character who poses challenges that can't always be answered in moral terms (good or evil) but rather must be met with cleverness, wit, and sheer chance. Tolkien can't exclude such elements from his universe because these are definitely part of faerie and also of our own world, even if in a more veiled form. Indeed in the world of Faerie from which Tolkien draws so many of his motifs, archetypes are central. To exclude such elements would be to offer an "untrue" picture of the world to the reader. But was JRRT really comfortable with archetypes in their pure forms? I would say "no" but then the figure of Bombadil pops up. Whoever he was, it's hard to know what to do with him.

It's interesting that Bombadil is so unaffected by the moral choices posed by the Ring. Why is that so? Is his nature so innately good that he is "above" conscious moral decisions? Or, more likely, as some sort of reflection of nature, does he operate on another plane where "good" and "bad" are essentially meaningless? Yet we do know he can only exist in a world where goodness exists. Tolkien makes that very clear. He never sees his personal choices in those terms, but he can interact with beings who do. He can not interact with those who have chosen evil, because they would deny him the freedom he must have. Frodo and company, for example, have no trouble relating to him and appreciating the things he offers. A bit of Bombadil seems to rub off on them. I am always reminded of the picture when they are running naked through the grass. That is not typical hobbit or typical Shire. There is a different feeling about it than, say, the earlier bath scenes which presumably involved nudity as well. Only in the latter, the nudity was not stressed. I can not think of anywhere else in the books where nudity is portrayed with such joy. It stands in sharp contrast to Frodo's nakedness before the Orcs.

At the end of the tale, when the moral combat has ended at least temporarily, Gandalf feels compelled to go visit Bombadil, presumably because of something he can find there that he can get nowhere else. This has to be telling us something about ourselves and perhaps about archetypes or the natural world, but I can't quite lay my finger on it. Any help out there?

So much of myth is shot through with archetypes---to a far greater degree than Middle-earth. I am always struck by this when I read the Mabingion. Could this possibly be one reason that Tolkien calls Celtic myth "gross" in his Letters and confesses that they fail to have that cool and high air he is seeking? Is morality a requiremen opf that high air? Is Tolkien's attitude towards archetypes and the Trickster influenced by the views of the Church? I don't know if this is a fair depiction, but I've always felt traditional Protestantism (not the liberal variety) was highly suspicious of archetypes. Somehow the Catholics, although suspicious, were able to live with a bit more of that ambiguity, witness their historical readiness to draw in the "older" practices, albeit in a sanitized form. Is this one of the things that Tolkien is doing with Bombadil?

[littlemanpoet]

davem:

I just wonder whether, as a Maiar, bound forever within the circles of the world, he envied Men's freedom.

I used to conclude that Tom Bombadil must be a Maiar too, but now I'm not so sure that TB doesn't simply defy definition (which doesn't contradict my sense that aspects of the Trickster are discernible in him, by the way). As Child says, TB seems more like some kind of being at home and at one with nature, or at least his little corner of Middle Earth.

Child:

...the Trickster.... is a character who poses challenges that can't always be answered in moral terms (good or evil) but rather must be met with cleverness, wit, and sheer chance.

Given that the Trickster is the first, and most primitive archetype, it doesn't really come as a surprise that s/he is the most morally ambiguous. Neolithic man's greatest concern was survival, around which all the qualities of the Trickster seem most apt. By comparison, humanity seems most in need of a good moral compass (and has seemed so for the last six or so millenia), such that later archetypes are less morally ambiguous.

Given also that the 20th century was an era in which moral ambiguity made a repeat performance, as it were, it is fascinating to me that the most popular written work of that century (LotR) is NOT morally ambiguous, and that its figures with any discernible Trickster attributes are recast in the persons of Tom Bombadil who, as Child said, needs the good, in order to be free to be what he is; or in the person of Smeagol, enslaved to that Ring that renders its servants ontologically ambiguous (I think that's what I mean).

At the end of the tale, when the moral combat has ended at least temporarily, Gandalf feels compelled to go visit Bombadil, presumably because of something he can find there that he can get nowhere else. This has to be telling us something about ourselves and perhaps about archetypes or the natural world, but I can't quite lay my finger on it. Any help out there?

I don't know if I can help, but maybe this question can spur some more thought for you, Child: Is being a stone that rolls as compared to someone that stays in one place, the only, or even the most significant, difference between Gandalf and Tom Bombadil? I wonder.

It occurs to me that Gandalf, finally free of his quest, may now actually enjoy the life he has from Eru, and this is as good as any way to express that, not to mention quite ready to hand.

Could this possibly be one reason that Tolkien calls Celtic myth "gross" in his Letters and confesses that they fail to have that cool and high air he is seeking? Is morality a requiremen opf that high air?

I never took this notion of "gross" versus "high" as having to do with "immoral" versus "moral". Tolkien's myth strikes me as more Northern than the Mabinogion. Colder. More pristine. Purged; but not in a moral sense so much as (and here all kinds of terms come to mind only to be tossed out, such as Victorian; Edwardian; Christian, etc.), well, of the gross element. Not much help, I suppose, eh? Well, I'm thinking that it's really a matter of aesthetics more than anything else. No flattulence (sp?), for example; none of that stuff that is, well, low-brow in terms of taste.

[Essex]

Littlemanpoet

As Child says, TB seems more like some kind of being at home and at one with nature, or at least his little corner of Middle Earth.

As I just pointed out on the "bombadil's influence" thread (and as Lyta alludes to in the visible souls thread), Tom IS Mother Nature itself.

If we see Tom as Mother Nature, then a lot of the Trickster's traits can be applied.

Does Mother Nature seem Good? We exist on a little planet of molten rock and water in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the Galaxy. Look at the biosphere that we're held in. isn't this mother nature's force of Good, to give us all Life on what would otherwise be a god forsaken rock?

Does Mother Nature seem Evil? Of course, look at what happened on Boxing Day last year.......

Then we have the point that the Trickster does not understand the difference between Good and Evil. Maybe 'understand' is the wrong word, but it could be replaced by 'is impartial to'. But then, Tom saves the Hobbits from Old Man Willow and the Barrow Wights. So isn't he taking the side of 'Good' here? I believe this is why Tom will always be an Enigma, inasmuch as he is impossible to clarify, much as Tolkien would of wanted methinks.

PS Off at a tangent, but someone mentioned in this thread that Tom has no real connection with the rest of the story. As always, I refute this, because if the Hobbits had not travelled through the Old forest, on to Tom, and therefore onto the Barrow, then Sauron would have Won. (I've explained why loads of times before on this site, so I won't bore you again!)