Tom Bombadil

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by jallanite

You could easily satisfy me with an answer that I would accept.

An answer that you would accept? Perhaps you should start referring to yourself in the pompous plural, the "royal we".

Originally Posted by jallanite

We are told that he is fatherless, much the same as we are told this of Beleg.

No, it is not the same and you know it. Like Beleg, one could say Legolas was "motherless", however, that does not mean that, like Athena, Legolas sprang fully formed from the skull of Thranduil.

Originally Posted by jallanite

Or it means Tom actually had no father.

Yes, if you remove all nuance, ignore all else Elrond said and adhere to a literal definition so severe as to preclude any other sense of the word; in other words, parsing out pieces in a vacuum. "Oldest and fatherless" doesn't mean poor Tom was an orphan, nor does it mean that dear old Mrs. Bombadil had a virgin birth.

Originally Posted by jallanite

But Tom, in The Lord of the Rings, is a strange creature. You ignore that, pretending that an Elvish loremaster would not say this, when the book attributes these words to him. Seems to me that Tolkien is more trustworthy than you are in these matters. If Tom was not one of the People of the Valar, he would not properly be called a Maia, though possibly of the same origin. And Úmaia seems to mean one of the People of Morgoth. If so, that name would not do. Tom seems to be unique, and the term strange creature does well enough for me, and apparently did well enough for Tolkien.

Elrond, as a loremaster, would use the term "strange creature" to denote a being he cannot classify, lacking the knowledge to assert anything with certainty, as you yourself just plainly stated. Yes, you stated it quite clearly here.

And with that, I am done with this conversation. But by all means, continue to beat a dead horse into bloody equine particulates.