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Originally Posted by Lalwendë
Certainly Tom Bombadil should be above The Ring as it has no effect on him at all. This would then place Tom above Gandalf and Galadriel, and I don't know if everyone would be OK with that, but I think he would be appropriately placed above them. Gandalf and Galadriel were deeply affected by the Ring, and had to struggle to resist it, but to Tom it was just a trinket.
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Well, Tom is
unaffected by the Ring, but I'm nit sure this is the same thing as being more powerful than it. Quite simply, the ring has nothing to take hold of Tom by - he has no desire to be anything other than he is, or possess anything he doesn't already have ('He is' as Goldberry says of him). Certainly the Ring can do things Tom cannot. And Gandalf states at the Council that Tom could not stand against Sauron himself.
What we're dealing with is the question of the precise power of the Ring & how it works. It plays on the individual's desires, so a being without desire would be impervious to its allure. This also means that Tom could never use the Ring (Galadriel tells Frodo that
he could only use the Ring if he trained his will to the domination of others. Tom has no desire to do that (from what we know of him)). Certainly he is not powerful enough to destroy it, & this being the case can we really say he is more powerful than it? It could not dominate him, he could not destroy it.
Actually, he could well be less powerful than it in a real sense. After all, we seem to be judging a person's/thing's 'power' by its effect on the world/other people.