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The concept of Pallando or Alatar falling in love and abandoning their mission because of it is an interesting one. It *could* have happened so - and would make a good fanfic.
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That would make a dire fan-fiction. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
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It's possible Tom and Goldberry are Maia... but it's equally possible that they are simply devices used to add even more scope to Tolkien's "world" - the unanswered mystery.
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It's not possible they were Maiar. They could have been, except Tolkien said that one was an enigma and the other a riverwoman - just like Faramir could've been an elf, except Tolkien decided otherwise. Also, at the Council of Elrond it is stated that if Middle-earth goes down, Tom would go right with it. This is stated by Glorfindel, who has come from Valinor to aid the resistance to Sauron like Gandalf (they arrived together in one of the two accounts Tolkien wrote). Glorfindel lived among Maiar for a long time (between his death in the Fall of Gondolin and his arrival in the Third Age) and is even said to have been friends with Gandalf prior to their mission:
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We can thus understand why he seems so powerful a figure and almost 'angelic'. For he had returned to the primitive innocence of the First-born, and had then lived among those Elves who had never rebelled, and in the companionship of the Maiar for ages: from the last years of the First Age, through the Second Age, to the end of the first millennium of the Third Age: before he returned to Middle-earth. It is indeed probable that he had in Valinor already become a friend and follower of Olorin.
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His comment on Bombadil:
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'Could that power be defied by Bombadil alone? I think not. I think that in the end, if all else is conquered, Bombadil will fall, Last as he was First; and then Night will come.'
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If he was a Maia, he could wobble on back to Valinor, couldn't he? Also, if he came before Melkor, he would not be a Maia, since Maiar came into the world with the Valar to serve them. There's also the obvious observation that the Ring did not affect him while it would Gandalf or Saruman. For more on Maiar and Tolkien's take on Bombadil analyzation, refer to the threads titled "uh.. wots a maiar ???/" and "Bombadil = yearning?"
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Beorn is another unanswerable mystery.
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He was just a man who knew magic. We're told relatively nothing about the magics of Middle-earth. It's clear he was just a man with experience in magic.
[ May 01, 2003: Message edited by: Legolas ]