[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Nonsense is an apt word in this case. A single word sometimes is all that is necessary.

Necessary for what? The word nonsense does not convince me that you are right. It merely, along with your supposed arguments, convinces me that you cannot argue coherently. That you continue to attempt to argue shows that you do not believe that the word nonsense is all that is necessary.

There are plenty of things that are unknown to both Elrond and Gandalf, obviously -- such as a Balrog residing in Moria, for instance. None of the characters in Lord of the Rings, from Sauron to Samwise, is omniscient like, say, the author of the piece.

Quite true, but I have never claimed otherwise. So what is your point?

Bombadil is a creation of Tolkien invented elsewhere and inserted in the story.

Then you admit that Tom is in the story, as written by Tolkien. That Tom had an origin, in part outside, is in itself no more important than that Lewis Carroll’s Alice was based on a real person, Alice Liddell, that Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes was partially based on Dr. Joseph Bell, a brilliant surgeon and lecturer at Edinburgh University Medical School, that Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn’s father is based on Jimmy Finn, a notorious drunk in Hannibal Missouri, that Winnie-the-Pooh was derived from the toy bear of the author’s son, Christopher Robin Milne, and so forth. Nor is it any less important.

Tolkien disagrees with you. In Letter #144, he states succinctly: "Tom Bombadil is not an important person -- to the narrative."

I quite agree with Tolkien’s statement and have never posted anything that disagreed with it. I posted that Tom “is an important character within Middle-earth”, and did not post anything about Tom’s importance or unimportance to the narrative. What us your problem with what I actually posted? Misquoting me does not support your argument.

He, and his mistress Goldberry, do not fit any paradigm in Middle-earth. As an intentional enigma, Bombadil might interact with other characters, but spatially and inherently he is bound by the parameters Tolkien intentionally set.

So what? A similar statement goes with every character invented by any author, whether an enigma or not.

Bombadil is "the first", which, as we know in Middle-earth cosmological terms is patently impossible.

Prove it. I don’t know that this is patently impossible in Middle-earth. I do know that there is no indication of it in the original poem.

"An intentional enigma" precludes specific knowledge.

Prove it. I do not understand what you are trying to post.

You stated earlier:

Both Gandalf and Elrond recite pages of historical background about every other topic. Neither, obviously, is shy about their knowledge of lore; in fact, both are verbose in extremis.

I answered by pointing out many things not related by Elrond and Gandalf, and received blame from you for pointing such things out. You seemingly cannot understand anything I post which disagrees with you. Elrond and Gandalf are not verbose in extremis. I see that you would like to believe this, because it provides a lack of reason why they do not then tell Bombadil’s origin. But your statement is false.

You similarly try to show that Elrond calling Bombadil a strange creature must be false, as I understand your discussion, and you state that Bombadil is unsure of this creature’s past, which is merely your own speculation, and so proves nothing. And you ignore what Nerwen actually posts.

As I see it you originally attempted to show that Elrond and Gandalf’s lack of statements were significant, and failed so far as I see. This is not surprising when you only had an argument from silence. Now you attempt to show that because Tolkien had made Tom into an unsolved enigma with Middle-earth, that Elrond and Gandalf could not have known anything about him. But these two conclusions are completely unrelated.

Tolkien likewise never solved the history of Galadriel within Middle-earth, unless you wish to take Tolkien’s last theories in Unfinished Tales as his final solution. Yet I don’t think that anyone would take Tolkien’s different theories about Galadriel to prove that Tolkien also thought at any time that Elrond or Gandalf did not know her history, whatever it was at the moment. Similarly Tolkien in his late writings was very undecided about the origin of the Orcs. But I see no sign that Tolkien did not believe that, whatever his own beliefs at the moment, that Elrond and Gandalf were ever supposed not to know whether Orcs were longaeval or not. Tolkien himself was undecided, but his characters were not.

I have in more than one post here stated this, though not in such detail. Nerwen also stated it. Ignoring our statements is not a convincing way to argue.

In short, Tolkien’s beliefs about Tom Bombadil have nothing at all to say about whether Tolkien may or may not have believed that Elrond or Gandalf knew Tom’s origin, even if Tolkien himself did not.