Hey dol! Merry dol! Get lost Tom!!!

[Bêthberry]

With all this whipped cream being licked off fingers and pineapple upsidedown cake and likely faces too, I think it's time to add yet another dimension to Tom, much as I appreciate alatar's clever trekkie attempt to explain all the tribbles we've seen with Tom.

Tom obviously is Tolkien's slight recognition of eastern philosophies, for Goldberry's lilies are obviously lotus flowers, sacred in those philosophies' creation myth and representative of purity and detachment from desire. Just check out the River Goddess too if you need further similarities. Of course, Tolkien was not pure in his assumption of eastern iconography and sometimes got his symbolism mixed up, as when he attributes Sarasvati's white swans to Galadriel, although he did get the use of honey correct.

So it is quite appropriate that so many in the western tradition leave Tom and eastern thought out, speaking only applicably of course and not allegorically.