The Oddest Tolkien Character May Be In The Rings Of Power Season 2: Tom Bombadil Explained
I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Then again, nobody needs to have the foresight of Galadriel to have caught wind of the latest round of rumors and speculation running rampant among "The Lord of the Rings" fans in recent weeks. While the obsessive fandom waits for more movies to arrive down the line, we at least have Prime Video's "The Rings of Power" series to keep us occupied in the meantime. But no matter how far removed we are from a first season that attracted all sorts of discourse in late 2022, from theories about the mysterious Stranger's identity to the guessing game surrounding the reveal of the Dark Lord Sauron, that hasn't stopped many from attempting to read the pipeweed anyway and make their best guess about which major figures from author J.R.R. Tolkien's lore might appear next.
Today, those fan theories and gossip have reached a fever pitch — and they have to do with the strangest character Tolkien ever devised. All throughout season 1 of "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power," those slightly more inclined to tin-foil hat conspiracy theories (raises hand) spent weeks trying to will it into existence that showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay might actually include none other than Tom Bombadil, the ancient entity from Tolkien's "The Fellowship of the Ring" who is as powerful as anyone in Middle-earth ... but remains content to sing, dance, and laugh his way through life in the comforts of his idyllic garden home.
The latest scuttlebutt (first covered by TheOneRing.net and most recently intensified on Twitter) suggests he may debut in season 2. Whether he does or not, however, we'll be prepared. Consider this a primer on all things Tom Bombadil.
Odd encounters
Here's the most important thing you need to know about Tom Bombadil: He's a merry fellow whose jacket is blue and his boots are yellow. No, seriously. Understand that and you strike right at the heart of this rhyme-ridden oddball of a character.
Introduced at the tail-end of chapter 6 in "The Fellowship of the Ring," after Frodo and his friends first attempt to flee their home country of the Shire as well as the dangers attracted by the One Ring in his possession, Bombadil is something of a deus ex machina. When he isn't breaking out into song or silly little poems about his colorful wardrobe, he saves our Hobbits from trouble in a particularly hostile forest by exercising an unnatural command over nature itself. It soon becomes clear that he has a mystical presence to him, especially when his equally enigmatic wife Goldberry describes him in downright godlike terms. Asked by Frodo who Bombadil really is, she merely responds, "He is." Later on in chapter 7, he all but breaks the world-building Tolkien carefully cultivated. Seeming to know all about Frodo's top-secret quest, Bombadil asks to see the Ring. When he slips it on his finger, he doesn't turn invisible or seem affected by its dark magic in the least. And when Frodo puts it on, Bombadil sees him as clear as day. Creepy!
It's no wonder Tom Bombadil has always flummoxed anyone who's dared tried to adapt "The Lord of the Rings" into a visual medium. Director Peter Jackson wanted no part of the weirdo in his movies and even Ralph Bakshi, the artist perhaps most well-suited to bring him to life in his 1978 animated film, ultimately steered clear of him as well. Will "The Rings of Power" do what those adaptations could not?
Room for one more?
Here's a riddle for you. If Tom Bombadil only showed up during the Third Age of Middle-earth (in J.R.R. Tolkien's original telling of the story, at least), how could he also appear in "The Rings of Power," which is set thousands of years prior to those events?
Luckily, there is a potential way around pesky concepts like, uh, time and aging. In "The Fellowship of the Ring," Tolkien heavily hints at the idea of Bombadil as some sort of elemental entity, a being of such ancient knowledge and power that he actually was able to witness milestones such as the first raindrop, the arrival of the elves to the shores of Middle-earth, and, most tellingly of all, Sauron's first coming. Although he was nowhere to be seen in the first season of "The Rings of Power," which documented Sauron's second attempt to sway Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and the people of Middle-earth over to his side while in the form of the man Halbrand (played by Charlie Vickers), who's to say that Bombadil couldn't have been hanging out off-screen during the events depicted in the opening prologue sequence of the season 1 premiere? And given the likelihood of an even more expansive scope and scale in season 2, wouldn't it make sense to carve out time for some of our main characters (like Markella Kavenagh's Harfoot Nori and Daniel Weyman's The Stranger) to have a mind-bending run-in with Bombadil themselves?
As of yet, no American adaptation of Tolkien's work has yet dared to depict good ol' Tom Bombadil, feathered hat and bright boots and all. "The Rings of Power" certainly has the means and ability to do so, so the only question remaining is whether the creative team has the will. Stay tuned.