I think one of the most irrational things about me is how much I fucking hate Tom Bombadil. That jolly bastard. I loathe him so.
I had a weird relationship with Tolkien’s writing for a long time. My dad coerced me into reading The Hobbit when I was 11 and I found it okay but when they killed Smaug I put the book down.
“Why?” my dad pleaded. “There’s so much book left!”
“The dragons dead, that’s all I cared about.”
When the first movie came out I still didn’t read them. It wasn’t that I didn’t read. I read a lot, I just didn’t want to read them. I thought the movie was so good that the book would only disappoint me. Also it annoyed my family and I’m contrary enough to really enjoy that.
Then came the second movie. And it ended on a cliffhanger. I needed to know what happened. Sméagol promised “she” would take care of the hobbits and I could not wait to find out who or what she was. I begged my dad to tell me and he refused.
He said I should read them if I wanted to know.
Instead of doing the sane thing and reading the whole trilogy I picked up the book, found the rough placement of the movie plot, and finished reading from there.
I have no idea why I did that other than it vexed literally everyone around me.
It wasn’t until years later that I decided that I would finally, for real, read the whole trilogy. And The Hobbit which I liked okay but it really does get less interesting when Smaug dies. But to my dismay The Fellowship of the Ring was boring. The Shire was an endless purgatory where nothing persistently continued to happen. So much nothing it filled up chapter upon chapter. It took so much grinding to get glimmers of plot.
Finally the story started to gain momentum. Finally the hobbits were leaving the fucking Shire and hitting the road! And then I slammed face first into the brick wall that was Tom Bombadil and the book screeched to a halt. The nothing happened even louder than before, but now it was wHiMsiCal.
I violently did not care about this stupid tree man and his hot wife I just wanted the book to keep going! I had no idea Tom Bombadil even existed because Peter Jackson, in his infinite wisdom, said “Actually fuck this entire section” and cut it entirely from the movies which was the most correct decision ever made to the point that he deserves a medal for having made it.
I was gnashing my teeth and rending my hair the entire time, every word seemed to bring me no closer to the time when the fucking hobbits would get back on the goddamn road.
And worse!! The stupid line “Ho Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!” lives in my head forever. That stupid ridiculous rhyming man speaking in third person will never be purged from my mind.
@alex51324 I did NOT know this and it’s such a gift to know that I’m in a solid group of haters.
I, too, am a Tom Bombadil hater. I've never read the trilogy because this man infuriates me to the point of rage quitting every single time. Especially knowing that he never returns in the later books and serves no greater plot purpose than to be a powerful, whimsical being.
