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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3483907" data-attributes="member: 4937">Once more, I'm going to pass on your definition of world building and your inconsistant application of it so as to suit the point you are trying to prove, whatever it is.  I am however something of an expert in Tolkien lore, and its interesting that Tolkien basically agrees with you.  He put Tom Bombadil in for his own amusement (and his children's), and not because he's necessary to the story.  When it came time for JRRT to write a screen play of his work, he cut Tom and almost everything that didn't have to do with hobbits - including all of the Helm's Deep story arc. But that doesn't mean that Tom Bombadil isn't good for the story simply because he isn't essential to it.  Stories don't have to be written like or judged like computer code, where everything is as stripped down and utilitarian as possible.  And the absence of the Old Forest story arc does create some problems, chief of which is that Frodo has less time to spend as a traditional hero before being overly burdened by the ring.  Frodo only get a few moments of traditional glory where we can see his quality, and one of those is the challenge of the Barrow Wight.  One of the many flaws in the movie adaptation of the story is that Frodo spends far too much time cringing in fear and pain, and not nearly enough time showing his courage.  We don't get to see Frodo stand up to the Barrow Wight, or the Pale King, or the Nine at the ford, and so forth as he did in the book.  Facing the Barrow Wight may not be essential to the story, but it is important to knowing Frodo for who he is before he is thrust into an entirely impossible situation.  It is important to developing respect and empathy for Frodo.  And Frodo's interaction with Tom in general is yet another case of a really mighty being treating Frodo as a peer or near peer, which is also important to knowing Frodo.Likewise, losing the Tom Bombadil story arc effects the larger story in other subtle ways.  The importance of Merry's sword on the Pelannor Fields is lost to us if we have not had it introduced to us.  As a personification of the fading untainted natural world, many important themes of the story would be diminished without him - for example its subtheme of environmentalism.  A Tom serves an important narrative role in the story, in that he is one of the chief vehicles for exposition about one of the stories main villains - the Witch King of Angmar.  Because of this, without Tom, Eowyn is diminished, because we would care less about her mighty act of valor if we knew less about the Witch King. In short, we certainly can do without Tom Bombadil, who is probably the most extraneous secondary character in the story.  But we would find it almost impossible to do a 'clean lift' of the character, and even if we could the story would not necessarily be improved thereby.</blockquote>

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