September 22: Happy Birthday to Bilbo and Frodo Baggins!
Today is the shared birthday of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. Let's hear it for the little fellows who took it upon themselves to destroy the evil ring of power against incredible odds.
"Frodo, a Hobbit, is introduced in The Fellowship of the Ring as the son of Drogo Baggins and Primula Brandybuck. At the age of twelve, Frodo lost both his parents in a boating accident, and was taken in by his mother's family, the Brandybuck clan. At twenty-one, Frodo was adopted by Bilbo Baggins, whom he thought of as his uncle (though Frodo was actually his first and second cousin once removed). Bilbo chose Frodo as his adoptive heir, and brought him to live with him at Bag End. The two shared the same birthday (22 September). During the next twelve years, Bilbo taught Frodo much of the Elvish language, and they often shared long walking trips together."
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frodo_Baggins
Frodo's seemingly impossible mission to Mount Doom is echoed today in Ron Paul's mission to DC to End the Fed. Also worth noting is the political orientation of Lord of the Rings author J. R. R. Tolkien who claimed that his political views tended toward anarchy.
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager/weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Tom Bombadil hijack bump (for anarchists)
Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow
Bright blue his jacket is and his boots are yellow
None has ever caught him yet, for Tom he is the master
His songs are stronger songs and his feet are faster.
Tom
That was my biggest gripe about the movies... they just Completely ignored Tom. The guy is more powerful than Gandalf, was invented before all the rest, and they just *poof* no Tom.
I missed Tom in the movie, too.
One thing I never understood about the novel, though, was why Merry and Pippin didn't tell the Ents who were looking for the Entwives about Tom and the Old Forest.
The old forest had trees which were somewhat animated, if not as lively as the Ents themselves. Seems to me there could have been a connection there and at the very least it would be worth mentioning. Also because of Tom's age he might have some information about the fate of the Entwives.
Ron Paul Explorer: The All Paul Search Engine
Goldberry's husband
Peter Jackson eventually got sick of answering questions about Tom and stopped responding to inquiries. I believe he mentions Tom in one of the DVD extended edition appendices. Basically, because Tom didn't advance the plot he got axed.
I think of Tom as a Buddhist anarchist. He survives on the alms of the earth and lives in peace and harmony with nature. But without the peace provided by the rule of law enforced by republics he couldn't exist.
JRR Tolkien answered a letter from a reader about the role of Tom as follows:
"I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were, taken 'a vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the questions of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless...
"It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war… the view of Rivendell seems to be that it is an excellent thing to have represented, but that there are in fact things with which it cannot cope; and upon which its existence nonetheless depends. Ultimately only the victory of the West will allow Bombadil to continue, or even to survive. Nothing would be left for him in the world of Sauron."