What a wonderful idea for a thread, Faramond!
And what intriguing responses so far. As I've read through the replies, I've been nodding in agreement, because each of these characters feels dear to me, and I can very much understand how each could be "the one" (or “one of the ones”) that draws a reader - heart, mind and soul - into this extraordinary work.
I must admit, though, that I was rather muddled about the initial question Faramond posed, until he wrote this:
Quote:
It is not a question of which character to give up, but which speak most clearly to each of us.
Thank-you, Faramond!
Faramond wrote:
I will say it is because the truth of each character is revealed by his or her interactions. Without Frodo, we cannot see Tom Bombadil. Tolkien could describe Tom, and have Tom describe himself, but this would only let us know of him, and not know him. <snip> The true nature of each character is revealed by the answers he gives to that which he does not control. The characters are revealed by their unscripted moments, which must occur when they interact. LOTR is great because the characters seem to have unscripted moments. The characters are not levers in a plot or icons in an ideology.
Yes! It is the
voices in LOTR that resonated first for me, and after all these years, I still love to listen to them, and I still find new and surprising depths in each character's words.
I suppose the first voice that really jolted me, that really made me realize that I was being drawn into places and ideas that were wholly new to me, was that of Tom Bombadil. And specifically (very specifically!) it was his question to Frodo that cut straight to my heart:
Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?
I'd never experienced anything like that before in a work of fiction, and I’ve never met anything like it since. At the age of sixteen it seemed, as clear and sure as could be, that the voice was asking that question directly of
me, and thirty-nine years later, it still feels just like that. It's taken years to unravel and make sense of all the feelings and ideas that have been conjured during my many visits to the House of Bombadil (and those I wrote about in depth in the thread here that's dedicated to the old master). But in a nutshell, Tom (along with Goldberry, because for me, she is an essential aspect of the power that resides inside that magical dwelling) represents the deepest, most mysterious, and most profound aspects of being alive - the feeling of being part of something that is ageless and formless and limitless. He speaks to my "inner mystic", I suppose, something like the words of Lao Tsu, or Rumi, or Merton. When I’m in the House of Bombadil, its essence feels inexplicably close to these words from the Tao Te Ching:
Look, and it can't be seen.
Listen, and it can't be heard.
Reach, and it can't be grasped.
Above, it isn't bright.
Below, it isn't dark.
Seamless, unnamable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.
Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can't know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.
It is the voice of Bombadil that speaks to me of what may be beyond this physical world, but it is the voice of Treebeard that speaks to me of the physical world itself. Treebeard
. I loved him from the very first words that he utters, and his is still the voice that I hear the most clearly and that I hold the most dear. For me, Bombadil is more like a hermit monk, removed from the attachments of the outer world, understanding the sorrows and burdens of life, an yet somehow above their reach. But sorrows and burdens weigh upon old Treebeard, much like the slow ravages of time that weigh upon his beloved forest. He has loved and lost, knows regret and anger and doubt. He too, has many attributes of “the monk”, but his attachment to the world is strong, and he is willing to leave his cloister, unlike Tom, to champion the living things he holds so dear. I don’t know if Bombadil has a real purpose in Middle-earth. I think he is beyond such a thing:
“He is” Goldberry says, and that is enough. But Treebeard was created with a purpose, and throughout all the long ages of Arda, he has remained true to it. And in spite of the shadow that has stained his home, his Middle-earth, consuming its lands, corrupting its innocence, and sundering its inhabitants, he loves it and cherishes it, and will not forsake it.
I said at the beginning that it was the voices within LOTR that first drew me into the tale – voices that spoke of things that seemed wholly new to me, and yet, deep down, things I knew to be true and constant. It was Tom’s question to Frodo that stood out from all his other words. For Treebeard, it was his walking song, infused with such mystery and ancientry and reverence, it felt like a hymn:
In the willow-meads of Tasarinan I walked in the
Spring.
Ah! the sight and the smell of the Spring in Nan-
tasarion!
And I said that was good.
I wandered in Summer in the elm-woods of Ossiriand.
Ah! the light and the music in the Summer by the
Seven Rivers of Ossir!
And I thought that was best.
To the beeches of Neldoreth I came in the Autumn.
Ah! the gold and the red and the sighing of leaves in the
Autumn in Taur-na-neldor!
It was more than my desire.
To the pine-trees upon the highland of Dorthonion I
climbed in the Winter.
Ah! the wind and the whiteness and the black branches
of Winter upon Orod-na-Thön!
My voice went up and sang in the sky.
And now all those lands lie under the wave,
And I walk in Ambarona, in Tauremorna, in Aldalómë,
In my own land, in the country of Fangorn,
Where the roots are long,
And the years lie thicker than the leaves
In Tauremornalómeë.
I don’t often entertain such ideas, but if one of Tolkien’s characters could become incarnate, then Treebeard is the one that I would want to walk with for awhile along the paths of this world. I’d love to really hear that voice, and gaze into those eyes, those deep wells of
“memory and long, slow, steady thinking.”
Hoom. 
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, this switch-about felt confusing.....beyond my grasp, I think. And Frodo's part in the Scouring, his fading, and his departure..........well, I fretted and I grieved, but I never understood, not really. It felt more frustrating than anything else, like I was missing something, important but hidden, in the telling of the story. I didn't understand that I had essentially lost Frodo long ago, back on the fences of Mordor.
