JRR Tolkien's enigmatic Tom Bombadil makes first-ever screen debut in Amazon's 'The Rings of Power'
Tom Bombadil, one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s more eccentric characters from The Lord of the Rings, is finally making his way into a screen adaptation of the series in “The Rings of Power,” from Amazon Prime Video.
According to Vanity Fair, the second season of “The Rings of Power,” releasing Aug. 29, will include Bombadil, played by Rory Kinnear, with his distinctive songs and vibrant wardrobe.
In Tolkien’s lore, Bombadil is described as “older than the old,” an ancient and benevolent entity who embodies the spirit of nature. In a 1937 letter, Tolkien referred to Bombadil as “the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside.”
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The enigmatic figure, who appears early in The Fellowship of the Ring, rescuing the hobbits from danger, has historically been absent from previous film adaptations of the series.
Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay told Vanity Fair that Bombadil hasn’t been featured in previous “Lord of the Rings” adaptions “because in some ways he’s sort of an anti-dramatic character.”
“He’s not a character who has a particularly strong agenda. He observes drama, but largely doesn’t participate in it. In The Fellowship of the Ring, the characters kind of just go there and hang out for a while, and Tom drops some knowledge on them,” Payne said.
McKay added, “Knowledge that’s not particularly relevant to anything that they’re doing or about to do.”
With their portrayal of Bombadil, showrunners said they wanted to provide some levity to an otherwise heavy show.
“Season one set the pieces on the chessboard, and in season two the pieces are in motion and it’s really about the villains,” Payne said. “You’ve got Sauron, who is not cloaked behind the guise of [the human refugee] Halbrand anymore. The audience knows he’s Sauron, so now we’re watching him maneuver as he’s manipulating [the burn-scar covered dark elf] Adar, who’s another big villain of the season. ... Really, Tom is sort of a curiosity within that structure because while it is darker, Tom Bombadil is singing and saying lines that could be nursery rhymes from children’s poems. So he sort of defies the tonal shift of the rest of the season and is a real point of light amidst an otherwise sea of darkness.”
Shot in New Zealand, season one of “The Rings of Power” utilized an estimated $465 million budget, making it the most expensive series ever produced.
The second season of the series centers on Sauron's resurgence. Cast out by Galadriel and bereft of an army, Sauron must now depend on his cunning to regain his strength and orchestrate the creation of the Rings of Power. This season promises to delve deeper into the epic struggle between good and evil, thrusting even the most cherished characters into a growing darkness. As alliances are tested and kingdoms face turmoil, the characters must navigate a world teetering on the brink of catastrophe.
In addition to Sauron, other key characters are returning to the show, including Galadriel, Elrond, Prince Durin IV, Arondir and Celebrimbor, and hints at the creation of more Rings of Power. Show creators reportedly worked with Tolkien experts, including Tolkien's grandson, Simon Tolkien, to create new characters for the series.
Though The Lord of the Rings trilogy is not overtly religious, Tolkien was a devout Christian who famously saw his work as a way to bring the Gospel to the masses by exploring themes of good and evil, the power of redemption and the universality of sin. The Oxford scholar, who died in 1973, was credited with bringing his friend and colleague, Narnia author C.S. Lewis, back to the Christian faith.
“The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision,” Tolkien once wrote in a letter. “We have come from God and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed, only by myth-making, only by becoming a ‘sub-creator’ and inventing stories, can man ascribe to the state of perfection that he knew before the fall.”
Trystan Gravelle, who plays Pharazôn, adviser to the Queen-Regent of Númenor in the Amazon series, previously told The Christian Post that those involved in the series wanted to honor Tolkien’s legacy, adding that its themes of the ring’s corrupting influence and human mortality are what make “The Lord of the Rings” so universally relatable.
“I think there's a common theme of death that runs through [Tolkien's] work; it's always there, it's everywhere,” he said. “Even with elves who can live forever, they can still die. I think it's how we face that, and then I think that shows the character of the individual that is facing death and how they deal with it. There are two camps, then, on whether they accept their fate or they don't. I think that's what it is; it's an acceptance of death.”
He added: “I think everybody asks themselves why they're here, and where they’re going, and that can be a scary thing … so to go into a fantastical world and to see that with everything and an abundance of culture and richness of everything — at the core of that are the same fears, the same thoughts and the same sort of procrastinations as what we have. I think they are universal; I think they are timeless, and I think [that resonates] with people."
Fans can catch up on all eight episodes of the first season, now available for streaming exclusively on Prime Video. For more information, click here.
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]
