The Legendary Tom Bombadil Is Seen In Live-Action For The First Time

TV & Film

Jun 1

One of the predictions that The Rings of Power fans had, has come true. We will finally see fan-favorite Tom Bombadil in season two of The Rings of Power. Many fans had guessed that the mysterious Stranger would turn out to be Tom Bombadil. That is not the case, it looks like the two will be meeting each other at some point in season two.

First introduced in J.R.R. Tolkien’s works in The Fellowship of the Ring, Tom Bombadil is named Old Tom and is described as “older than the old” indicating that he’s been around since the creation of Middle-earth. He isn’t human, and he isn’t an elf, although in the books he is as merry as the elves and sings songs all day long, especially to his wife Goldberry. He is not affected by The Ring at all, not even to turn invisible, and for a moment, it is discussed that maybe they should hide The Ring with him. But, because of his merry happy-go-lucky personality, it is determined he would lose the Ring by accident. He rescues the Hobbits from Old Man Willow, and then later the Barrow-wights, and gives them a place to rest.

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Tom Bombadil is not in Peter Jackson’s movies which is one of the things that either fans are happy or sad about. One of the tricky things about adapting Tom Bombadil on screen is giving him an accurate representation of his character. Many book purists don’t believe this can be done and are happy that he hasn’t made his way to screen thus far (except in a few foreign The Lord of the Rings adaptations), but there is also a large percentage of fans who would love to see him come to the screen.

J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, the show-runners for The Rings of Power, have made that happen with Rory Kinnear portraying the fan-favorite character. In an exclusive interview with Variety, Payne and McKay discussed the difficulty of bringing this character to the screen and where we will meet him in the story.

Payne said: “He can be a force for good, but he is challenging to integrate dramatically in that he doesn't have an agenda. He’s not driving forward and pushing people to arrive at any particular end… We started thinking, What does he care about? And how can that be a doorway to drama? We know he cares about the natural world. And we know he is a helper. He’s not going to push you, but he will help you… In our story, he has gone out to the lands of Rhûn, which we learn used to be sort of Edenic and green and beautiful, but now is sort of a dead wasteland. Tom has gone out there to see what’s happened as he goes on his various wanderings.”

Fans will meet Tom Bombadil while following the story with The Stranger, who is also on his way to Rhûn. The released images show Rory Kinnear as Tom Bombadil and reveal his signature blue cloak look.

It will be exciting to see how this character is finally brought to the screen and what he does to help in this adventure.

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