: Tom and Goldberry - Aule and Yavanna! Where did you get this from! I havn't read all the 12 volumns so I can't speak with any authority about all their contents, but I'm sure that is says somewhere that after Valinor was 'removed', after the fall of Numenor, none of the Valar left, with the exception of Ulmo! Therefore Tom and Goldberry, just couldn't be Aule and Yavanna!

Although I did find a very good essay on why Tom and Goldberry are Aule and Yavanna it simply can't be true. Padster makes a good assessmet with his comment, but I bring a higher authority into this Tolkien himself. He wrote:

"The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty
against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated
freedom 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 delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless."
(The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, p. 178).

He wrote this of Bombadil meaning Tom could not control or be controlled, as is exhibited by his experience with the One ring. He cannot be controlled by it and on the same hand he cannot control it. So I now ask you how the guardians/rulers of Arda the Valar AND their servants the Maiar could possibly be Bombadil since they obviously have exhibited control and rule (the Valar) and have excepted control and rule (the Maiar).

As for Tom being there at the beginning let's remember the Ainur were not the first put on Arda. And I'm not talking about Illuvatar.

Jon

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Bombadil Essay