According to Tolkien:
Quote:
[Elrond:]'But I had forgotten Bombadil, if indeed this is the same that walked the woods and hills long ago, and even then was older than the old. That was not then his name. Iarwain Ben-adar we called him, oldest and fatherless.... [M]aybe I should have summoned him to our council.'
'He would not have come,' said Gandalf.
'Could we not still send messages to him, and obtain his help?' asked Erestor. 'It seems that he has a power even over the Ring.'
'No, I should not put it so,' said Gandalf. 'Say rather than the Ring has no power over him. He is his own master. But he cannot alter the Ring itself, nor break its power over others. And now he is withdrawn into a little land, with bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting perhaps for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them.'
'But within those bounds nothing seems to dismay him,' said Erestor. 'Would he not take the Ring, and keep it there, for ever harmless?'
'No,' said Gandalf, 'not willingly. He might do so, if all the free folk of the world begged him, but he would not understand the need. And if he were given the Ring, he would soon forget it, or most likely throw it away. Such things have no hold on his mind. He would be a most unsafe guardian; and that alone is answer enough.'
'But in any case,' said Glorfindel, 'to send the Ring to him would only postpone the day of evil.... [S]oon or late the Lord of the Rings would learn of its hiding place and would bend all his power towards it. Could that power be defied by Bombadil alone? I think not. I think that in the end, if all else is conquered, Bombadil will fall, Last as he was First; and then Night will come.'
'I know little of Iarwain save the name,' said Galdor, 'but Glorfindel, I think, is right. Power to defy our Enemy is not in him, unless such power is in the earth itself. And yet we see that Sauron can torture and destroy the very hills....'
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(
The Fellowship of the Ring, Book II, Chapter 2, "The Council of Elrond"; rev. Am. pb. ed., pp. 347-48)
Recall that, according to Tolkien (and this seems very much in character given what we see of Bombadil in the book), he represents that which desires knowledge of the other
because it is other and for no other purpose. Because of this "purity" if you will, nothing has power over Bombadil -- not Old Man Willow, not the Barrow-Wights, not the Ring -- save something of the order of the Maiar or Valar. He could, perhaps, be killed by an act of violence, but no evil can mar him; it can only kill him. He would remain the same until the end. But he himself lacks power over anything other than his own realm, desiring power over nothing, beyond what power understanding and knowledge can give him within his relatively small bounds. As I mentioned earlier, he seems a sort of symbol of unfallen Man, not subject to the usual ills of the world, but nonetheless not invulnerable.
I'll admit that, the first time I read
LotR, I didn't particularly care for the character (though I quite enjoyed the adventure with Old Man Willow and the Old Forest, and with the Barrow-Wight), but Tom has grown on me over the years as I've come to see he's actually a rather complex (and understated) symbol -- as is Goldberry, in her own way -- and some of the writing in those chapters is quite lyrical and poignant and wistful; eventually making it one of my very favorite parts of the book. I find some passages can stir some rather strong emotions (if of a gentler nature) in the way they capture (or recapture, to use Tolkien's phrase) the beauties of the natural world around, allowing a reader to see them anew.
For those interested in some of what Tom stands for, I suggest giving a careful reading to Tolkien's essay, "On Fairy-Stories", as well as
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Both really do richly reward such a reading.....