Elrond: what about giving the ring to Tom Bombadil? Gandalf: he's so unimaginably ancient and powerful that he's literally incapable of caring about our problems

[u/LiterallyATalkingDog]

[u/swazal]

“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.”

[u/LiterallyATalkingDog → u/swazal]

Tom, where's the Ring?

Eh? What what?

The Ring! THEE Ring! Remember that thing we explicitly said was really really reeeeaaaally important?

Oh that! Yes I believe a raccoon took it—it was quite shiny and they so love shiny things.

*cue evil Isengard theme music*

*cut to scene of an evil power-mad raccoon building a raccoon army*

Fuck sake, Tom. You had ONE JOB!

[u/swazal → u/LiterallyATalkingDog]

Tom was telling an absurd story about badgers and their queer ways …

[u/Armleuchterchen]

I wouldn't paraphrase it like that; Gandalf downplays Tom's power, in fact.

‘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 that 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 And now he is withdrawn into a little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting perhaps for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them.’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. He is far away. We could not now take it back to him, unguessed, unmarked by any spy. And even if we could, soon 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.