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Peter Jackson dropped from the Hobbit...

...both definatively state that he was Maiar.
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Just because a role playing game says something doesn't make that official in the eyes of the person who created the universe. Tolkien had plenty of room to just flat out say that Bombadil was a maiar, but he didn't. He specifically chose to leave what he was a total undefined thing. So, regardless of what other people who find themselves granted some form of legitimacy after Tolkien's death to grant officiality to anything, that doesn't mean squat when it comes to what Tolkien himself thought.

And to look at it through the lense of the story, we see what the Ring does to TWO maiar in the story itself: both Gandalf and Saruman show how they could easily be taken by the Ring if they were to take possession of it. But Bombadil handles the ring and it has absolutely no pull on him whatsoever. I'd say this points to him not being a maiar, otherwise he'd be affected just the same as Gandalf and Saruman were.
 
The whole grand statement of the story is that when presented with domination over others, eventually everyone would fall to hidden desires for it; thus Frodo claiming the Ring for his own in the end.
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There's another "whole grand statement" about how nothing and no part of the world remains entirely untouched by the effects of war / industrialization / whatever (evil?). That statement is taken out of the movie when they edited out the Scouring of the Shire ...... effectively showing that the Shire *is* left untouched by all of this.

Of course, I also understand the sheer running time constraints issue that leads to that choice in making the movies.
 
Of course, I also understand the sheer running time constraints issue that leads to that choice in making the movies.
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Not just running time, but also storytelling technique in a film medium. Over the course of the three films, we've had Sauron worked up as the Big Bad. Once he's destroyed, it's such a grand release of tension that it would have been significantly difficult to stoke that tension up again for the Scouring. It would have seemed, in a film medium, anticlimatic. It works in a book. It would work on television (we see such in Babylon 5). But just doesn't do it for a theatrical film.

Now, back to Bombadil. Who or what was Tom Bombadil?

Tom was originally a doll (with blue jacket and yellow boots) owned by Tolkien's son Michael. The doll inspired a story fragment, such as he often invented for his children's amusement. That fragment was in turn the basis for the poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", published in 1933, which also introduced Goldberry, the barrow wights, and Old Man Willow (the poem was the source of the events in Chapters 6 through 8 of Book I). In a contemporary letter (1937) Tolkien explained that Tom was meant to represent 'the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside'.
(The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, no 19)

Tolkien introduced Tom into The Lord of the Rings at a very early stage, when he still thought of it as a sequel to the The Hobbit, as opposed to the The Silmarillion (the tone was changed during the first chapters of The Lord of the Rings). Tom fit the original (slightly childish) tone of the early chapters (which resembled that of the The Hobbit), but as the story progressed it became higher in tone and darker in nature....
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I haven't read through this entire thing yet, but I'm going to: A Summary of the Essay: What is Tom Bombadil? (With links to the complete discussions in the full essay.)

Ultimately, Bombadil is an enigma, and Tolkien purposefully left him as such.
 
And to look at it through the lense of the story, we see what the Ring does to TWO maiar in the story itself: both Gandalf and Saruman show how they could easily be taken by the Ring if they were to take possession of it. But Bombadil handles the ring and it has absolutely no pull on him whatsoever. I'd say this points to him not being a maiar, otherwise he'd be affected just the same as Gandalf and Saruman were.
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Though I also don't perceive Bombadil as Maiar, this particular argument doesn't hold up because the ring had different effects on various hobbits (Gollum > Frodo > Bilbo > Sam), so it could also have different effects of various Maiar. The ring's effects has more to do with the character of the user. Also, maiar are these big mysterious gods, so there's no reason to assume that they're all the same with respect to the ring.

But no, Bombadil isn't a maiar. He's an incomplete short story crammed into an epic.
I think he represents the idealised Jeffersonian model of a citizen who takes care of himself and his family, works the land, defends himself, and has no negative effect on the environment.
 
...the ring had different effects on various hobbits (Gollum > Frodo > Bilbo > Sam), so it could also have different effects of various Maiar.
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Except the Ring had NO effect on Bombadil whatsoever. It's not that the way it effected him just manifested differently. He even put the Ring on, but nothing happened. They even mention during the Council of Elrond that if Bombadil took the ring, he'd only just eventually forget he had it or throw it away. That's a stark difference it the profundity of reaction the Ring brings out of everyone else. The Ring ultimately makes everyone want it, but not Bombadil.

Also, maiar are these big mysterious gods....
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To pick a nit, the maiar are more like angels. The valar are the ones that are on the level of gods (with, of course, Eru Iluvatar being above them). ;)

He's an incomplete short story crammed into an epic.
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I agree.
 
That is the correct level of things-Maiar-Valar-Illuvatar.

This is the list of books you can claim source to that I have at least and are at least Tolkien works,many of them with comments on conversations and coorrospandance with his son.

The Book of Lost Tales,! and @.

The Lays of Beleriand.

The shaping of Middle Earth

The Lost Road.

The Return of The Shadow.

The treason of Isengard.

The War of the Ring.

Sauron Defeated.

Morgoth's Ring.

The War of the Jewels.

The peoples of Middle Earth.

Lets not forget that The Silmarillion was the original work.The Hobbit was an offshot from that that he used to make stories from to his kids while driving on holiday.He put it forward for publishing after The Silmaillion had been rejected several times.

LOTR was born out of the demand for a sequel as The Silmirillion was rejected again.

Then there is The Unfinshed Tales and the allsorted others.

The whole tale from start to finish was in constant revision and was never completed.

Some of the major Orc commanders were seen to be lesser Maiar spirits corrupted by Melkor.Lots of things were experimented with.

The Ring had no power over Tom Bombidill alone over the peoples of MIDDLE EARTH.At no point is it implied that the Valar for example would be effected.Tom Bombidill for all his simple ways was simply a more powerful Maiar than Gandalf.

The Ring also feed on desire,something Tom Bomadill never had,he had everything.Gandalf desired the victory of good over evil,that lets in a door.Sauraman had already fallen,Radagast was more interested in animals and the Blue wizards had disapeared.No real beings of strength stayed on Middle Earth.

The roleplaying game was considered canon when it came out,my copy is 25 years old.This was when Tolkien Enterprises was very serious about infringing on the mytheos.It is backed by his son as the end result his father was looking for.

A chapter was also written as a sequel to LOTR but got no further.

Ungoliant came from The Darkness Arond Arda or something like that.

Mulitiple endinds would have been better if the Hobbits got to kill Sauraman I reckon,fancy missing that out.
 
The only way I'll ever see a roleplaying gaming book as canonical is if the person who created the universe in which the roleplaying book is based directly and explicitly says that that book is considered canon to him or her. So, unless I'm missing something, Tolkien didn't do that. So, if you want to be of the opinion that Bombadil is a maiar, fine, but that's not a statement that Tolkien ever made.
 
He did in one of them books mentioned,I just can't find the specific text yet.

It was still incompleted though and was being modified till death.That is why the insights of son and fragments from letters are important.

It never mentions him as anything else though.

That does not mean that it was not going to be revised again or that it was set in concrete,just that it was the official line.

If you want to get really funny,some people argue that the Balrog never had wings :p
 
I guess I never saw the LOTR movies as canon or even having the potential to come close. I always viewed them as more a tribute to Tolkien's work.

As for hobbits and the ring, I always read into that hobbits were simply more resiliant than other races due to their innocence. They aren't more easily swayed by evil, but rather, steadfast in their "purity."
 
People have debated tiny things about Tolkien's work for ages. I guess when a work has so much laboriously thought out detail in it, it draws people in to the point that they like to examine everything. And all examinations have the potential for debate, even those over small things like the origins of Tom Bombadil or whether balrogs have wings. The whole thread went off on a tangent somewhat with the debate over Bombadil, and that canonicity debate hasn't had all that much to do with a discussion of the films really.
 
Ungoliant came from The Darkness around Arda or something like that.
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So bearing in mind that Arda is supposed to be a fictional mythological interpretation of Earth... if your explanation on Ungoliant's origins is accurate, does that make her a giant space spider?

We are heading into Toho territory!
 
Let's also bear in mind that since Tolkien never issued any finished products other than The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, everything else of his that we have is, to one extent or another, a work in progress. So the allusion to Bombadil as a Maia could have been something in an earlier draft, much like Trotter.

I've never heard of orcs as Maiar -- I always understood them to be made in mockery of elves, or perhaps twisted elves, a detail that the movies actually got right. The Balrog, on the other hand, was definitely a Maia, as was Sauron.
 
I always thought Tom Bombadil was such a retarded part of the story--annoyed the crap out of me. The fact that he was removed from the movies was a joy.

As for Balrogs having wings, it can be argued in favor, but it's a thin argument and it involves Tolkien's other writings. I personally like to think they do have wings. Just seem more cool that way.

Dang, now you're all making me want to go out and see those movies again.
 
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