But Bombadil is important in other ways as well. It is Bombadil who shows that the Ring cannot master everyone, and if it cannot master everyone then there is reason to hope that Frodo can withstand its influence for at least a while. He has to struggle with the Ring more and more as he gets closer to Mordor, but the Ring only wins in the final struggle, as Frodo stands before Sammath Naur. Even so, when Frodo succumbs to the Ring's influence in Bree and at Weathertop the reader is reminded that Frodo, too, has his limits. He is not as powerful as Bombadil, not as sure of himself as Bombadil. Bombadil is a catalyst who sets up the conflict between Frodo and the Ring in a way that Gandalf cannot. Gandalf is himself afraid of the Ring. Tom isn't.
The step from Buckland to Bree may seem rather simple, but in terms of advancing the story Bombadil provides the means for Frodo to sidestep the net which has been laid for him. The full scope of the search for the Ring is only made apparent in
Unfinished Tales, where we are told that the Lord of the Nazgul is responsible for waking the Willow and arousing the Barrow-wights. Recall that when Tom first meets the Hobbits he is surprised to learn that the Willow is awake and active. "You let them out again, Old Man Willow! What be you a-thinking-of? You should not be waking. Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! Go to sleep! Bombadil is talking!"
The Willow and Wight are important to the plot because they help underscore just how perilous Frodo's escape from the Shire really is. He is no longer safe anywhere, as Gildor points out. The Nazgul have found his home in Hobbiton, they are tracking him through the Shire, and they are on horseback. How are four Hobbits supposed to outrun four Nazgul on horseback? They can't. So getting the Hobbits from the Shire to Bree forces a hard choice upon the screenwriters. The escape has to be acceptable, and it can't drag on. The most oft-cited reason for not including Bombadil in the movie is that there simply isn't time to include everything. Quite true. Yet if Bombadil is dropped that means that the plot has to be altered, or else a gap left in the storyline.
At one point Peter Jackson suggested perhaps he
would leave in the gap, and just have the Hobbits scoot out of the Shire and show up at Bree. The audience would be free to infer whatever they wished about that. I've always liked this approach. And it would gel nicely with added scenes on a DvD that take up the slack.
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