@MotherDucker Perhaps Tom is there to remind the reader, if forcefully, not to worry, it's only a silly book.
; )
@MotherDucker I can only even with Tom Bombadil if I imagine him screaming like Gilbert Godfrey. š
My Dad AND my FIL both also love Tom Bombadil...
So maybe it's a dad thing?
@MotherDucker I picked "Can't even" because there was no "loathe him" option.
I totally _can_.
It's like Donald Fucking Duck suddenly popped into the middle of the apocalypse, with his wife, Princess Cinderella, to sing Hakuna Matata.
Or like some twit rammed their children's nonsense storybook character into Lord of the Rings as a sop to their affections - possibly thinking nobody else would read it anyway.
But I speculate.
; )