Amazon Prime Video reveals a first look at Rory Kinnear’s mysterious character in Rings of Power Season 2 who is revealed to be Tom Bombadil.
The character is featured in The Lord of the Rings book but was absent from the Peter Jackson movies.
Details for Tom Bambadil in Rings of Power Season 2 include the character encounters the Stranger (Daniel Weyman) and his Harfoot friends, Nori (Markella Kavenagh) and Poppy (Megan Richards), on their journey to eastern Middle-earth.
Vanity Fair revealed the news along with first-look images.
“In our story, he has gone out to the lands of Rhûn, which we learn used to be sort of Edenic and green and beautiful, but now is sort of a dead wasteland,” co-showrunner J.D. Payne said. “Tom has gone out there to see what’s happened as he goes on his various wanderings.”
Payne continued, “When he finally crosses paths with the Stranger, you could say he has a desire to try to keep the destruction that has happened there from spreading to his beloved lands in the West. He nudges the Stranger along his journey, which he knows will eventually protect the larger natural world that he cares about. So I’d say our Tom Bombadil is slightly more interventionist than you see in the books, but only by 5 or 10 percent.”
Co-showrunner Patrick McKay added, “He’s whimsical and magical, and almost verging on silly. But also has the wisdom of the ages and the music of the spheres and deep emotional wells of ancient history and myth, and his conception and function are tied to Norse myths and have deep roots in European fairy tale. So weirdly, he’s kind of the most Lord of the Rings thing in Lord of the Rings.”
McKay continued, “Tom is sort of a curiosity within that structure because while it is darker, Tom Bombadil is singing and saying lines that could be nursery rhymes from children’s poems. So, he sort of defies the tonal shift of the rest of the season and is a real point of light amidst an otherwise sea of darkness.”
Rings of Power premiers Aug. 29 on Prime Video.
