Old Man Willow

While it is true that much of music comes out in a physical way in Middle-earth, it is equally true that the stark examples we see of the power of music tend to go to a much deeper level than a mere physical reaction.

Tom Bombadil threatens to sing the roots off of Old Man Willow if he doesn't cooperate.

Luthien's song breaks the power of Sauron's dungeon.

Sauron and Fenrod engage in an epic battle of song that ultimately breaks the spirit of Fenrod.

It, if I did, it's been a long time.

But it's a solo dungeon where you basically go up against Old Man Willow, uh, who's been corrupted by a Morgul Blade that's thrust into the ground in front of him.

And it's, I mean, it, it took me about 45 minutes.

It was on level.

Like, again, think about how the sequence works in The Fellowship of the Ring, right? The hobbits enter into a forest, a forest that's right adjacent to the Shire, and they find the forest full of trees that are very much more aware, very much more alive than other trees are.

And the trees are moving and guiding them down to Old Man Willow at the heart of the forest.

And then Tom Bombadil comes along and sings at it and invites them to his house.

And when they come to his house, everything is mostly normal.

Right? The sort of spell of the forest.

Again, think of the old forest chapter.

beginning with that sense of oppression that they're feeling and their confusion and bewilderment kind of culminating in the attack of Old Man Willow, that whole sense of nightmare being attacked by living trees, just like in this forest, gets suddenly broken by meeting the jolly, laughing Tom Bombadil.

who brings them back to his house.

And given what we've learned about Tom Bombadil previously, this probably shouldn't surprise us.

While there do not seem to be any Ents in the Old Forest, Tom is able to govern Old Man Willow through song, and trees and Ents are quite closely related.

The music of the Ents looks predominantly backward.

Of their four songs, not counting the lore of living creatures, three look back on times past, whether to a time when the lands to the west were still above the waves, in the willow meads of Tasarinen, or to a time when the Entwives were not lost, the Ent and the Entwife and Bregaled's song.

Um, well here, you guys have any other thoughts on this or should we move to the next question?

Last thought is I want to spend at least a couple hundred years sitting and talking to Tom Bombadil and Old Man Willow.

That's like my age.

Right? Having picnics under

Who in the world is he, and why is he always singing? The Music of the Master When Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin enter the Old Forest to escape from the Black Riders, they discover that they have, to invert a saying from The Hobbit, leapt out of the fire and into the frying pan.

While the imminent danger of the Black Riders has left them for the time being, the Old Forest is not a safe place, and it's not long before they run afoul of the strange Old Man Willow.

As they try to defend themselves, Frodo runs along the path crying, Help! when all of a sudden, seemingly in response, he hears a deep-clad voice singing.

Though it takes a few bars, eventually the singer identifies himself as Old Tom Bombadil, and again, in song, orders Old Man Willow to tuck his roots away.

At this, the danger from Old Man Willow simply ends.

It's as if the tree is bound to follow the singing command of Tom Bombadil.

Even so, Mary is still in danger of being squeezed to death by the tree, to which Tom replies, This scene is our introduction to the fascinating enigma that is Tom Bombadil, he of the powerful song, he of the mysterious ability to use music to command the very forces of nature.

However, given not only his propensity for song, but also his parochial nature, seemingly confined to one small corner of Arda, it leads me to think that he was one of the lesser Ainur, a Maiar, that came to Middle-earth long ago.

And I think this is the best of the green decks in the format, black/green, because it has black in it [laughs] is one reason, but it also gets a really good gold card.

So we've got Old Man Willow, which is two black green for a star star legendary tree folk.

Power and toughness equal the number of lands you control.

And whenever Old Man Willow attacks, you can sacrifice another creature or token, and when you do, target creature an opponent controls gets -2/-2 until end of turn.

So if you're familiar with The Hobbit, Mirkwood Pathmaker, the three mana green grows for the number of lands you control.

Similar card to this one, right? This one costs one more, but has that, uh, -2 ability.

Also, I just realized I didn't say great or garbage for the white/black gold card, so Denethor and Shadow Summoning.

Those both get a great for me, as does Old Man Willow, and I think as does the second gold card here, Rise of the Witch-king.