Ultimate nerd question: Was Tom Bombadil a vala?
Megabytes have been written about whether Tom Bombadil was a vala, e.g.
http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/encyc/papers/BombadilC.htm
http://tolkien.slimy.com/essays/Bombadil2Flawed.html
http://www.cas.unt.edu/~hargrove/bombadil.html
http://forum.barrowdowns.com/archive/index.php/t-10631
http://www.aerojockey.com/weblog/bombadil.html
I believe Tom was a vala. He was completely immune to the power of the ring which was a maia artifact. Tom also controlled nature through singing which was another tipoff that he was a vala.
Based upon comments below, we have some major Tolkien geeks here. What's your opinion about this important issue?
Gary