There can be no real doubt that Tom is both honest and honorable. There is no need to doubt his word. He is, therefore, the Eldest. He is older than the immortal elves, the rivers and the trees—he is even older than the weather itself, remembering the first ever raindrop. Is he, or He, God? Superficially, he might seem to have shades of the Divine, but his voice is too passive and detached to be an active agent. God was not only here before the rivers and the trees; He made the rivers and the trees. God does not merely remember the first raindrop; He sent it. He didn’t merely make paths before
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