For what it is worth, a key potential influence on the Mirror of Galadriel is Ayesha's basin of water in Rider Haggard's She (1887)... “Then gaze upon that water,” and she pointed to the font-like vessel, and then, bending forward, held her hand over it. I rose and gazed, and instantly the water darkened. Then it cleared, and I saw as distinctly as I ever saw anything in my life-I saw, I say, our boat upon that horrible canal. There was Leo lying at the bottom asleep in it, with a coat thrown over him to keep off the mosquitoes, in such a fashion as to hide his face, and myself, Job, and Mahomed towing on the bank. I started back, aghast, and cried out that it was magic, for I recognised the whole scene-it was one which had actually occurred. “Nay, nay; oh Holly,” she answered, “it is no magic, that is a fiction of ignorance. There is no such thing as magic, though there is such a thing as a knowledge of the secrets of Nature. That water is my glass; in it I see what passes if I will to summon up the pictures, which is not often. Therein I can show thee what thou wilt of the past, if it be anything that hath to do with this country and with what I have known, or anything that thou, the gazer, hast known. Think of a face if thou wilt, and it shall be reflected from thy mind upon the water. I know not all the secret yet-I can read nothing in the future….”
There's a fairly clear parallel between Galadriel's mirror and the well of the Norns, the Norse Fates in Voluspa stanza 20. Like the well its water is drawn near a great tree. Galadriel takes on the role of all three Norns i.e. Urth, Verdandi and Skuld, whose names mean "has-become", "is-becoming" and "should"; past, present and future. The mirror is a fairy-tale element from "Snow-White" (one of the Grimm collection which Tolkien airily dismisses in 'On Fairy-stories'). It's a powerful symbol and distinctly feminine, sort of a window to the unconscious (in rather dated Jungian terms). I do believe Tolkien followed his sources here and left explanations for later. (Water is traditionally the feminine element. Ulmo's inspiration of prophecy seems to me a "masculinisation" of the themes, very characteristic of Tolkien.)
Late comment, for which I apologize, but finally I got to sit down and watch this whole video and it was a delight. I yelled "YES" at my screen so many times, you would have thought I was watching a football game. (And of course it's easy to enjoy watching someone be gracious, if perhaps too generous, about one's propensities for lit analysis.) There's not room to put down all of the thoughts I had, but briefly: I could not agree more on the differences between Galadriel's mirror and the Palantiri; the surrender of letting the inconstant, fluid element of water reveal something to you versus bending your will to see what you want (through the fixed and easily-shaped material of stone) seems to be what distinguishes the two techniques. There's a thin and blurry line between magia and goetia (a distinction even Tolkien made only reluctantly), and an even thinner, blurrier one between necessary magia used from truly good impulses and magia with an element of corruption or domination (hence the somewhat ambiguous nature of the Elven Rings, which you pointed out.) Your final points on why seemingly-'magical' Elven items work the way they do were especially well-put and made me revise several of my opinions on glowy swords and shadowy cloaks. The idea of the very act of crafting an item being pseudo-magical makes the distinction between art and technology even less clear - which I imagine is how the Elves would conceive of it themselves!
I always felt that the rope responded to Sam's will/desire. It would be similar to the way elves made swords, I suppose. They wove the rope with love of it and thoughts about how it could be used as well as how it could be recovered after certain uses. So, when Sam spoke of his desire to recover the rope, it came back to him because that's part of the nature of the rope, just as it was Sting's nature to glow blue when orcs were nearby. Simplistic, I suppose, yes. But that's how I always read it.
Oh, I feel dumb. I am perhaps a little less whimsical, and assumed that is was Gollum that untied the rope. It is revealed he is once again following them at that point. However, with his reaction to the rope when they attempt to bind him, it doesn't seem he would have touched it, even to toss it out of his way. Heh, maybe the rope leapt away from Gollum as much as to Sam.
The notion of certain characters listening better to the Music of the Ainur in order to manipulate the flow better than others, is an interesting notion, as to using 'fire' for example to do the right thing, I always supposed that with the wargs incident that you mention from the Hobbit that Gandalf did it to protect others rather than himself. As he never uses fire later in the Lord of the Rings to protect himself, preferring to rely upon other tools in his arsenal than 'magic', using his arts only to protect his friends which adds to his being good. I do wonder if the Elvish Rings are simply manipulating the flow or attuning the bearer to the flow of the Music of the Ainur, rather than dominating it and the will of another and if that's one distinctive difference between the Elvish Rings & those of men or Dwarves. The rope responding to the name of Galadriel, reminds me very strongly of the Grimm Fairy-Tale of Rapunzel's hair, I wonder if the rope responds to how much weight it has on it. For ex; when it has weight on it, it reminds knotted, yet once the pressure of the weight upon it is released it unties itself. So that it is reactive rather than active, as you noted here, with it being an art. Another point; Yes GirlNextGondor is really good at reading literature, tbh I graduated years ago from English Lit & she's a way better reader than I am despite still studying Eng Lit herself, so it isn't just you. Tbh I think you and Red-Book are her equal and very obviously better readers than I am. This was a fun video, thanks for it!
Yes, the clickbait channels that have hacks produce superficial videos of questionable accuracy on the topic of the moment should be considered works of Morgoth.
@@Barbossa778 - Did you mean "Darth Gandalf"? The closest thing to "Dark Gandalf" is "Gandalf the Dark" which appears to be some type of gaming channel.
Water has memories! Also, remember how the image in the water pulled Frodo's ring and chain, nearly tearing it off, there must be a physical component to the water also....
1. Many of Gandalf's most aggressive uses of fire (and lightning) occur off screen as it were. There is his battle against the Nazgul on Weathertop, the white light and trembling walls in Moria when he goes back up the stairs after the fight in the chamber of Mazarbul, and of course his fight with Durin's Bane up the endless stair and upon the peak of the Silvertine. I would point out that all of these displays of power are used against foes that are supernaturally gifted themselves. 2. I think the pouring of yourself into your Craft is as close to a universal rule of "magic" as we can get from Tolkien. As you point out, the malice of Eol is put into his weapons. Perhaps this caused Maeglin and Turin to dial the a-hole within up to 11? The elves set the power of the sun and moon into Anduril when they reforged it although I am not exactly sure what effect this has when used. The Dunedain of Arnor also seem to have this ability as well with the Daggers of Westernesse, one of which was used to undo the spell that held the Witch King's spirit to a body that long ago faded away. 3. I was under the impression that all of the Rings of Power were for Elves and that they were corrupted and repurposed by Sauron for men and dwarves. What do you think? On a related note, does intention have an effect on the uses of Elven magic/technology? If Celebrimbor and the Smiths of Ost-in-Edhil had fashioned their Rings to enhance and preserve all of Middle Earth instead of just the retreats of the Noldor and their followers would this have been a positive use of their abilities?
That's my understanding as well. The first 16 Rings of Power were intended for elves as were the 3 created after Sauron left to forge the One. When Sauron's plan to control the Elves failed and he seized the 16 in the War of the Elves and Sauron is when he decided to use them against Men and Dwarves. I don't think the Three could have been crafted to preserve all of Middle-Earth. That would have required power and abilities far beyond Celebrimbor's or even Sauron's. Galadriel and Elrond were probably limited in the amount of land they could preserve because of limits inherent to their rings. Morgoth, a Vala (at least until he was kicked out) succeeded in corrupting Arda to some degree but that corruption was clearly limited and cost him most of his inherent power.
1. Regarding the power of hymns - the Nimrodel hymn Legolas sings at the border of Lothlorien messages {or opens - or both; I need to delve into this riddle more} a signal to Haldir and his elven companions on the Talan. Interestingly enough 'Talan' in 'our' world means Hindu Temple; and 'Tala' is a style of Vedic Hymn. And don't forget in Cirith Ungol when a frustrated Sam sat down and began singing an elvish hymn and Frodo's response. in the attic. Again, it appears that hymns open a 'portal' as long as the end goals are that of pure and good.
This was as ever great stuff. The series of videos you mention by girlnextgondor are excellent.You her and the red book are in my opinion by far the bestTolkien content creators, all very different but all good. I have a theory about how the mirror works. It resonates with the parts of the music of the Ainur that is in the people who look into it. The song f elves resonates strongly with the world shaping music and is redolent with their secondary creation. I just wanted to mention Arthur.C Clarke, the science fiction writer and futurist. He said, any technology sufficiently in advance of our knowledge is indistinguishable from magic. Thanks and keep up the good work.
"But at Eregion great work began - and the Elves came their nearest to falling to 'magic' and machinery. With the aid of Sauron's lore they made Rings of Power ('power' is an ominous and sinister word in all these tales, except as applied to the gods).The chief power (of all the rings alike) was the prevention or slowing of decay (i.e. 'change' viewed as a regrettable thing), the preservation of what is desired or loved, or its semblance - this is more or less an Elvish motive. But also they enhanced the natural powers of a possessor - thus approaching 'magic', a motive easily corruptible into evil, a lust for domination." - Letter 131
Thanks for another interesting video! It's so heartwarming to see how enthusiastic you are about JRRT and how your eyes shine. I totally understand that.
To me the dichotomy between good and bad magic in Tolkien is the same as the dichotomy between fine art and commercial art. You can have a song written by a musician and performed one time for a specific purpose and audience, and you can also have a song written by an algorithm and played only by synthesized instruments that is created only for the purpose of making money. A good example of this would be Gandalf's artisanal fireworks versus Saruman's industrial forges. Art that has value, ie goodness, is art that was crafted for the love of the art alone or the love of those whose lives it can enrich or protect. Art that it is evil is art that is used for personal gain and domination.
I don't know how much I agree with Tolkien's ideas on magic in fiction, but I do agree with his ideas on the man-made dominating nature being a negative thing. The way I've come to think about magic is that it represents subversion of man's ability to codify and control nature, a sense that there is more to the world than can be mapped or owned, a feeling that the nature of the world could still be as unpredictable in its possibilities as it seems to us during childhood. I think CS Lewis was thinking of magic in a similar way when he wrote about Narnia, and I think that's a major part of that world's appeal. I have a difficult time reconciling that sort of thing with Tolkien's views, which I'd otherwise tend to agree with
Shining elf weapons during the Battle of the Five Armies in the Hobbit: "The elves were the first to charge. Their hatred for the goblins is cold and bitter. Their spears and swords shone in the gloom with a gleam of chill flame, so deadly was the wrath of the hands that held them."
I don't think the intentionality of the individual regarding the outcome when performing certain acts or making certain things has much to do with it- to me the distinction between art and technology is really whether or not the act or creation in question represents a corruption of the natural order: As far as I know Gandalf never created fire from nothing- he lights kindling in difficult conditions, sure, but he never creates fire in wholly unnatural or physically impossible conditions- I get the feeling saruman, sauron, or any other evil sorcerer of sufficient skill, would not have any issue creating fire in a vacuum, or with no fuel, for example, but this doesn't seem to be what Gandalf does. Even in the midst of battle, the magic Gandalf uses seems to be more a channelling of the secret flame than it does commanding fire to spontaneously emanate from his hands as a result of sheer force of will. Similarly, elven swords (anything the elves make, really, including even the silmarils) have many unusual qualities, but I always got the impression that any given elf could teach anyone of sufficient skill to make swords like this- there is no 'magic' quality to these weapons- it is merely a very sophisticated composition of the natural qualities that the material components of these weapons already posses. These differ to the sorts of things being created by evil magicians- Sauron's ring, for example. The One Ring was created with the express purpose of dominating the will of others, and as far as Tolkien was concerned, this was not only perhaps the purest conception of evil, but also (and by no means incidentally) against the natural order of Ëa, Eru Illûvetar himself, and the 'real world' as he conceived it. So I figure that not only was the purpose (and therefore use) of the one ring representative of a corruption of the natural order, but also that it would probably thus stand to reason that it's composition and method of creation would also have involved such a corruption. In other words, an elven sword glows blue because it's maker had a sufficient level of skill and understanding to bring out this natural quality in the base materials. The One Ring cannot dominate others as a result of the same process, as this would mean that through wholly natural manipulation of wholly natural components Sauron had achieved something wholly *unnatural*- and as there is no unnatural quality to the wholly natural materials sauron used, then the missing component must be a product of Sauron's will alone, and this is where the distinction between art and magic is to be found. What this means is that Gandalf can use fire to fight and kill a balrog, for example, and this would be the result of his natural affinity with the secret flame, as well as his skill and understanding of fire in all its physical forms, and this would be his art. He can even become slightly more, ahem, assertive with a certain hobbit on the subject of leaving a certain ring behind before setting off for rivendell, but even this could be argued to be more a revealing of his truer nature as a maiar in order to combat the very much *magical* effect of aforementioned ring. In any case, Gandalf in this instance is not trying to subvert Bilbo's will in the slightest; he is really just giving him something to worry about besides losing the ring so that he might come back to his senses. This is in stark contrast to Sauron, Saruman's voice, the piercing gaze of Morgoth, or the enchantment of Glaurung, all of which are explicitly employed to completely enthrall the intended recipient and make them entirely subject to the caster's will. I guess this is the only way in which intentionality really plays any role- if the intention of the act or object is to subvert the will of another, then the performance of such an act or creation of such an object will in itself require some additional force of will that will necessarily be 'magical' by Tolkien's definition. The main thing you have to bear in mind here is that this requires a VERY specific definition of 'subvert'- we do not mean persuade, or blackmail, or coerce, but to totally dominate the will of another, for this to work. Essentially, if I throw a ball of fire at you, yes you can argue that it may be very much against your will to be hit by a fireball, but I'm just going to say 'hey, I only threw the fireball dude, I didn't force you to be hit by it.' As a measure of just how evil someone like Sauron is, in this example he would both throw the fireball AND make you stand there as it hit you in the face.
Back in the Shire, when Bilbo hears Thorin and Co., singing of Erabor, it states that he was transported into the song, in a way. Do, do Dwarves have the singing "magic" as well? Also, didn't Tom Bombedil have a type of "singing magic", over trees, rain, and Barrowrights?
Not clear how potent Dwarvish songs are but they do have some kinds of “magic.” And Bombadil is a strange case-it’s not clear if his power comes from song or if that’s just how he always communicates 😂
So it seems like magic is messing with the world outside of its natural physical properties. Art is some kind of method of expression or understanding, so it influences the physical world mostly indirectly or in the mind of the observers. Different still from the domination of the rings. I say this as someone who hasn't actually read the books. Nice analysis.
The difference between magic, art and technology is not solid. Technology, when it's beautiful, can be magic too. In my opinion Tolkien cared more about beauty and care than anything, so technology could be magic (or elven) and so they were treated indistinguishable. Feanor's craftmanship, Galadriel's mirror, the palantirs, the rings of power... they don't seem different to me in their essence. Nothing in this video leads me to think technology, art and magic are three different things. I think the line is fuzzy everywhere. Magic in this universe seems to be just the will of the creator, transcending his physical work (which is very poetic thinking that Tolkien would probably have wanted that same thing for his real books). I think you guys are making lines where there are none. Or at least, this video doesn't tell me otherwise. Maybe I didn't understand something.
Do you have a very interesting take on the rings of power in this in terms of their magic. Very interesting to listen to. But I could talk more but, I think you’re on the right track
Elven rope: don't forget, the elves of Lorian said they could have taught Sam how to make it, had they known he was interested in making such things. Unless the magic is something everyone could do, it isn't magic. While you hit on the elven blades, you didn't mention the Westernesse daggers, which also have a sort of innate magic, based perhaps on the hate of the Witch-King and his followers, at least the wraith, and these weapons are human made, not elven made.
Does Tolkien distinguish between Art and Magic? My answer would be a straight No. Elfs and dwarves and the numenoreans all use craftmanship to make things that don’t follow the normal laws of the world, as hobbits or muggles understand them. So that’s clearly magic. Legolas has foot magic. Aragorn has ranger magic. Even hobbits have stealth magic. And yeah, Middle Earth or Ea doesn’t operate on the same physical laws as our world. You can’t demolish a fortress by singing at it, or make talking swords by hammering on them extra good, not in our world. So that is my muggle understanding of magic. Now Galadriel as a super advanced mage might make distinctions that aren’t really meaningful with a cruder understanding of what she actually does. But my head canon is that her refusal to equate what she does and what Sauron does is rhetorical more than factual. So the difference between the black powder analogy that Gandalf use for fireworks (very big and elaborate party tricks) and the black powder analogy that Saruman uses against the walls of Helmsdeep, is in my opinion, only a difference of purpose. As a magical technology, it is the same fire magic. Gandalf also uses his magical ring to inspire and uplift people, giving them a morale boost. Sauron can inspire and enrage his orcs, giving them a morale boost. In my opinion, as a rpg nerd, in game mechanics it is very similar. It is evil sorcery when people we don’t like do it and beautiful elven inspiration when our friends do it.
Is Beorn’s shape-shifting considered magic? Also, Finrod’s duel of songs of wizardry with Sauron-this would seem a clear use of magic. Did Tolkien ever comment on these?
Finrod’s song was “magic” in the sense we think of it, though to that Galadriel might bristle. As for Beorn, Gandalf says he is “under no enchantment but his own” but it’s not clear he really means Beorn enchanted himself, so that one is a question mark.
@@TolkienLorePodcast Yes... I’m going by the poem’s lines “The chanting swelled, Felagund fought, and all the magic and might he brought of Elvenesse into his words...” so it seems from the text it is explicitly magic that Finrod is using, tho maybe that is a Mannish rendition.
Devil's advocate here: perhaps Galadriel's question to Frodo about his definition of magic encompassing both her art and Sauron's power is just wishful thinking on her part; as a flawed character with questionable motives, she wants to believe her art comes from a different place than Sauron's does, as though lying to herself enough would make that true.
For what it is worth, a key potential influence on the Mirror of Galadriel is Ayesha's basin of water in Rider Haggard's She (1887)...
“Then gaze upon that water,” and she pointed to the font-like vessel, and then, bending forward, held her hand over it.
I rose and gazed, and instantly the water darkened. Then it cleared, and I saw as distinctly as I ever saw anything in my life-I saw, I say, our boat upon that horrible canal. There was Leo lying at the bottom asleep in it, with a coat thrown over him to keep off the mosquitoes, in such a fashion as to hide his face, and myself, Job, and Mahomed towing on the bank.
I started back, aghast, and cried out that it was magic, for I recognised the whole scene-it was one which had actually occurred.
“Nay, nay; oh Holly,” she answered, “it is no magic, that is a fiction of ignorance. There is no such thing as magic, though there is such a thing as a knowledge of the secrets of Nature. That water is my glass; in it I see what passes if I will to summon up the pictures, which is not often. Therein I can show thee what thou wilt of the past, if it be anything that hath to do with this country and with what I have known, or anything that thou, the gazer, hast known. Think of a face if thou wilt, and it shall be reflected from thy mind upon the water. I know not all the secret yet-I can read nothing in the future….”
There's a fairly clear parallel between Galadriel's mirror and the well of the Norns, the Norse Fates in Voluspa stanza 20. Like the well its water is drawn near a great tree. Galadriel takes on the role of all three Norns i.e. Urth, Verdandi and Skuld, whose names mean "has-become", "is-becoming" and "should"; past, present and future. The mirror is a fairy-tale element from "Snow-White" (one of the Grimm collection which Tolkien airily dismisses in 'On Fairy-stories'). It's a powerful symbol and distinctly feminine, sort of a window to the unconscious (in rather dated Jungian terms). I do believe Tolkien followed his sources here and left explanations for later. (Water is traditionally the feminine element. Ulmo's inspiration of prophecy seems to me a "masculinisation" of the themes, very characteristic of Tolkien.)
Late comment, for which I apologize, but finally I got to sit down and watch this whole video and it was a delight. I yelled "YES" at my screen so many times, you would have thought I was watching a football game. (And of course it's easy to enjoy watching someone be gracious, if perhaps too generous, about one's propensities for lit analysis.)
There's not room to put down all of the thoughts I had, but briefly: I could not agree more on the differences between Galadriel's mirror and the Palantiri; the surrender of letting the inconstant, fluid element of water reveal something to you versus bending your will to see what you want (through the fixed and easily-shaped material of stone) seems to be what distinguishes the two techniques.
There's a thin and blurry line between magia and goetia (a distinction even Tolkien made only reluctantly), and an even thinner, blurrier one between necessary magia used from truly good impulses and magia with an element of corruption or domination (hence the somewhat ambiguous nature of the Elven Rings, which you pointed out.)
Your final points on why seemingly-'magical' Elven items work the way they do were especially well-put and made me revise several of my opinions on glowy swords and shadowy cloaks. The idea of the very act of crafting an item being pseudo-magical makes the distinction between art and technology even less clear - which I imagine is how the Elves would conceive of it themselves!
I always felt that the rope responded to Sam's will/desire. It would be similar to the way elves made swords, I suppose. They wove the rope with love of it and thoughts about how it could be used as well as how it could be recovered after certain uses. So, when Sam spoke of his desire to recover the rope, it came back to him because that's part of the nature of the rope, just as it was Sting's nature to glow blue when orcs were nearby. Simplistic, I suppose, yes. But that's how I always read it.
I love this.
Oh, I feel dumb. I am perhaps a little less whimsical, and assumed that is was Gollum that untied the rope. It is revealed he is once again following them at that point. However, with his reaction to the rope when they attempt to bind him, it doesn't seem he would have touched it, even to toss it out of his way. Heh, maybe the rope leapt away from Gollum as much as to Sam.
The notion of certain characters listening better to the Music of the Ainur in order to manipulate the flow better than others, is an interesting notion, as to using 'fire' for example to do the right thing, I always supposed that with the wargs incident that you mention from the Hobbit that Gandalf did it to protect others rather than himself. As he never uses fire later in the Lord of the Rings to protect himself, preferring to rely upon other tools in his arsenal than 'magic', using his arts only to protect his friends which adds to his being good. I do wonder if the Elvish Rings are simply manipulating the flow or attuning the bearer to the flow of the Music of the Ainur, rather than dominating it and the will of another and if that's one distinctive difference between the Elvish Rings & those of men or Dwarves.
The rope responding to the name of Galadriel, reminds me very strongly of the Grimm Fairy-Tale of Rapunzel's hair, I wonder if the rope responds to how much weight it has on it. For ex; when it has weight on it, it reminds knotted, yet once the pressure of the weight upon it is released it unties itself. So that it is reactive rather than active, as you noted here, with it being an art.
Another point; Yes GirlNextGondor is really good at reading literature, tbh I graduated years ago from English Lit & she's a way better reader than I am despite still studying Eng Lit herself, so it isn't just you. Tbh I think you and Red-Book are her equal and very obviously better readers than I am.
This was a fun video, thanks for it!
With the influx of grifters trying to corrupt and just make money with Tolkien here in TH-cam, I'm glad we have someone like you making these videos.
Agreed.
Yes, the clickbait channels that have hacks produce superficial videos of questionable accuracy on the topic of the moment should be considered works of Morgoth.
Check out darth Gandalf, he’s a super small channel and almost all of his videos haven’t been covered by other channels. Very in depth stuff
@@Barbossa778 - Did you mean "Darth Gandalf"? The closest thing to "Dark Gandalf" is "Gandalf the Dark" which appears to be some type of gaming channel.
@@tominiowa2513 yes sorry darth Gandalf, auto correct
Water has memories! Also, remember how the image in the water pulled Frodo's ring and chain, nearly tearing it off, there must be a physical component to the water also....
1. Many of Gandalf's most aggressive uses of fire (and lightning) occur off screen as it were. There is his battle against the Nazgul on Weathertop, the white light and trembling walls in Moria when he goes back up the stairs after the fight in the chamber of Mazarbul, and of course his fight with Durin's Bane up the endless stair and upon the peak of the Silvertine. I would point out that all of these displays of power are used against foes that are supernaturally gifted themselves.
2. I think the pouring of yourself into your Craft is as close to a universal rule of "magic" as we can get from Tolkien. As you point out, the malice of Eol is put into his weapons. Perhaps this caused Maeglin and Turin to dial the a-hole within up to 11? The elves set the power of the sun and moon into Anduril when they reforged it although I am not exactly sure what effect this has when used. The Dunedain of Arnor also seem to have this ability as well with the Daggers of Westernesse, one of which was used to undo the spell that held the Witch King's spirit to a body that long ago faded away.
3. I was under the impression that all of the Rings of Power were for Elves and that they were corrupted and repurposed by Sauron for men and dwarves. What do you think? On a related note, does intention have an effect on the uses of Elven magic/technology? If Celebrimbor and the Smiths of Ost-in-Edhil had fashioned their Rings to enhance and preserve all of Middle Earth instead of just the retreats of the Noldor and their followers would this have been a positive use of their abilities?
That's my understanding as well. The first 16 Rings of Power were intended for elves as were the 3 created after Sauron left to forge the One. When Sauron's plan to control the Elves failed and he seized the 16 in the War of the Elves and Sauron is when he decided to use them against Men and Dwarves.
I don't think the Three could have been crafted to preserve all of Middle-Earth. That would have required power and abilities far beyond Celebrimbor's or even Sauron's. Galadriel and Elrond were probably limited in the amount of land they could preserve because of limits inherent to their rings. Morgoth, a Vala (at least until he was kicked out) succeeded in corrupting Arda to some degree but that corruption was clearly limited and cost him most of his inherent power.
1. Regarding the power of hymns - the Nimrodel hymn Legolas sings at the border of Lothlorien messages {or opens - or both; I need to delve into this riddle more} a signal to Haldir and his elven companions on the Talan. Interestingly enough 'Talan' in 'our' world means Hindu Temple; and 'Tala' is a style of Vedic Hymn.
And don't forget in Cirith Ungol when a frustrated Sam sat down and began singing an elvish hymn and Frodo's response. in the attic. Again, it appears that hymns open a 'portal' as long as the end goals are that of pure and good.
This was as ever great stuff. The series of videos you mention by girlnextgondor are excellent.You her and the red book are in my opinion by far the bestTolkien content creators, all very different but all good. I have a theory about how the mirror works. It resonates with the parts of the music of the Ainur that is in the people who look into it. The song f elves resonates strongly with the world shaping music and is redolent with their secondary creation. I just wanted to mention Arthur.C Clarke, the science fiction writer and futurist. He said, any technology sufficiently in advance of our knowledge is indistinguishable from magic. Thanks and keep up the good work.
"But at Eregion great work began - and the Elves came their nearest to falling to 'magic' and machinery. With the aid of Sauron's lore they made Rings of Power ('power' is an ominous and sinister word in all these tales, except as applied to the gods).The chief power (of all the rings alike) was the prevention or slowing of decay (i.e. 'change' viewed as a regrettable thing), the preservation of what is desired or loved, or its semblance - this is more or less an Elvish motive. But also they enhanced the natural powers of a possessor - thus approaching 'magic', a motive easily corruptible into evil, a lust for domination." - Letter 131
Thanks for another interesting video! It's so heartwarming to see how enthusiastic you are about JRRT and how your eyes shine. I totally understand that.
I enjoy your videos, I like how you mentioned elvish heart and soul in the crafting makes the blades glow blue
To me the dichotomy between good and bad magic in Tolkien is the same as the dichotomy between fine art and commercial art. You can have a song written by a musician and performed one time for a specific purpose and audience, and you can also have a song written by an algorithm and played only by synthesized instruments that is created only for the purpose of making money. A good example of this would be Gandalf's artisanal fireworks versus Saruman's industrial forges. Art that has value, ie goodness, is art that was crafted for the love of the art alone or the love of those whose lives it can enrich or protect. Art that it is evil is art that is used for personal gain and domination.
I don't know how much I agree with Tolkien's ideas on magic in fiction, but I do agree with his ideas on the man-made dominating nature being a negative thing. The way I've come to think about magic is that it represents subversion of man's ability to codify and control nature, a sense that there is more to the world than can be mapped or owned, a feeling that the nature of the world could still be as unpredictable in its possibilities as it seems to us during childhood. I think CS Lewis was thinking of magic in a similar way when he wrote about Narnia, and I think that's a major part of that world's appeal. I have a difficult time reconciling that sort of thing with Tolkien's views, which I'd otherwise tend to agree with
Shining elf weapons during the Battle of the Five Armies in the Hobbit:
"The elves were the first to charge. Their hatred for the goblins is cold and bitter. Their spears and swords shone in the gloom with a gleam of chill flame, so deadly was the wrath of the hands that held them."
I don't think the intentionality of the individual regarding the outcome when performing certain acts or making certain things has much to do with it- to me the distinction between art and technology is really whether or not the act or creation in question represents a corruption of the natural order:
As far as I know Gandalf never created fire from nothing- he lights kindling in difficult conditions, sure, but he never creates fire in wholly unnatural or physically impossible conditions- I get the feeling saruman, sauron, or any other evil sorcerer of sufficient skill, would not have any issue creating fire in a vacuum, or with no fuel, for example, but this doesn't seem to be what Gandalf does. Even in the midst of battle, the magic Gandalf uses seems to be more a channelling of the secret flame than it does commanding fire to spontaneously emanate from his hands as a result of sheer force of will.
Similarly, elven swords (anything the elves make, really, including even the silmarils) have many unusual qualities, but I always got the impression that any given elf could teach anyone of sufficient skill to make swords like this- there is no 'magic' quality to these weapons- it is merely a very sophisticated composition of the natural qualities that the material components of these weapons already posses.
These differ to the sorts of things being created by evil magicians- Sauron's ring, for example. The One Ring was created with the express purpose of dominating the will of others, and as far as Tolkien was concerned, this was not only perhaps the purest conception of evil, but also (and by no means incidentally) against the natural order of Ëa, Eru Illûvetar himself, and the 'real world' as he conceived it. So I figure that not only was the purpose (and therefore use) of the one ring representative of a corruption of the natural order, but also that it would probably thus stand to reason that it's composition and method of creation would also have involved such a corruption.
In other words, an elven sword glows blue because it's maker had a sufficient level of skill and understanding to bring out this natural quality in the base materials. The One Ring cannot dominate others as a result of the same process, as this would mean that through wholly natural manipulation of wholly natural components Sauron had achieved something wholly *unnatural*- and as there is no unnatural quality to the wholly natural materials sauron used, then the missing component must be a product of Sauron's will alone, and this is where the distinction between art and magic is to be found.
What this means is that Gandalf can use fire to fight and kill a balrog, for example, and this would be the result of his natural affinity with the secret flame, as well as his skill and understanding of fire in all its physical forms, and this would be his art. He can even become slightly more, ahem, assertive with a certain hobbit on the subject of leaving a certain ring behind before setting off for rivendell, but even this could be argued to be more a revealing of his truer nature as a maiar in order to combat the very much *magical* effect of aforementioned ring. In any case, Gandalf in this instance is not trying to subvert Bilbo's will in the slightest; he is really just giving him something to worry about besides losing the ring so that he might come back to his senses.
This is in stark contrast to Sauron, Saruman's voice, the piercing gaze of Morgoth, or the enchantment of Glaurung, all of which are explicitly employed to completely enthrall the intended recipient and make them entirely subject to the caster's will.
I guess this is the only way in which intentionality really plays any role- if the intention of the act or object is to subvert the will of another, then the performance of such an act or creation of such an object will in itself require some additional force of will that will necessarily be 'magical' by Tolkien's definition. The main thing you have to bear in mind here is that this requires a VERY specific definition of 'subvert'- we do not mean persuade, or blackmail, or coerce, but to totally dominate the will of another, for this to work.
Essentially, if I throw a ball of fire at you, yes you can argue that it may be very much against your will to be hit by a fireball, but I'm just going to say 'hey, I only threw the fireball dude, I didn't force you to be hit by it.'
As a measure of just how evil someone like Sauron is, in this example he would both throw the fireball AND make you stand there as it hit you in the face.
Back in the Shire, when Bilbo hears Thorin and Co., singing of Erabor, it states that he was transported into the song, in a way. Do, do Dwarves have the singing "magic" as well? Also, didn't Tom Bombedil have a type of "singing magic", over trees, rain, and Barrowrights?
Not clear how potent Dwarvish songs are but they do have some kinds of “magic.” And Bombadil is a strange case-it’s not clear if his power comes from song or if that’s just how he always communicates 😂
So it seems like magic is messing with the world outside of its natural physical properties. Art is some kind of method of expression or understanding, so it influences the physical world mostly indirectly or in the mind of the observers. Different still from the domination of the rings. I say this as someone who hasn't actually read the books. Nice analysis.
The difference between magic, art and technology is not solid. Technology, when it's beautiful, can be magic too. In my opinion Tolkien cared more about beauty and care than anything, so technology could be magic (or elven) and so they were treated indistinguishable. Feanor's craftmanship, Galadriel's mirror, the palantirs, the rings of power... they don't seem different to me in their essence. Nothing in this video leads me to think technology, art and magic are three different things.
I think the line is fuzzy everywhere. Magic in this universe seems to be just the will of the creator, transcending his physical work (which is very poetic thinking that Tolkien would probably have wanted that same thing for his real books).
I think you guys are making lines where there are none. Or at least, this video doesn't tell me otherwise. Maybe I didn't understand something.
Do you have a very interesting take on the rings of power in this in terms of their magic. Very interesting to listen to. But I could talk more but, I think you’re on the right track
Great video!
Make a video about Tevido, Prince of Cats and how Tolkien abandoned him from Beren And Luthien.
Maybe not your kind of video though I am curious about him.
Going over the Lost Tales stuff some day is on the agenda, but I can’t say when lol.
Question: Is Beira
That was a typo
Elven rope: don't forget, the elves of Lorian said they could have taught Sam how to make it, had they known he was interested in making such things. Unless the magic is something everyone could do, it isn't magic.
While you hit on the elven blades, you didn't mention the Westernesse daggers, which also have a sort of innate magic, based perhaps on the hate of the Witch-King and his followers, at least the wraith, and these weapons are human made, not elven made.
Does Tolkien distinguish between Art and Magic?
My answer would be a straight No.
Elfs and dwarves and the numenoreans all use craftmanship to make things that don’t follow the normal laws of the world, as hobbits or muggles understand them. So that’s clearly magic. Legolas has foot magic. Aragorn has ranger magic. Even hobbits have stealth magic.
And yeah, Middle Earth or Ea doesn’t operate on the same physical laws as our world. You can’t demolish a fortress by singing at it, or make talking swords by hammering on them extra good, not in our world. So that is my muggle understanding of magic. Now Galadriel as a super advanced mage might make distinctions that aren’t really meaningful with a cruder understanding of what she actually does. But my head canon is that her refusal to equate what she does and what Sauron does is rhetorical more than factual.
So the difference between the black powder analogy that Gandalf use for fireworks (very big and elaborate party tricks) and the black powder analogy that Saruman uses against the walls of Helmsdeep, is in my opinion, only a difference of purpose. As a magical technology, it is the same fire magic.
Gandalf also uses his magical ring to inspire and uplift people, giving them a morale boost. Sauron can inspire and enrage his orcs, giving them a morale boost. In my opinion, as a rpg nerd, in game mechanics it is very similar. It is evil sorcery when people we don’t like do it and beautiful elven inspiration when our friends do it.
Is Beorn’s shape-shifting considered magic? Also, Finrod’s duel of songs of wizardry with Sauron-this would seem a clear use of magic. Did Tolkien ever comment on these?
Finrod’s song was “magic” in the sense we think of it, though to that Galadriel might bristle. As for Beorn, Gandalf says he is “under no enchantment but his own” but it’s not clear he really means Beorn enchanted himself, so that one is a question mark.
@@TolkienLorePodcast Yes... I’m going by the poem’s lines “The chanting swelled, Felagund fought, and all the magic and might he brought of Elvenesse into his words...” so it seems from the text it is explicitly magic that Finrod is using, tho maybe that is a Mannish rendition.
Devil's advocate here: perhaps Galadriel's question to Frodo about his definition of magic encompassing both her art and Sauron's power is just wishful thinking on her part; as a flawed character with questionable motives, she wants to believe her art comes from a different place than Sauron's does, as though lying to herself enough would make that true.
You need some fairly strong evidence for that considering Tolkien endorsed her question. 😉