Enchantment or advancement.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

I a couple of threads (namely this one (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=15318) and this one (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=14531)) it has been noted that military advancement in Middle Earth isn't particually evident. Indeed, this seems to be a common thread in fantasy and myth.

Tolkien's world is steeped in myths and legends, especially Norse. In the worlds of these tales we rarely see technological advancement, but rather the seeking of enchantment. How many legends have the hero seeking a magic sword or jewel? A fair few. Even Caliburn and Excalibur from Arthurian myth have certain magical properties. The sword Tyrfing (or Tirfing?) from Norse is another.

Now look at modern fantasy. Indeed, this is what brought the thought to mind. In George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire the greatest swords are 'Velerian Steel' which are forged with magic. Moreover, dragons, horns, and words are valued more if they are more magical and, in most cases, therefore older. In Michael Moorcock's Elric series, the hero bears the black sword ( ;) ) Stormbringer; another magical / possessed sword.

There are many more.

In Middle Earth we have Elvish blades, or better yet, ones forged in Valinor, are prised higher than things made much later. Indeed, Middle Earth seems to be on a downward slope when it comes to weapons development. Mordor opts for the quickly reproduced stuff to arm its legions. The elves are diminishing and only have time, it seems, to reforge Anduril.

Indeed, this old sword inspires more hope than any new one. But why? Is it the magical properties (which, in Middle Earth, seem to stretch only a little beyond glowing action) or is it something more?

To my mind, the old, enchanted swords have stories attached to them; famous hands wielded them, great deeds were done with them. It is the stories that inspire men more than the fact that it is an enchanted blade. I think this is why Tolkien does not go to great lengths to describe what magical properties elvish weapons may or may not have. Beyong glowing.

Gandalf prises Glamdring because it is from Gondolin, and the whole story that goes with it. Frodo prises Sting because Bilbo gave it to him and the stories of his adventures go with it.

But enchantment is not always a good thing. The Ring, for example, is magic and very bad. Very bad indeed. Not the metal itself, but what went into it, perhaps. The Nazgul have been enchanted, in a way, so that they are no longer living or dead. They are also very bad indeed.

Thinking about this caused me to wonder what point the enchantment or magic plays. Is it just for that shiver of wonder that the idea of magic encourages? Perhaps the magic almost represents the past, the stories and the people who were (and are) important to those in the story now? Without the memory of Sauron's fall and the fact that Isildur bore it, would Narsil be just another elvish blade?

What do you think?

[Lalwendë]

If I offered you a couple of swords to pick from and one was all shiny and ornate and new, while the other was battered and ugly and old, which would you pick? Now if I told you that the old one had killed such and such a dragon, that it had been wielded at an ancient battle, and so on, which would you choose then?

I think you're spot on, part of the 'magic' is in the stories and the history behind such things.

You could almost apply it to anything really - cars, churches, furniture... Older things have histories attached to them, which makes them intrinsically more interesting to anyone with a shred of romance in their soul. Even if the history is a sad or disturbing one it has the same effect - you might not choose that item if given a choice, if it had such a dark history, but you would still find it more fascinating.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

If I offered you a couple of swords to pick from and one was all shiny and ornate and new, while the other was battered and ugly and old, which would you pick? Now if I told you that the old one had killed such and such a dragon, that it had been wielded at an ancient battle, and so on, which would you choose then?

Great illustration, lal! :)

Even if the history is a sad or disturbing one it has the same effect - you might not choose that item if given a choice, if it had such a dark history

Although, The Ring has a very dark history and yet many still chose to take it. Maybe this has to do with what the stories say. Sauron used the Ring to gain great power. Others, knowing this, may desire that same power. To imitate him, or put right what he did. I think it is still partly the story that is the magnet, so to speak.

I'm pretty sure that in On Fairy Stories or some other essay, Tolkien talks about the magical 'pull' that stories have. I will find quotes in the morning, I think. :D

[Rumil]

A couple of random points to throw in here..

LoTR seems to me to be set in a Dark Age/Early Mediaeval milieu (approximatelyish naturally). In Britain the people of those times sometimes looked back to the remains of Roman civilisation and wondered at the power of the Ancients (eg. central heating, aqueducts, municipal buildings, Hadrian's Wall etc etc) . Therefore some sort of respect and awe for artefacts of a bygone age seems appropriate.

Was it Arthur C Clarke that said any sufficiently advanced technology is viewed as 'magic' by those unfamiliar with it? I'm sure Tolkien would have hated the idea that eg. Sting was the product of high-tech rather than 'craft' but the effect is the same, both Sting and a light-sabre could cut deep into a wooden beam at a single stroke!

[Lalwendë]

Some people will be drawn to 'dark' things that have a sinister story attached to them - which is why they now often knock down houses where famous murders have happened as ghoulish people often go to visit them. Most people would avoid things like that with a wide berth, knowing the stories.

I wonder if Bilbo would have left The Ring, had he known exactly what it was? I like to think he would, as his character wasn't the type that would be drawn to take it, more to run away from such a thing! He'd still have loved the story of it though.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Was it Arthur C Clarke that said any sufficiently advanced technology is viewed as 'magic' by those unfamiliar with it?

Highly advanced technology is almost indistinguishable from magic. The opposite is also true. ;)

[Lalwendë]

The Smiths of old (as in forgers of metals, not the band with gladioli-toting singer ;)) used to be thought of as great magicians by ordinary people who saw them turning rocks into weapons and could not explain it other than as magic.

There's the old folk story about Wayland's Smithy, where local people would leave their horses and come back next day to find them with iron shoes fitted...

[Mnemosyne]

Was it Arthur C Clarke that said any sufficiently advanced technology is viewed as 'magic' by those unfamiliar with it? I'm sure Tolkien would have hated the idea that eg. Sting was the product of high-tech rather than 'craft' but the effect is the same, both Sting and a light-sabre could cut deep into a wooden beam at a single stroke!

Eh... really? Sting could cleave spiderwebs, because spiders were a threat in the land where it was forged, but as far as I know the enemies of the elves of the First Age weren't Evil Ents that required +3 Woodchopping Swords. One of the better things, IMO, about fantastic weapons is that they can be specialized like that, so that you don't have superweapons like lightsabers, sonic screwdrivers, etc., that people need to come up with increasingly creative methods to stop.

Which is rather beside the point.

What I find to be an irritating trend in non-realistic literature is this need to come up with scientific explanations for everything that is beyond the reader's understanding. It was cool when Anne McCaffrey did it, but I hope no one will disagree with me when I say that the "midichlorian" explanation of the Force killed a lot of the fun of Star Wars.

Where did this need to rationalize everything come from?

In Tolkien you don't get that: you get runes of virtue and songs so powerful they inspire visions and athelas and curses that have an effect. And you get old, powerful objects the like of which will never be made again--the Silmarils, which contain only a fraction of the light of the Trees, whose power is harnessed, again at a fraction of its true level, in Frodo's star-glass (which then passes over the Sea :()

The enchantment is more powerful than advancement, I would argue, because the Story has to continue. In one sense the continuity of artifacts like this is what makes them powerful.

One other area I would extend this inquiry into, and that's the healing arts of the Elves and of Gondor. Aside from the mention of athelas and possibly some singing, we never get any detail of what this knowledge was or how it worked. I've run across stories in fantasy that do try to give detail and it never works for me because I can tell that the writer is a modern-day person, using modern-day knowledge to diagnose someone ailing and then trying to mask that knowledge. (The quickest example that comes to mind is a piece of fan fiction in which Aragorn performed surgery on a man with cancer!)

So to what extent is less more when an author portrays items of wondrous power? Is an explanation of how it works more or less appealing than a tale of its history proving how effective it's been in the past?

[Rumil]

Hi All,

Strangely Mnem I agree with you, notwithstanding the following...

He took from the box a small sword in an old shabby leathern scabbard. Then he drew it, and its polished and well-tended blade glittered suddenly, cold and bright, 'This is Sting,' he said, and thrust it with little effort deep into a wooden beam. 'Take it, if you like. I shan't want it again, I expect.'

The part I agree with is that mysteriousness should be preserved, and similarly dislike the urge to science-up fantasy. I prefer there to be countless creatures of strange types in the Wild, Giants in the Misty Mountains and a veil of uncertainty (and perhaps decency!) to be drawn over the origins of orcs.

My only point being that if you have some ancient sword of immense history in our world, its just an old sword with an interesting story, however in LoTR it can also be better, more useful and more functional, just as if it was from an advanced tech. Agree with Lal the Smith was somewhat of an uncanny figure steeped in ancient mysteries in legend!

I also liked the comeback to Clarke that any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced ;). (Must take deep breaths to avoid an impassioned OT rant on the evils of distinctly unmagical Office 2007, breathe, breathe).

[Mnemosyne]

Rumil, I stand corrected.

[BGreg]

The part I agree with is that mysteriousness should be preserved, and similarly dislike the urge to science-up fantasy.

True, true. There is a very good story on that subject by George R.R. Martin, it's called "With Morning Comes Mistfall". I've just read it recently, and it basically supports everything you said here. :)

[Hookbill the Goomba]

What I find to be an irritating trend in non-realistic literature is this need to come up with scientific explanations for everything that is beyond the reader's understanding. It was cool when Anne McCaffrey did it, but I hope no one will disagree with me when I say that the "midichlorian" explanation of the Force killed a lot of the fun of Star Wars.

Where did this need to rationalize everything come from?

I've had some first had experience of this, actually. In a writing work-shop I submitted the prologue to a book I'm writing. It contained a scene with some fire doing some very odd things (burning through stone, worming through streets and setting people on fire without killing them).
Someone said "Fire doesn't do this!"
I tried to explain that it was significant to the story and that "Later in the tale it will be revealed that the fire itself is a living thing."
They asked "How do you explain that scientifically?"
"I won't. ;) "
They were horrified.

It has occurred to me that some who are unfamiliar with fantasy get very used to stories where everything is explained and they walk away from it thinking "Well, that was all very nearly sorted out". Not that there isn't some merit in this, but I think it is more of a delusion and fantastical thinking than dragons and wizards. This is where, in my opinion, fantasy triumphs in its depiction of things that are simply true, full stop. There is always mystery and enchantment, not everything is explained.
There's that good quote from Sean Penn, "When everything gets answered, it's a fake. The mystery is the truth".

I think that enchanted items illustrate this idea very effectively. They are more than tools to defeat the enemy, they have stories and mysteries behind them and almost become characters in their own right. Gurthang, the black sword, even gives us a little speech. :D

[Nogrod]

To have a good conversation someone must disagree a bit so that we'll continue to have a lively discussion. So let me play a kind practise-target to you guys. :)

I didn't find the midichlorian-thing making the Force in Star Wars uninteresting or dull. Quite the contrary. It became a kind of interesting idea, like qualitatively different atoms or something. And I wouldn't mind there being a scientifically satisfactory explanation to how the Palantirs work either (not that I am craving for such an explanation).

I think there is an issue of both misrepresenting science & underestimating it's creativity / overestimating our imagination.

Take the latter first. After the era of romanticism we have been in love with our "inner imagination" over the "dull reality". But it was already during the middle-ages that people realised what imagination is; it's a capability to rearrange things we have seen and to set normative & alternative views to the reality. Take a horn some animals have and put it on a horse and you get a unicorn. Look at a poor neighbourhood and imagine it rich (we know what being rich could be like) - just follow the cultural history of "afterlife" or "paradise" to see how it is tied to peoples' imagination that is dependent on the level of technology & culture of any given time and place.
God didn't give Moses and his people tanks and machine-guns - or send them buses or trains to get rid of the following Egyptians as that kind of technology had not yet been conceived of by men when the story was told and so people could not imagine them.
Confronted with odd experiences that had to do with light people used to imagine seeing angels (shiny people-like creatures with wings like birds have) and all kinds of similarly-built creatures. Nowadays we tend to see also Ufo's (technological devices looking more or less those things we now can build ourselves). One could continue this list...

So what we imagine is tied to what we have experienced. And mind you, most of the "new perspectives" that have really changed our way of looking at the world or which have actually changed our envirovenment come from science. The universality of abstractions, the theory of atoms or that of evolution, or dark matter or whatever you wish. Just mind-boggling ideas that easily make our mythologies look like unimaginative commonplaces - and just continuation of billiontimes used ideas.

So I'd say science is creative but our everyday imagination is less inventive.

Then the first point about misrepresenting science. I hear people saying oftentimes that science destroys the magic from the world. But does it really? (look above) Or they say that science only concerns itself with matter (which is normally thought of in a way of solid things like tables or flesh-built animals) and forgets the other things there must be.

But science is not tied to what we can see and feel. Science studies also energy, waves, quarks, laws of nature (can you see them?). In a sense theory of evolution or quantum-physics are more fantastic than any fantasy-novel will ever be. They make you draw breath and just look at them in awe. Comparing those ideas to some fantasy-character surviving death and coming back as a superhero look quite pale indeed.

And a cool thing about science is that it says openly that there are a lot of things we don't yet understand or know. Take human mind as an example. Science says that it's one of the most complex things in the whole universe. It has something to do with electricity-passing neurons and the chemical reactions in it can be tracked to certain extent. But frankly we have just taken the few preliminary steps into understanding a human mind. That I think is fascinating!

And if scientific studies suggest that we need to change our conceptions on what matter is, what is life, what being itself is, then science will change itself to make room for better views of reality (whatever that is...). The case of human mind is to the point. I'm eagerly looking forwards to the next breakthrough in science about mind which might actually challenge our everyday conceptions of matter and consciousness...

A new step there wouldn't spoil the miracle but would enhance it and raise it to a new level!

All that said, I do love and appreciate mythology and fantasy to the fullest. I just think science is not a threat to it but a well from where our imagination can replenish itself to become even more fantastic.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

All that said, I do love and appreciate mythology and fantasy to the fullest. I just think science is not a threat to it but a well from where our imagination can replenish itself to become even more fantastic.

Oh, I agree. But I have always felt that scientific explanation often feels very out of place in fantasy. For me, science fiction and fantasy are two different things and I do get annoyed when they are lumped together. ;) I don't deny their similarities, but I do think they work in different ways.

To some extent, science often is the discovery of things ancient and unknown. Especially in terms of cosmology and quantum physics. These are things that have always been true and we are only now learning. But in terms of stories science works in a very different way, I think.

If the Lord of the Rings had been more science fiction based, it would not surprise me if, when considering how to defeat Sauron, they analysed his giant flaming eye (if this were Sci-fi, I doubt it could be seen as metaphoric... just go with me on this. :D ). Having done this, they'd probably gather some big buckets of water and construct some way of flinging them at him.

Magic and enchantment works on a slightly different plain. The rules that govern it are much less bound to reason, you could argue. The ring is not a physical part of Sauron, and yet its destruction can cause his death (or however you want to say it). The only thing binding Sauron to the Ring is his life-force, power or will. This is a much stranger thing and not so easily dealt with.
Again, in a science fiction arena, I suspect that the Ring would hold Sauron's 'psychic imprint' or some such and that reversing the polarity would cause feedback and so blow him up. All of which is done in the safety of the lab. ;)
The magical connection between Sauron, the Ring and Mount Doom are what drive the story on. They give the journey a focus.

Perhaps I'm talking nonsense. I usually am.

[skip spence]

And mind you, most of the "new perspectives" that have really changed our way of looking at the world or which have actually changed our envirovenment come from science. The universality of abstractions, the theory of atoms or that of evolution, or dark matter or whatever you wish. Just mind-boggling ideas that easily make our mythologies look like unimaginative commonplaces - and just continuation of billiontimes used ideas.
...
So I'd say science is creative but our everyday imagination is less inventive.

Then the first point about misrepresenting science. I hear people saying oftentimes that science destroys the magic from the world. But does it really? (look above) Or they say that science only concerns itself with matter (which is normally thought of in a way of solid things like tables or flesh-built animals) and forgets the other things there must be.
...
All that said, I do love and appreciate mythology and fantasy to the fullest. I just think science is not a threat to it but a well from where our imagination can replenish itself to become even more fantastic.

Well said. I too feel that science gets an undeserved bad rep sometimes. Reminds me about a discussion I had recently with a lady friend while watching a beautiful sunset. She thought that such a marvellous phenomena must mean that there is some higher power somewhere. I disagreed and said that what we are experiencing isn't actually a "sunset" in truth but an interpretation that our brain is making based on information it's received from the eyes having picked up photons that have radiated from the sun some 10 minutes earlier and hit the earth's atmospheric particles at a certain angle. This we perceive as a thing of beauty because of the wiring in our head. She felt it was a very unromantic and dull way of looking at a sunset. I tried to explain that from this perspective it is ourselves that are amazing and mysterious, not some divine entity somewhere, and that all the beauty and mystery in the world is in our mind. And ain't that magic?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I have to side with Hookbill here in one sense: the irrationality. There are two completely different things - for myself, I like even SF (lot of it), and I think I have even read more of that than of fantasy. I even enjoy the sort of "mixed genres" - provided it is good! - but I would never, NEVER let anything like that be dragged into Middle-Earth as I know it.

I have had an era, sometime, let's say, few years after I read LotR for the first time, when I wanted to explain some things in LotR scientifically. For example, I wondered if the Trolls cannot be an Si-based lifeform, or something like that. Why not. But that is far beyond me nowadays. LotR is purely fantastic world for me, and Trolls are Trolls.

The advantage of the fantasy worlds is that you don't actually need any explanations at all. The things just work, and that is the interesting thing about them, the mystery, sort of. Maybe it works only for certain kind of people. Some people wish to know what really is the thing they hold in their hand, what atoms is it made of. However, is it really necessary? I remember when I was small, I did NOT want to know what's beyond the forest which marked the horizon across the field from my family's summer cottage. Nowadays I know that there was a downhill slope beyond it, and a village. A village I knew even back then, but I just did not realise it was so close to our cottage! But back then, I did not want to know, and I did not care to know - there was Withered Heath beyond it, obviously, where the great dragons dwelled.

Nogrod is right about the way the mythology works, and how it "develops" - but still, one wants to have also in the kind of primal mythology, no scientific explanations of why a dragon can breathe the flames. And one wants dragons and not Xzers from planet of Kwoon.

And as for the Star Wars, it was not that bad with the midichlorians, it was an interesting idea by itself - but it indeed killed one possibility of understanding the Force. From the original movies (4, 5, 6) one had a completely different view of Force. It still could have been midichlorians, if one imagined it work that way, but with showing the midichlorians, nobody could anymore understand the Force "just" as a "force".

EDIT: x-ed with Skip.

All right, I think what you said brings me actually better to clearing up what I have in mind. It's not that understanding what the sunset is would not have its own interest, but at the same point one has to know that the irrationality (like especially us from the Greek-European culture forget too often) is not necessarily anything "bad" or "ignorant". It's based on feelings, which do not have anything to do with rationality.

Most of all however, one has to know that the science by itself does not cancel the beauty of the sunset, you are still being capable of accepting it in the way "as it is". Of course, it's just about that in this case, one of the people watching the sunset does not disturb the other one with scientific bragging when the other is not interested and wants just to watch the sunset, and vice versa :D

[Lalwendë]

I was kinda enjoying examining how story and magic are intertwined, but science Vs fantasy is just as good a topic so lets pick up on that....;)

I wouldn't mind there being a scientifically satisfactory explanation to how the Palantirs work either (not that I am craving for such an explanation).

You can easily find an in-world explanation for how they may work. Tolkien did seem to leave us lots of clues, his brand of 'magic' isn't just this intangible thing, it is fairly coherent.

So what we imagine is tied to what we have experienced. And mind you, most of the "new perspectives" that have really changed our way of looking at the world or which have actually changed our envirovenment come from science. The universality of abstractions, the theory of atoms or that of evolution, or dark matter or whatever you wish. Just mind-boggling ideas that easily make our mythologies look like unimaginative commonplaces - and just continuation of billiontimes used ideas.

Isn't it interesting how physicists seem to coin some of the most poetic language to describe their findings? You could say "Ah, they're all nerds who gre up reading fantasy and sci-fi! No wonder!" but to me it suggests that these discoveries and theories are as close as we humans can come to magic in the real world. I can read an article on Physics and find my mind being blown as much as it is from reading Tolkien or Watchmen or His Dark Materials (and of course Moore and Pullman themselves dabble with a bit of science in their stories) or from watching Doctor Who.

The applied sciences, namely technology, may not be such a pretty thing, and Tolkien thought it was ugly, but theoretical science is beautiful - and I think you can see Tolkien thought so - look at his dabblings with sanwe and world crafting etc.

So...

I have always felt that scientific explanation often feels very out of place in fantasy. For me, science fiction and fantasy are two different things and I do get annoyed when they are lumped together. I don't deny their similarities, but I do think they work in different ways.

To some extent, science often is the discovery of things ancient and unknown. Especially in terms of cosmology and quantum physics. These are things that have always been true and we are only now learning. But in terms of stories science works in a very different way, I think.

I think it depends on the type of science fiction and the type of fantasy. "We are all post-modern now" as someone said (;)) and there's much more interplay between styles and genres. Take a perfect example of Doctor Who. That's classic sci-fi...or is it? It's also all wrapped up in an incredible mythos. It's also not actually necessary to know how the Tardis or Regeneration works. It just does (unless it has gone into the Time Rift, heh).

I don't mind if they are used together as it's all just fantasy to me, whether it's about wizards or superheroes, and so long as it works well it's fine by me! In general, I do prefer it when something which is more sci-fi takes on fantasy elements than vice versa though (His Dark Materials is a notable exception). That's probably because strict fantasy is really fairy story and as such, the illusion is easily shattered.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

I was kinda enjoying examining how story and magic are intertwined

You just made me think of something possibly relevant to this...

A lot of ancient cultures place high value in names, in some mythologies, knowing someone's name can give a wizard certain power over them. Quite often the names are more than identifying labels. When I was studying Hebrew I noticed that several commentators (especially Jewish mystics) went to great lengths to say that names were mystical because they had deeper meanings. Some went to the extent of studying each letter of the alphabet and giving each character it's own, well, character.
I like this idea. In some cases the names become stories and it is the stories and significances that give them power. A good example would be the name of God according the the Torah. YHVH. In Hebrew it is yud, hey, vav, hey. These are all 'breathing sounds', each letter having specific connotations with breath and life. So the name itself gains all these meanings and more.

I think this is where I draw the main distinction between magic and technology (rather than science, pér sé). The former is a power drawn from history, a connection with the old and a bridge for ancient stories to invade the present. The latter is building over the past, moving further away from it. Neither is particually bad, mind you. Both serve different purposes. But for the writer of fantasy, magic is the great tool to open the imagination to the great histories of the secondary world. For the writer of science fiction, technology draws the reader into the future of the secondary world.

Does that make any kind of sense?

[Bêthberry]

For one thing, they are now old, and antiguity has an appeal in itself--distance and a great abyss of time. . . . They open a door on Another Time, and if we pass through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own time, outside of Time itself, maybe.

So, perhaps it isn't magic per se, or even unreachable technology, but simply the distancing effect?

[Alfirin]

I personally have never had a problem with science being somehow ugly or disheartening, or making my awe dimish. I think Douglas Adams said it best when he said (on his reveiw of Richard Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker "I'll take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day."

Doffing my science hat for the moment. On the subeject of old famous items=magic items. I'ce always felt it was something along the lines of every person who uses something, like a sword or book leaves a little of themselves in it. When you make use of the item you somehow tap into all of those selves and they become part of you too (The closest term I can think of from my fantasy memories would be something like the polynesian "mana" though I suscept the real definition of "mana" has nothing to do with what I'm talking about (please forgive me for my ignorance (I only just recently discovered that I had be using the word "paladin" completey wrong for years, that the textbook defintion had nothng to do with what I though it did (I though that it has something to do with a life of pure selflesness, that a pladin was a knight or warrior who devoted his life wholly twords the service of any who needed him giving all of himself and taking absoultely nothing, no matter how badly he needed it). As an item gets older there also seems to be an inherent concvept of all those peices of usness become a for lack of a better word "soul" for the item, independent of the soul of any of the users. This is in Tolkien someone has alsready mention gurthang apperent abilty to talk. I also find a lot of this concept in other folklore, proaby most extmely in the concept (common in much Japanese mythology) that if you usa practically any object long enough it will develop a life of its own (all those lantern spirtis and living umbrellas) I'm going to finsh now, lest I make a bigger confusing fool of my self that I already have.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

I personally have never had a problem with science being somehow ugly or disheartening, or making my awe dimish. I think Douglas Adams said it best when he said (on his reveiw of Richard Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker "I'll take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day."

I think both kinds of awe are nice. :) They each serve a different purpose, in my opinion. But we are talking in terms of literature. Well I am anyway. In tales (especially fantasy) the awe of the unknown seems to fit better and add to the draw of the story. In real life, the pursuit of understanding should be encouraged. But, enough of my brain patterns...

(The closest term I can think of from my fantasy memories would be something like the polynesian "mana" though I suscept the real definition of "mana" has nothing to do with what I'm talking about

Perhaps not. In a few semetic languages 'mana' means 'who is it?' (not 'what is it', a common mistranslation). I don't know if it's the same origin, but we don't want to get into a linguistics debate now do we? ;)

As an item gets older there also seems to be an inherent concvept of all those peices of usness become a for lack of a better word "soul" for the item, independent of the soul of any of the users. This is in Tolkien someone has alsready mention gurthang apperent abilty to talk.

Yes. Moreover, I'm pretty sure Melian says to Beleg, of the sword, that it has something of its maker within it. Was it the malice? I can't seem find the passage right now. :o

Originally Posted by OFS
For one thing, they are now old, and antiguity has an appeal in itself--distance and a great abyss of time. . . . They open a door on Another Time, and if we pass through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own time, outside of Time itself, maybe.

So, perhaps it isn't magic per se, or even unreachable technology, but simply the distancing effect?

Great quote, Bêthberry. For my own part, and I think the sentiment of Tolkien's statement kind of agrees, it is the fact that it is distant, but also that we are being connected to it. Enchantment is the bridge by which the past is brought into the present. Perhaps, technology is the bridge by which the present is brought into the future? Now where's that Police Box?

[Nogrod]

Nice to see a lively discussion!

On the subeject of old famous items=magic items. I'ce always felt it was something along the lines of every person who uses something, like a sword or book leaves a little of themselves in it. When you make use of the item you somehow tap into all of those selves and they become part of you too I think the modern theory of atoms states that everytime you're in contact with something you "exchange" atoms with that something whether it's the table you lean your hand on or the shirt you wear - or the dear person you touch (you see, it can also be romantic even if it's scientific! :)). When you're reluctant to throw that dear sweater of yours into the lumps, couldn't it be that one reason for it is that you know the cloth is partly you yourself as you have worn it for so long and so much of you - purely materialistically on the level of atoms - is there, in it?

That basic idea has sent my thoughts on those old rugged sea-farers; fishermen and the like. I think you all have a mental image of how those old men look like all over the world. Just look at their skin. Weather-worn or -beaten we say. But how about you just think that they have partly become the sea themselves; the salted water, the wind, the rain... They look like that! I think that is quite poetic indeed, awesome and mysterious!

No, I'm not attempting here a scientific interpretation of how the Ring wears it's user down on atomic level and why one should thence not use it. I agree with many here that in the core of fantasy there is a kind of implicit agreement that not all things should be "explained away". As I said, I'm not looking forwards or even wishing to have a scientific theory over the Palantiri or things like that. But I do think we lovers of fantasy, fiction, arts and humanities disrepute the natural sciences too easily and think we have the creativity and imagination - and the most fulfilling and spectacular visions of the world. And that clearly is not the case.

Isn't it interesting how physicists seem to coin some of the most poetic language to describe their findings? You could say "Ah, they're all nerds who gre up reading fantasy and sci-fi! No wonder!" but to me it suggests that these discoveries and theories are as close as we humans can come to magic in the real world. I couldn't agree more!

Legate called for irrationality. Hmm... I'm not sure if I would like to live in an irrational world (on the level of how things work - just think of living in a perpetual "improbability drive" by Douglas Adams where your arm could change into a bowl of petunias any minute or a giant spermwhale might materialise out from nowhere) - or if I would like to read of one.* Even fantasy-worlds have their "rules" and consistant regularities. They would be totally unintelligible without that. We don't need to spell out those rules out in fantasy though and that's quite okay with me. But fantasy is not irrational.

Humans are able of irrational behaviour. Now that is a mystery and an awesome fact - and brings us back to the question of human mind of which we know only a tiny little bit so far. That unexplicability of our own minds makes the question fascinating - but not because it's unexplicable or irrational as such in principle, but because there is hope that some people thousand years from now may understand a little more than we do - and may have totally different view of how this world works far more radical anyone of us could dream of today. And that I'd call exciting!

A case in point is what Hookbill talks about the kabbalistic tradition - and the same would go about the pythagoreans with numbers (from whom the jewish mystics learned a lot). It is something our modern-day understanding thinks of as mystical or something; but it is a system of regularities, rules and laws! They only base themselves on different basic presumptions than the modern science does. So kabbalistic tradition is not irrational - on the contrary: kabbala could be criticised of being too rationalistic and mathematic!

The world being rational (like Hegel said) is still no hindrance to it being wonderful or awesome.

The power of a magnet was deemed magical before it was understood it was a natural phenomenon. But to me it doesn't at all diminish the awe that I can see an object drawing another one to itself from a distance away. I'm still fascinated by magnetism even if I "know" it's just a natural thing.

Oh my... I seem to have gotten far off from where I started and the inner logic of this post is collapsing any minute now so it's better I quit before it's too late... :rolleyes:


* Okay, I love absurd theater and surrealism, but I'm not sure those are as irrational as we oftentimes think.

[Bêthberry]

I'm wondering how many posts it will take to get from this discussion of science and kabbala to mention of Deepak Chopra's body-mind medicine, quantum healing and consciousness as a means of considering this enchantment/advancement contrast. :)

*a cookie to those who know that reference

[Nogrod]

I'm wondering how many posts it will take to get from this discussion of science and kabbala to mention of Deepak Chopra's body-mind medicine, quantum healing and consciousness as a means of considering this enchantment/advancement contrast. :)It has already done that... :D
*thanks for the cookie*

So back towards the original question then...
Without the memory of Sauron's fall and the fact that Isildur bore it, would Narsil be just another elvish blade?It probably would. Though it being an old elvish blade would make a difference in contrast to a newer one - or one made by plain men.

But this is an interesting question indeed. When you buy "electronica" you're always told the product you consider is on the cutting edge of technology, the newest of the new, but when you go and buy wine or whisky they tell you the producer has been around from the middle-ages and nothing in the production-process has been changed since (which is not true but that's another matter).

So why are some things better old than new and vice versa?

Let's make further comparisons.

How does it feel to be in a house which has been there for a thousand years compared to a house that has been built just last year? There is a marked difference there. But what is it?

How does it feel to look at a spoon at the museum someone used five thousand years ago compared to one you bought from Ikea last fall?

How does it feel to write with a typewriter from the eighties (with the correction-memory of twenty characters) compared to using your Microsoft Word with your PC?

How would it feel to lose your mobile phone and go back depending on a lined telephone stationed in your home?


So is it just pure utilitarianism? When you want to get something accomplished you pick the state of the art thing but when you just need to get kicks out from something you turn to the old ones? :rolleyes:

And here the idea of enchanted things comes to the fore. An enchanted thing is better than it's modern-day equivalent because unlike other old things, it's vested with powers or history advanced technology can't beat. So it looks like an argument saying old things can do the things you want to do with them better than the modern ones?

Or should we bring forwards this general idea of a "fall from grace" here? So in the earlier times everything was better and now all is crap? People used to live in paradise but now they are estranged from that holy or primordial union with God / nature / natural relation with the world... what have you?

That's a tough one.

[Bêthberry]

When you buy "electronica" you're always told the product you consider is on the cutting edge of technology, the newest of the new, but when you go and buy wine or whisky they tell you the producer has been around from the middle-ages and nothing in the production-process has been changed since (which is not true but that's another matter). . . .

So is it just pure utilitarianism? When you want to get something accomplished you pick the state of the art thing but when you just need to get kicks out from something you turn to the old ones? :rolleyes:


Oh what a conundrum! I'm sure there are some who combine both pure utilitarianism--wanting "to get something accomplished"--with "getting their kicks" by plying sweet young things with whiskey and wine. Here possibly the enchantment vs the enhancement would depend upon wither one was on the receiving or the wielding end of the sword. :D

*flicks cookie crumbs off your shoulder*

[Morthoron]

Let's make further comparisons.

How does it feel to be in a house which has been there for a thousand years compared to a house that has been built just last year? There is a marked difference there. But what is it?

How does it feel to look at a spoon at the museum someone used five thousand years ago compared to one you bought from Ikea last fall?

How does it feel to write with a typewriter from the eighties (with the correction-memory of twenty characters) compared to using your Microsoft Word with your PC?

How would it feel to lose your mobile phone and go back depending on a lined telephone stationed in your home?


So is it just pure utilitarianism? When you want to get something accomplished you pick the state of the art thing but when you just need to get kicks out from something you turn to the old ones? :rolleyes:

And here the idea of enchanted things comes to the fore. An enchanted thing is better than it's modern-day equivalent because unlike other old things, it's vested with powers or history advanced technology can't beat. So it looks like an argument saying old things can do the things you want to do with them better than the modern ones?

Or should we bring forwards this general idea of a "fall from grace" here? So in the earlier times everything was better and now all is crap? People used to live in paradise but now they are estranged from that holy or primordial union with God / nature / natural relation with the world... what have you?

That's a tough one.

I think the inference Tolkien makes is that there was indeed a 'fall from grace', and things turned to crap afterwards. Even Aragorn is a temprorary restoration of the faded greatness of the Edain. Whether he would admit it or not, Tolkien gravitated to the stoic Elvish sense of conservatism, even while admitting that the Elves were hopelessly stuck in the past to their detriment.

As far as newer technology as opposed to old world craftsmanship, I think we all know Tolkien sided with the latter. Saruman's use of gunpowder is referred to as 'devilry', and Dwarves like Thorin bemoan the loss of skills held by their forefathers. There is a certain glamor to the notion that what was made in previous centuries surpasses modern jerry-rigged contraptions, although the chances of entire cities burning down like London in 1666 have been mitigated by advances in engineering. It's all a matter of opinion, I suppose.

[Nogrod]

As far as newer technology as opposed to old world craftsmanship, I think we all know Tolkien sided with the latter. Saruman's use of gunpowder is referred to as 'devilry', and Dwarves like Thorin bemoan the loss of skills held by their forefathers. There is a certain glamor to the notion that what was made in previous centuries surpasses modern jerry-rigged contraptions, although the chances of entire cities burning down like London in 1666 have been mitigated by advances in engineering. It's all a matter of opinion, I suppose.I do agree with this. It looks like Tolkien was the conservative here - and not without justification when looked from one angle.

It's just self-evident to anyone of us that you can find coats and shoes of your grand-parents that are 50+ years old and are perfectly fine - but the coat you bought from the mall last year is already breaking down - there are an infinity of examples here.

We should also make a difference between modern technology (and science) and the capitalistic market economy which aims for maximum sales compromising quality for selling more. We who buy crap happily are the fools here.

But what you talk about devilry is one of the basic things people do. Everything people are used to before their twenties to thirties they tend to look as natural and everything developed after that they look as "devilry" or as something "un-natural" and to be avoided.

At the same time it's true we have lost some skills we had in earlier times. It was both fun and terrifying when there were news in Finnish media in the end of the nineties that we had to go for the US and Canada to look for expertise on building many-family wooden houses (like wooden block of flats). We Finns! The people of the primordial forest who have lived all alone looking after just our own things and everyone having all the possible skills there would be - and who have built everything from wood from the times immemorial! And now we people of the forest didn't know anymore how to build big houses from wood! That was a shame... :rolleyes:

So skills do vanish. How many of you remeber the telephone numbers of your friends and relatives by heart? I used to remember a couple of dozen phone-numbers back in the eighties but now I mainly just (still) remeber some of those I remembered back then... The cellphone remembers the newer ones for me. But I do not.

The so called "Gregorian chant" was invented around 600 AD in view of even the most uneducated guys in the backrow being able to sing along after one strophe. Nowadays only a trained musician can do that as the melodical phrases are just too long for our modern capabilities.

But as you imply, we're pretty happy about some advances and new skills we have learned. Blood transfusion or cancer treatment could be cases in point where we wouldn't like to be treated in a way people were a thousand years ago. Any wannabe mother should also think how she would like to give birth; in a modern hospital or in a medieval envirovment?

So a matter of opinion to be sure, but I'm not sure how relative that opinion is... :rolleyes:

The prof was for the conservative ideas and that was his world. And we should see the grandeur in that world-view. People long ago were really good at some things we can't think we could excell today - but we do and see many things better our ancestors did as well.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

All right, just a side comment for clarification to not further disrupt the ongoing discussion.

Legate called for irrationality. Hmm... I'm not sure if I would like to live in an irrational world (on the level of how things work - just think of living in a perpetual "improbability drive" by Douglas Adams where your arm could change into a bowl of petunias any minute or a giant spermwhale might materialise out from nowhere) - or if I would like to read of one.* Even fantasy-worlds have their "rules" and consistant regularities. They would be totally unintelligible without that. We don't need to spell out those rules out in fantasy though and that's quite okay with me. But fantasy is not irrational.

It is probably just about the use of words. What I meant by "irrationality" was rather "what would seem irrational to our current understanding of our world". So, simply, going along with the laws of the other world.

However, to note, one could say that often it's even subtler than things like that people can use magic to fly or that fire has personality. Basically, any literature is fantasy because it trespasses the laws of this world. In one way or another.

But sometimes - okay, perhaps the word is "mystery" - one does not want to know even all the laws of the fantasy world. In the sense that you want to take it "as it is". To show an example, even the mentioned kabbalah is a way of explanation of the world. But it's just another way, in our case, it's absolutely the same as when I explain the laws of the world based on modern physics. That's what I was talking about as well: sometimes, one doesn't want to search for the laws of the world, but just "live it". Sometimes. I am a seasoned world-builder and have created many fantastic worlds and one who does that usually likes to and describes the laws of that world, often. However, a reader more often than the writer can just accept the world as it is and does not need any explanations, mythical or otherwise, why the sun is green and how magic works. It has, of course, different levels of understanding, but whatever - that all would be for a longer debate and I am not going to start about it here. But I just hope it's clear what I had in mind. To return to the example cited above, we did not want to know how the Force works (midichlorians), it just is.

[Eönwë]

Just thought I'd make an interjection here.

I think that Tolkien, rather than having a hate for modern things, had a hate for mass-produced things. In the old days, people would spend years learning how to make each individual thing, learning a craft, whereas now it is all made by machines. The only physical job we need people for today is to do building and similar tasks. And soon that will probably be overtaken by robotics as well, and we as people will only have to either check that the machines that are checking whether machines are working are working (:cool:) or just do the purely creative things that machines can't do. And that is the one thing machines can't do- be creative and make new things. They can only work on what they have been given.

Anyway, let's say, in the times before machines, a swordsmith would spend many years learning his craft from another smith, being apprenticed to someone more experienced. They would get better at it, and then, they would create their masterpieces. The craftsman, the smith, would work on his sword, slowly and expertly first carving out a mould, then sharpening the blade and perfecting it. And those that were truly great would be reknowned throughout the land. The swords would contain some emothional, sentimental value because someone's hard work into it and they spent their time and effort making just that sword, perfecting it just for you.

Now compare that to the mass-produced products of today. Would you rather buy a sword crafted by the reknowned smith Telchar of Nogrod at his peak or one made by machine RX67-B? (even if that machine only produced, say, one sword per year)

Even today, there are all sorts of novelty and personalised items, because people like the feeling that something was made especially for them, rather than something mass produced by the millions. Because it is something unique, something that has some thought in it and isn't just automatic. The same goes for hand-made stuff. This is so out of the ordinary today that if someone makes something for someone with their own hands it is looked upon as much better than the equivalent that could be bought, even if the bought product is technically "better".

I think that Tolkien felt that as more things were becoming mechanised and made in factories, we, as people, were losing our ability to craft and were becoming slaves to the machines who do anything that we don't know how.

How many of us would be able to do all the things we do now or make all the things we make now without our technology? Most of the crafting knowledge is lost now that we have turned to machines to do the work for us.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Part of it is Tolkien's adoption of the 'air' of Beowulf etc, where old swords, heirloom swords, simply are better. The blade he subdivides Grendel's mother with is an 'ancient work of giants'- just like the Roman ruins that so intimidated the Old English. There was a pervasive sense that there was an earlier age of 'giants in the earth,' when swords were made by Wayland himself, when heroes (like Heracles or Walse) were the sons of gods.

The other side of it was Tolkien's basic premise in his legendarium, based on his pessimistic Catholicism: this is a fallen world; things are always getting worse. History is the "long defeat." The Silmarils will never be recreated, the Dwarves of Erebor can't rival their forbears' mail, no blades like those of Telchar or Gondolin can now be forged. Aragorn may be a hero, but he's no Beren or Hurin.

[Nogrod]

Well put William C.H.!

As the romances, Arthurian legends, the great mythical stories stem from the Middle-Ages, they naturally bear with them the medieval zeitgeist of feeling inferior to older times eg. the antiquity. (Well who forced them to deny and oppress science from the third century onwards? So it was their own fault in a way... :rolleyes:)

And the story of the fall in the Bible just enhanced the notion...


Although I must say Eonwë is up to important things as well with his talk about the craftmanship versus the machanical production of goods. Uniqueness and a known history of a thing make a difference - well, today they do.

But that has been different as well and quite lately so... I'm not old enough to remember the following myself but I have heard and read about the fifties and sixties when something made from plastic & from the assembly line was hip and cool and only the poor had hand-made old drawers, baskets, clothes etc. But there were remnants of that ideology even in my youth in the seventies when a pair of woollen socks made by a grandmother were the un-coolest Christmas-present there was to be imagined. Today they would be priceless!

Is it yet agan a question of rarity then? Things that are rare are valued and those that are common are not? Like being fat was stupendously great at times and now is not (depending how easy it is to be wealthy enough to eat or drink a lot)? Like being pale-white was adored at times and being tanned is at other times (depending on whether spending your days indoors are looked at as high-class or labour-like)? Like wearing hand-made woollen socks or having a two-hundred year old carpentered table in your living room is cool or not (depending on whether the majority of the people have them or not). Etc...

It's easy to see the logic of the Middle-Ages - and that of Tolkien - work this way...

[Eönwë]

Uniqueness and a known history of a thing make a difference - well, today they do.

But that has been different as well and quite lately so... I'm not old enough to remember the following myself but I have heard and read about the fifties and sixties when something made from plastic & from the assembly line was hip and cool and only the poor had hand-made old drawers, baskets, clothes etc. But there were remnants of that ideology even in my youth in the seventies when a pair of woollen socks made by a grandmother were the un-coolest Christmas-present there was to be imagined. Today they would be priceless!

But Tolkien didn't like industrialism and all the hype surrounding it. And though I wan't alive in the times you speak of, I'm guessing that people liked the mechanical made stuff more, because it was new fresh, and something different, but at the same time, it made it possible for everyone one. And everything would be the same, all "perfect" or something. Just like when you get imported fruit and things, they're all regular and "normal in shape. Just as slightly OT side note, for some reason they sell chicken eggs brown here in the UK, but the fact is that they're also all the same. There is a certain appeal to getting something that you know will be exactly what you wanted, nothing more, nothing less.

But now mass-production has become so popular that we are finding it boring, for the very reason that everything is the same- you never get anything better or worse, there is nothing behind it except the emotionless copying of something over and over again.

And even today, though you may not go to a reknowned smith for what you need, people try to get products from certain brands that are known to have a good reputation, so the same sort of mentality continues, just under a different guise.

Rarity is important and that is why people value it so much. Just the fact that Narsil was a blade forged ages ago makes it special, as very few of those sorts remain. It could almost be called "collectible" or "antique" apart from the fact that it was still in serviceable use.

And look at the evil side- they have no special weapons. They have no reknowned smiths or craftsmen. All of their weapons are described as the same (excpet for a few exceptions- the high ranking ones) and are just average and do the job they need to- nothing more, nothing less. They are all mass-produced, maybe not by the same modern machinery as today, but nevertheless they were produced in great haste for one purpose. They were made simply to kill rather than as a form of art, or pride for the creator. I think that this is the horror of Mass-production that Tolkien hated. The mass-produced products have no uniqueness, no "soul" (almost literally if we look at some made especially- think of the talking Gurthang). In the things made by craftsmen, some part of the crfter goes into the item, even if it si just the style in which it is made, whereas in mass-production everything is the same.



PS. I did have another point but I've forgotten what it was, so I'll leave it at that. :rolleyes:

[Bêthberry]

Well, it looks as if I will be the only one with hesitations about this craftsman/mechanical division. I've seen brass items, wood work, jewellery, rugs that have been hand made in these modern times and I wouldn't say that all of them were so special. Some yes. But I've seen faults and weaknesses that the modern craftsman has just shrugged off or was too harried and hurried to fix, possibly because he had a quota to meet. Or joints where too much material was blobbed together. At the same time, I've seen hand made modern quilts that are every bit as meticulous and beautiful as historical quilts, but these quilts were not made to be marketed.

Much depends on how 'quality control' is applied. With mechanical construction, that is determined by economics (cost), quality of tooling and machining, and the expected cost that the item will fetch. That is, who the item is being constructed for. A Ford has a rather different construction than, say, a Jaquar or Lambergini. (And some even say that the day a car is constructed has a bearing on the quality of its workmanship.)

I think those same economic factors applied as much in the past. Some smiths might work fast to put more items through to get more bread on the table. Some smiths might take a shine to a particular customer (possibly the wealthier ones but not necessarily only those of deep pockets) and do special work for him or her. Some smiths might work on an object out of pure interest or love--if they had the time and financial freedom to do so. But always, the economic situation would impinge upon the craftsmanship.

I've also heard that some of the Queen's carriages are a tad uncomfortable to ride in as their suspension system or springs and shock absorbers are not as accomplished an art as those of modern, horseless carriages. But I think Morth has suggested this point earlier.

So, its economics + labourers' attention + technical knowledge if we are using objective measures of worth. If we argue that worth lies in the eye of the beholder, though, just as meaning lies in the reader's mind, ( ;) ) then that's a subjective measure where some prefer enchantment or others advancement.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Eönwë raises an interesting point about mass production. I would like to look into this a little.

Mordor and Angband mass produce weaponry, armour and soldiers for the wars. How do the elves and men answer this? With enchanted weapons, one-of-a-kinds and heroes, the like of whom may never be seen again. Both are things of war, but I do think they are different views of war.

Sauron and Melkor in their mass production and floods of soldiers represent the basic destructive nature of war. The Dragons breathe fire, laying waste to the lands, the Balrogs go around- um- Balroging. Orcs hack down trees, not always to feed the fires of Isenguard or anything. All the destructive and horrific side of war.

The elves, with their enchanted weapons and special captains, represent a more heroic side of war. The valour and bravery, the fight against evil, you might say. A very idyllic view, as has been argues in other threads, but I think Tolkien is trying to look at things in two different ways and he is perfectly entitled to.

Perhaps Tolkien saw the mechanised way of producing weaponry (especially) as focussing too much on destruction. The less work that goes into the creation of something, the easier it may be to use it to destroy. Perhaps.

That's not to say swords like Anduril were not used for killing. They were. But there is something about those thousands of crude blades dropping off the production lines that makes it seem like killing is only a small matter.

In some cases, enchantment requires something of the self to go into the object. As has been discussed. If Anduril has something of Aragon within it, along with Isildur and Elendil, it may make the killing process a much more personal thing. Whereas with the blade off the production line, it may seem more functional.

I don't know... Maybe?

[Nogrod]

So, its economics + labourers' attention + technical knowledge if we are using objective measures of worth. If we argue that worth lies in the eye of the beholder, though, just as meaning lies in the reader's mind, ( ;) ) then that's a subjective measure where some prefer enchantment or others advancement.Objective measures of worth / value?

How would you count for it? I mean Karl Marx spent the first sections of his Capital to analyse the different meanings and scopes of "value" coming up with more fuzz than a definitive answer... :rolleyes:

There is the "use-value" of a thing (how well a product does the thing it's made for - or more modernly: how well it answers the needs of the buyer) and the "market-value" of a thing (how much people are ready to pay for it because they think it worth it), but also the "surplus-value" (how much is it acceptable to charge "from between" by the owner of the production-system) and all that stuff...

How would you determine the objective worth or value of a thing produced in a human society? A cheap thing can be good, inattentive labour may bring forwards decent results and much attention may end up in poor quality - and sometimes someone makes it well without knowledge and a cognisant person may make bad stuff if he has a bad day or something...

And can we approach a thing like quality from purely objective measures in the first place?

But I'm not sure it's up to a "subjective measure" either, but more like to a culturally relative measure which changes by times and cultures - and fashions - which people live themselves into and believe it's them who decide about the value of things...

[Nogrod]

Perhaps Tolkien saw the mechanised way of producing weaponry (especially) as focussing too much on destruction. The less work that goes into the creation of something, the easier it may be to use it to destroy. Perhaps.
If Anduril has something of Aragon within it, along with Isildur and Elendil, it may make the killing process a much more personal thing. Whereas with the blade off the production line, it may seem more functional.

These kind of remind me about the discussion of the mentality towards killing at the age of blades vs. the age of guns (not to talk of the age of missiles). With a sword one literally has to kill the one facing him in close quarters - and is forced to see and feel the enemy die in a way or another. With guns one could detach oneself from the act of killing a bit - slowly as the first rifles were slow to load and didn't fire far away etc. But with the modern technologies - the prologue of which the prof experienced in WW1 - one can just kill and destroy by pushing a button hundreds of miles away.

This I think Tolkien was very much aware of: the machine gun, the artillery... faceless killing by mass-produced machines of destruction detached from the suffering and somehow also from the guilt of doing so. A most moral issue!

[Eönwë]

Well, it looks as if I will be the only one with hesitations about this craftsman/mechanical division. I've seen brass items, wood work, jewellery, rugs that have been hand made in these modern times and I wouldn't say that all of them were so special. Some yes. But I've seen faults and weaknesses that the modern craftsman has just shrugged off or was too harried and hurried to fix, possibly because he had a quota to meet. Or joints where too much material was blobbed together. At the same time, I've seen hand made modern quilts that are every bit as meticulous and beautiful as historical quilts, but these quilts were not made to be marketed.
Rather than a craftsman/mechanical division, I meant more of a craft/mass production divide. As in craft itself, and learning through experience, and other such aspects which are not incorporated into mass-produced products made by machines. Yes, craftsmen can skimp while machines can't, but they can also create great works, not just as the product itself but as a work of art. Machines cann't make art. They can only create what they've been told to do.
That is why a machine could never create a weapon with a "soul" like Gurthang.

And when I say craft, I separate it from craftsman because the crafting I mean is like a long time ago, when crafting was your life's work, and everything you made had your name on it, so if you ever produced a product that anyone hated, your reputation would be damaged. Now peole can just change their company name to avoid this, but then it was the craftsman who personally associated themselves with the product.

[Eönwë]

Perhaps Tolkien saw the mechanised way of producing weaponry (especially) as focussing too much on destruction. The less work that goes into the creation of something, the easier it may be to use it to destroy. Perhaps.

That's not to say swords like Anduril were not used for killing. They were. But there is something about those thousands of crude blades dropping off the production lines that makes it seem like killing is only a small matter.

In some cases, enchantment requires something of the self to go into the object. As has been discussed. If Anduril has something of Aragon within it, along with Isildur and Elendil, it may make the killing process a much more personal thing. Whereas with the blade off the production line, it may seem more functional.

As well as this, Narsil, for example, has a history, a past, and anyone who wields it probably feels that they have a responsibility to prove themeselves worthy of being the wielder of the sword. Swords like that, that have been a smith's masterpiece, that have had a noble history, are the ones that are not only instruments but entities on their own. The sword that defeated Sauron has to again take up and defeat Sauron. The sword sort of developes its own personality in a way, and the wielder has to accept it before using it.
I'm sure Aragorn, for example, wouldn't use the sword, Narsil reforged, for such a crude thing as hunting or the like, not only because it's impractical, but because he respects this weapon as something other than the weapon.
This is even stronger in the case of Anduril, because Narsil was reforged just for Aragorn, so he has even more responsibility to uphold the sword's name and honour.

And this also leads to the subject of people naming their weapons. Nowadays with guns it is less important, as the guns aren't actually yours, but belong to the army. But in the past the past you had your own weapon, one which had served you well in the past, and you would feel attached to it. The weapon might have even been passed down to you, and as the sword lives longer than its bearers, their name and memory and deeds are part of the sword. When it has its own identity, it makes you do things that are related to it, because as stated above, I don't think that Aragorn would use Anduril for any of the less "noble" tasks. The sword developes a life of its own, and we see in the Narn, Gurthang acts on its own, and I think this is also symbolic of all swords, in that the sword over time gets a personality.

[Bêthberry]

Objective measures of worth / value?


So, its economics + labourers' attention + technical knowledge if we are using objective measures of worth. If we argue that worth lies in the eye of the beholder, though, just as meaning lies in the reader's mind, ( ) then that's a subjective measure where some prefer enchantment or others advancement.

How would you count for it? I mean Karl Marx spent the first sections of his Capital to analyse the different meanings and scopes of "value" coming up with more fuzz than a definitive answer... :rolleyes:

There is the "use-value" of a thing (how well a product does the thing it's made for - or more modernly: how well it answers the needs of the buyer) and the "market-value" of a thing (how much people are ready to pay for it because they think it worth it), but also the "surplus-value" (how much is it acceptable to charge "from between" by the owner of the production-system) and all that stuff...

How would you determine the objective worth or value of a thing produced in a human society? A cheap thing can be good, inattentive labour may bring forwards decent results and much attention may end up in poor quality - and sometimes someone makes it well without knowledge and a cognisant person may make bad stuff if he has a bad day or something...

Oh, if we are talking philosophers, they can determine with determination until the cows come home and still not have a clearly determined answer. :D

But if we are talking economists, and accountants, and CEOs then clearly they do daily come up with operational definitions of worth/value, as they are the ones who decide quantities of raw goods and materials to be used--ie, the planned obsolescence of the item being manufactured--salaries, bonuses, tax write-offs and, largely, market prices. (And when they're wrong, there goes the company, unless it is large enough to 'merit' a government bailout.)



And can we approach a thing like quality from purely objective measures in the first place?

Hmm. Maybe I'm confused. I didn't think we were necessarily discussing quality here but emotional attachment. The two are related but not equivalent, methinks.



But I'm not sure it's up to a "subjective measure" either, but more like to a culturally relative measure which changes by times and cultures - and fashions - which people live themselves into and believe it's them who decide about the value of things...

Now this is something we can agree on--cultural relativity--a third item which needs to be discussed. :D


Yes, craftsmen can skimp while machines can't, but they can also create great works, not just as the product itself but as a work of art. Machines cann't make art. They can only create what they've been told to do.
That is why a machine could never create a weapon with a "soul" like Gurthang.

Yes, that's what I meant. There is greater variability in quality with craft, as you say, than with machined objects, which are standardised to a certain level of achievement. Although, someone programs the machine to do what it does and therein lies the potential, I think, for the question of art to be applied to the machine process. But likely in rare cases.


And when I say craft, I separate it from craftsman because the crafting I mean is like a long time ago, when crafting was your life's work, and everything you made had your name on it, so if you ever produced a product that anyone hated, your reputation would be damaged. Now peole can just change their company name to avoid this, but then it was the craftsman who personally associated themselves with the product.

But many of our ancient relics don't have the makers' names engraved on them. They are anonymous (now at least, although Tolkien supplied names to his crafts). And anyway, isn't this like branding and logos are now? People buy products because of the logo, both for the cache of the name and because of the supposed quality that implies.


This I think Tolkien was very much aware of: the machine gun, the artillery... faceless killing by mass-produced machines of destruction detached from the suffering and somehow also from the guilt of doing so. A most moral issue!

yes, this is said to make killing in our time 'easier' psychologically, yet one has only to read about the terrible slaughters that occured during the Crusades, those purportedly glorious battles of the Middle Ages, to know that the crusaders killed happily and willingly. And for Europeans who weren't lucky enough to be able to trek to the Holy Land to do the killing, they happily turned to killing Jews--men, women and children--in their local towns and villages. They were 'morally detached' also no matter where or how their weapons were made.

But I don't think Tolkien was discussing actual, historical warfare. I think much of his writing leans towards the kind that we can easily associate with symbolism, so that magic becomes a believable quality, where it wouldn't be in an historical account.

My, I have run on. And now must do a Monty Python battle act--"run away! run away!"

[Mnemosyne]

Bethberry, I believe, mentioned "planned obsolescence," which is for me a huge reason why the old that is strong does not wither in this day and age. Because economies are so consumption-based, one has to buy the same thing over and over again to keep all of these stuff-producers in work. It's actually in manufacturers' best interests to create technology that will conk out one day after the warranty expires, just so that you'll buy a new one. I am clinging desperately to my grandmother's old ice-cream scoop (which was mass-produced, but in those days when mass-produced ice-cream scoops were new and thuse could afford to be of a good quality), which has lasted nigh on fifty years. You're lucky if the store-bought ones last six months. Because things are so cheap and abundant, quality doesn't matter anymore, which I think is the Hordes of Darkness' side of things: Really Really Awesome Weapons are unnecessary if you've got enough brute force to overwhelm the good guys. We can't forget that even with such heroic figures as Aragorn & co. the West would have been screwed without Frodo and the Ring.

The other thing about modern firearms is their great "equalizing" effect. In order to be proficient at the sword or the bow, you had to spend hours upon hours of training, have great physical strength, etc. But a firearm creates all of that power for you, which is great news for a petite like me. All I have to do is know how to aim, hold steady, and not jerk the trigger; laser sighting makes the "aim" step even easier. Suddenly anyone can kill anyone, and there's no more need for these great heroic figures who can fight for a day on the Pelennor and come out mostly unscathed.

The ease of cheaply-made, available-for-all stuff may make our life more convenient, but it's not as fascinating as all those great tales. No wonder all of Tolkien's heroes use old stuff.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Perhaps this all comes down to power, or perhaps, perceived power.

Having a gun can, as Mnemosyne pointed out, give almost anyone power. A sword, while still dangerous in any hands, is always more dangerous in the hands of a trained swordsman. (To an extent, someone who has practice with a gun will be better at aiming, to be sure, but a gun in the hands of a novice can still create fear, and that's the main point of it).

But where enchantment is concerned, I think it goes beyond swords. It was the thought of Beren that got me on this line of thinking. What stops him from being killed on his journey towards Doriath? What makes Thingol think twice about killing him? His sword? No. The ring of Felagund.
We are never told if this ring has magical powers, exactly, but it certainly has some power. Perhaps it is of a different kind. The respect or memory they held for its previous wearer make it more than a ring. Although it cannot kill, it stops them in their tracks. Few blades could do that.

If I may take an example from Doctor Who. ;)
In the Ninth Doctor's final episode he confronts The Daleks. The Doctor has no weapons or means of stopping them. But the Daleks are still terrified of him. Not because of what he has in terms of threat, as such, but because of their memory of him and what he has done to them in the past. The oncoming storm.

Now, back to Middle Earth.

A similar thing may be seen with Anduril. More than just an elvish blade, it is THE sword, the one that cut the Ring off Sauron's hand. Moreover, it was wielded by Aragorn's forefathers. It aided in Sauron's first fall, it should aid in his final fall. From a narrative stance, this is quite appropriate.

Another good example could be the Malorn tree that Sam plants in Hobbiton. It is special not only in its uniqueness (the only Malorn west of the mountains, east of the sea), but in the memory it instils in Sam. Of Lorien and Galadriel. I'm sure Gimli would have had a fair few things to say about it. ;)

[Mnemosyne]

And let's not forget about the goblins in The Hobbit remembering Glamdring and Orcrist from Gondolin! Talk about long memories!

[Kent2010]

Hookbill
In some cases the names become stories and it is the stories and significances that give them power.
I agree. The name is significant. A name attaches an identity, a story. The Ringwraiths are not named, their personal identity has been lost, and they are in absolute servitude to Sauron. The same can be said about the Mouth of Sauron, his true name has been forgotten and "The Mouth of Sauron" is just a title, a position, not an actual name.

The Ents names (their Entish names) Treebeard says he can't tell Merry and Pippin because his name is constantly growing. The Ents' names are essentially their life stories.

Speaking of 'enchanted' swords I wonder exactly when do these magical weapons get named? Do they get named upon being crafted (was it the Japanese who named their swords?) or were they named after accomplishing a great deed? Was "Narsil" really some special/enchanted blade or was it because of the name, the story, attached to the blade? Names can create stories and those stories can form part of the legend, or the magic.

What about why the Elven Rings were given names but not the other rings of power? 'The One Ring' is afterall a title, not a name.

Lalwende
Or should we bring forwards this general idea of a "fall from grace" here? So in the earlier times everything was better and now all is crap? People used to live in paradise but now they are estranged from that holy or primordial union with God / nature / natural relation with the world... what have you?
I think people do make that assumption and it can be a dangerous one to make. The ideas of "progress," "advancement," "reform,"...etc is what is new, not the belief things were better in the past and now we're all 'falling from grace.' Mass crime, prostitution, scandals, corporate greed, adultery and the whole lot has existed for a long, long, time. It wasn't until about 160-170 years ago when people thought the problems got so bad, reform needed to happen. That's where progress, and the ideas of "reforming the person" to rid the world of its evils, took off.

What's interesting is technology and mass production was seen as the way to get out of the "savage" curses of the past. The first dagguerotypes (I believe about 1820s?) were seen as magicians. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables is I believe an excellent book which tries to argue that through technology, and interesting enough...nature, we can achieve progress and escape the dark, often dirty, past. This argument was the new idea in the world, not society had fallen from its glory days, and needed to be restored to its glory days - Society needed to make its own new glory days.

We get a revolution of ideas through history, and I think WWI brought out a new side to technology and mass production that people never thought was possible. That side left a huge black mark on technology, and using technology for "advancement."

In my opinion it's not technology, the sciences...etc, that is evil, it's how we decide to use it. Didn't Tolkien say something similar about magic in his books? It can be used for healing, preservation, protection, but also domination and destruction.