Thread: Magic vs. Power
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Old 03-13-2003, 08:25 PM   #18
Iarwain
Pugnaciously Primordial Paradox
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Birnham Wood
Posts: 800
Iarwain has just left Hobbiton.
Sting

Thanks for the responses everyone! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] I'm happy that I've gotten across.

Ainur, I disagree on one point in your explaination. The Music of the Ainur and the great themes of Iluvatar is the matter of which Middle Earth is made of, I agree, but I think that power is a demonstration not of a being's ability to interpret the music, but his or her own part in the music. Think of it like a great symphony: While traces of the Ainur themselves can be found throughout entire movements, other races have different parts within the great music. Elves for example, might be like the calm fermattas produced by a group of Violists, and men the brief stacattos of a trumpet. Those who are violent and bent in their earthly ways are evidence of Melkor's discord, which he struck into the music at the beginning of all things. Please do not misunderstand me in thinking that I am proposing that the world was predestined in the great music, I'm merely saying that Iluvatar's themes and Melkor's discord were reflective of what was to come in the history of Arda. So I say that yes, the music is alive in all things in Arda, but it is also living in every being.

Birdland, great logic, but I disagree, I think that rather than knowledge and skill being the reason's for Galadriel's mirror, I think that it was the natural fibre of her own being that allowed her to manipulate the water in such a way that it connected with things that appeared to be unrelated to the Hobbits, but in fact were all things to which the reality of Galadriel extended.

Valarungol, good point, but it can be explained . The elves who forged the swords (Glamdring, sting, Orcrist, etc.) invested some of themselves into it, just as the smiths in Eregion did with the great rings. This gave the swords a power according those who created them, in many cases the ability to glow in the prescense of an enemy. If you use this ideaology, and my "blanket" illustration on the Great Rings themselves, it clearly explains why they give power according to their owner. Frodo was a mortal, a small mortal even, and had very little power over his surroundings, as his part in the music was probably very different that that of someone like Gandalf. This made his being, even with the ring, still pretty weak.

I'm not denying that Gandalf used words of power to make things happen, Burrahobbit, but the door spells were technically not spells any more than the password on your computer is a spell.

Iarwain

[ March 13, 2003: Message edited by: Iarwain ]
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