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Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba
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.
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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.
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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!