What power is Elrond referring to?

[Ainaserkewen]

Didn't Elrond also have foresight.

I never got that in the movie. What does "foresight" really mean anyway? I mean, I know it means you can see the future and what not, but why? And how? Elrond in particular. As far as I remember, I think a thread here came to the conclution that he was just really smart and could put together the puzzle pieces better because of his age and wisdom. There was obviously some magic involved here, but I doubt it was Elrond's...but I may be wrong because of whatever "powers" being a keeper of one of the Elvish rings brings you. Perhaps that's to be considered.

You know, I love these speculation threads...in a way, they're like thought experiments with no real evidence from the text, only ideas from the readers.

[Felagund]

Perhaps the whole thing isn't meant to have an explanantion? I doubt there is a conspiracy, or plan, involved in the "dispensing" of dreams and visions and foresight amongst various characters. What if, rather, the great tide of events took on a life of their own? Like the rumblings in the Earth that precede an Earthquake, for example? People all across the North-West of Middle-Earth just heard a piece of the tremors, before it hit. Or perhaps, according to the song, or theme, and the design of Eru, that these things were meant to happen (part of a Doom), and thus fulfil Eru's plan. It seems to me, throughout all the pieces written by Tolkien that the things that are meant to happen, invariably do. Frodo's Quest was meant to happen, and thus it did, because of the coming together of many, often fractious, forces at work in Middle-Earth.


-Felagund

[cookieman]

The Shire is very close to the White Towers and the Grey Havens. Cirdan and other elves might be considered a "power" of some sort. Similar, perhaps, to Lorien and Rivendell. Other Elf Lords still lived in Middle Earth, remember Glorifendel. It would would be reasonable to believe that other powerful elves, even if they aren't specifically mentioned, lived near and guarded the Shire. Also, don't forget Bombadill to the east.

[narfforc]

I wonder if Tolkien knew or conceived of the idea, that he had surrounded The Shire with powerful peoples. Hobbiton is on an almost straight line East to West between Rivendell (Elrond) and The Grey Havens (Cirdan). To the South is Bombadil and to the North, The Dunedain wander their ancient realm (also doing border patrol around The Shire). Not forgetting that The Elves wandered The Woody end during Spring and Autumn from The Tower Hills to the West. So all in all The Shire had many powers/peoples protecting it.

[Gurthang]

It seems to me that there is a greater power at work here. The Shire is being protected on all sides by presumably powerful people. Yet it seems that none of these people knew exactly why they were hiding the Shire. None of them knew of the Ring, that is for sure; and even if they had, they were protecting the Hobbits long before the Ring ever came there.

It seems more than coincidental to me that they were protecting this land (apperently without a reason) and that eventually it came to be key in the overthrowing of Sauron. Maybe Eru had a hand in this coincidence? Perhaps He gave that knowledge to Elrond as 'foresight'. Maybe Elrond did not understand why, but he would have known that the Shire would be important and would need to be protected and hidden.

[davem]

Don't know if its relevant, but there is the passage in The Hunt for the Ring (UT):

My father nowhere explained the Ringwraiths’ fear of water....Thus of the rider (who was in fact Khamul of Dol Guldur*) seen on the far side of Bucklebury Ferry just after the hobbits had crossed it is said that ‘ he was well aware that the Ring had crossed the river; but the river was a barrier to his sense of movement’, & that the Nazgul would not touch the ‘elvish’ waters of Baranduin**.

*From notes recounting in detail the movements of the black Riders in the Shire it emerges that it was Khamul who came to Hobbiton & spoke to Gaffer Gamgee, who followed the hobbits along the road to stock, & who narrowly missed them at Bucklebury Ferry. The Rider who accompanied him, whom he summoned by cries on the ridge above Woodhall, & with whom he visited Farmer Maggot, was ‘his companion from Dol Guldur’. Of Khamul it is said here that he was the most ready of all the Nazgul, after the Black Captain himself, to percievethe presence of the Ring, but also the one whose power was most confused & diminished by daylight.

**[At the Ford of Bruinen only the Witch King & two others, with the lure of the Ring straight before them, had dared to enter the river; the others were driven into it by Glorfindel & Aragorn.

[narfforc]

Davem raises a good point here, maybe The Ringwraiths sensed the presence of Ulmo`s power in the river. Although Tolkien doesn`t say much about The Valar in LotR, what we know of them from The Silmarillion tells us that Ulmo took special interest in Middle Earth. Tolkien says that the servents of the Enemy feared water and there was a special emnity between Melkor and Ulmo.

[Gurthang]

As far as the water goes, it did have a power; although not necessarily an 'elvish' power.

From Ainulindalë:

…And they observed the winds and the air, and the matters of which Arda was made, of iron and stone and silver and gold and many substances: but of all these water they most greatly praised. And it is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur [emphasis mine] more than in any substance else that is in this Earth…