Outrage?

[Nogrod]

[QUOTE=Raynor]Magic seems to accompany the other races as they fade; while both Sauron and the elves use magia and goeteia, they, as "mythological" figures, are bound to dissappear. /QUOTE]

Good point.

I see here Tolkien's kind of a sorrowed-romantic vision of the grand-days passing away. The age of mythology has come to pass over and we humans just run this world, ever more tehnocratically & byrocratically

It also reminds me of a similar vision by T.S. Elliot and his "The Hollow Men" (in the Waste Land, 1921). If you haven't ever heard of it, check it out!

[Aiwendil]

Raynor wrote:

Concerning the race of Men, Tolkien states in letter #155 that magic "is an inherent power not possessed or attainable by Men as such"; the only exceptions found to this are the swords of the Westernesse "wound about with spells for the bane of Mordor" and the healing power of Aragorn (but in both cases there is an "elven descendancy" element involved).

There's also Isildur's cursing of the Dead Men of Dunharrow (which again may be put down to Elvish descent" and Beorn's shape changing (which cannot be). I think there is enough evidence to show that the statement that magic "is an inherent power not possessed or attainable by Men as such" is not strictly true (and Tolkien seems to have come to this conclusion as well, as indicated by his note against that passage).

Still, I think you are right that magic is, as a general rule, not accessible to humans in the way it is to Elves.

[narfforc]

Because The Dead Men of Dunharrow broke their pledge to fight for Isildur at The Battle of the Last Alliance, they were cursed. Surely this was after the battle, when Isildur had The One Ring on, therefore the power to do so was enhanced by the ring. If men had no ability with magic, how could The Witch-King of Angmar have been a powerful sorcerer, before he held one of the rings for mortal men doomed to die. Was not The Mouth of Sauron supposed to have been a Black Numenorean and also a powerful sorcerer?

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by narfforc

Isildur had The One Ring on, therefore the power to [curse] was enhanced by the ring.

Do you really think the Ring had a direct bearing on this curse? That's a new idea to me. Never occurred to me before; not that I discount it, I'm just interested to learn if others besides narfforc have made this connection?

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by narfforc

Because The Dead Men of Dunharrow broke their pledge to fight for Isildur at The Battle of the Last Alliance, they were cursed. Surely this was after the battle, when Isildur had The One Ring on, therefore the power to do so was enhanced by the ring.

According to The passing of the grey company, RotK, Isildur's words towards the king of the mountains occured before the actual war.

However, another would be exception to the "no magic for Men" rule is found in the Pukel-men (apparently a branch of hobbits), in refference to their transfer of power to artefacts (cf. The atani and their languages, HoME XII).

[davem]

Originally Posted by narfforc

Because The Dead Men of Dunharrow broke their pledge to fight for Isildur at The Battle of the Last Alliance, they were cursed. Surely this was after the battle, when Isildur had The One Ring on, therefore the power to do so was enhanced by the ring. If men had no ability with magic, how could The Witch-King of Angmar have been a powerful sorcerer, before he held one of the rings for mortal men doomed to die. Was not The Mouth of Sauron supposed to have been a Black Numenorean and also a powerful sorcerer?

I don't think its that Men had no ability with magic, but that magic was not an innate ability - it was a 'power' they could take to themselves, against the will of Eru. This is what leads them to evil - they cannot use magic with 'authority'. Thus it will always tend to corrupt them, whatever their motivation in using it.

[Kath]

Nice to see people in here again!

I'm not sure davem that you could say men using magic always leads to corruption, especially if you take Raynor's example of the Pukel men. It may be that it's only when power is added to the mixture that it corrupts people. The Witch King and Isildur were powerful people, and could see how magic would enable them to gain more power and more control, whereas the Pukel men were (as I recall) simple people with interest in and power over their environment alone, so they would have no desire to move beyond it. Surely magic can only corrupt if there is the potential for corruption, and there need to be circumstances to create this potential.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Kath

Nice to see people in here again!

I'm not sure davem that you could say men using magic always leads to corruption, especially if you take Raynor's example of the Pukel men. It may be that it's only when power is added to the mixture that it corrupts people. The Witch King and Isildur were powerful people, and could see how magic would enable them to gain more power and more control, whereas the Pukel men were (as I recall) simple people with interest in and power over their environment alone, so they would have no desire to move beyond it. Surely magic can only corrupt if there is the potential for corruption, and there need to be circumstances to create this potential.

I suppose the question is whether the abilities of the Pukel Men are innate or a product of 'study'. I think Tolkien was opposed to the practice of what we could call 'ritual' magic. Are they manipulating natural forces? Tolkien stated that 'magic' is an aspect of the Machine, a seeking after technology to control & coerce things/people, hence the Ring is the ultimate Machine within Middle-earth, & the other Rings are lesser Machines. All technology (which in Middle-earth includes Rings, Palantiri, etc) is 'evil' in that its purpose is to remake the world in the user's own image - even if that was not the intent behind their making.

Of course, the Machine is actually a way of thinking & the objects produced are manifestations of that - attempts to actualise deisre. Tolkien sets Art against the Machine. Art attempts to (sub) create a secondary world in the mind, while the Machine is an attempt to alter the world. So, yes, it is a question of the potential for corruption in the individual, but the use of magical objects is an outward sign of that inner corruption. I would note that the Pukel Men were hardly successful as a species.....

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by davem

I suppose the question is whether the abilities of the Pukel Men are innate or a product of 'study'. I think Tolkien was opposed to the practice of what we could call 'ritual' magic. Are they manipulating natural forces? Tolkien stated that 'magic' is an aspect of the Machine, a seeking after technology to control & coerce things/people, hence the Ring is the ultimate Machine within Middle-earth, & the other Rings are lesser Machines. All technology (which in Middle-earth includes Rings, Palantiri, etc) is 'evil' in that its purpose is to remake the world in the user's own image - even if that was not the intent behind their making.

Of course, the Machine is actually a way of thinking & the objects produced are manifestations of that - attempts to actualise deisre. Tolkien sets Art against the Machine. Art attempts to (sub) create a secondary world in the mind, while the Machine is an attempt to alter the world. So, yes, it is a question of the potential for corruption in the individual, but the use of magical objects is an outward sign of that inner corruption. I would note that the Pukel Men were hardly successful as a species.....

Good stuff! You are putting so many interesting lines here to be appreciated, that it would require an essay to even try to comment a bit! But maybe a couple of things to begin with.

It's interesting to note, that Tolkien had received his learning during a time, when certain trends in anthropology & religious studies were the top of the pops'. For instance Frazer's "the Golden Bough" (anyone: read it someday, if you have time: lots of wonderful stories in it). That time, they talked about "symphatetic magic", eg. they had an idea, that earlier cultures were like the then modern western cultures, which were already having as their first aim the technological superiority over the nature (and the utopia of a technologies to make all their dreams come true). So all old beliefs, rituals and customs, were interpreted in this same manner; as ways of having an effect over nature, or manipulating it, by magic (and later by religion) - and just being overtly wrong when compared to science of their days.

That should have offended Tolkien, in quite a modern way indeed. But as I think the Tolkien connoisseurs' would agree, Tolkien disliked basically the idea of technologically manipulating the world (that is propably one of the main reasons why one can read a kind of sorrowness in the text, when Tolkien is telling us about the beginning of the age of men).

In this context, which i guess, is quite "natural" way of interpreting the issue, you put forward the even more interesting idea, that you count the rings also as these technologial pieces of craft (vs. nature, one must presume?), then the whole setting changes a bit, doesn't it? So "technological pieces", understood in the widest sense possible, could do something good, f.ex. the possibility of elves remaining in the Middle Earth, of Gandalf having the powers he had etc.?

(Well, it propably is a question of from whose standpoint you define good? But Tolkien was not a relativist!)

Looked from this point of view, there is a notion in Tolkien, that you could help things with technology - although it would end up in sacrifices'.

So beating technology requires technology, but if you use it to defy your technological opponent, you will be consumed in the fight?

This seems to be a good one! Let's open this up a bit more...

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by davem

I don't think its that Men had no ability with magic, but that magic was not an innate ability - it was a 'power' they could take to themselves, against the will of Eru. This is what leads them to evil - they cannot use magic with 'authority'. Thus it will always tend to corrupt them, whatever their motivation in using it.

I think it is a double-faceted issue. First there is the motivation; a nazgul falls to the dark side "sooner or later – later, if he is strong or well-meaning to begin with" (cf The shadow of the past); also, Bilbo was safe for a good while from the corruption of the ring (and later saved altogether) because he showed pity in possessing it. The other side would be the mere strength of mind of the user: the "pre-power" rings were just dangerous to Men, not corrupting, in and of themselves - also, Aragorn does resist Sauron's influence when he using the power of the palantir.

Tolkien stated that 'magic' is an aspect of the Machine, a seeking after technology to control & coerce things/people, hence the Ring is the ultimate Machine within Middle-earth, & the other Rings are lesser Machines.

Well, he does distinguish between kinds of magic, esspecially in relation to the one of the elves (cf Letter #131):

"I have not used 'magic' consistently, and indeed the Elven-queen Galadriel is obliged to remonstrate with the Hobbits on their confused use of the word both for the devices and operations of the Enemy, and for those of the Elves. I have not, because there is not a word for the latter (since all human stories have suffered the same confusion). But the Elves are there (in my tales) to demonstrate the difference. Their 'magic' is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations: more effortless, more quick, more complete (product, and vision in unflawed correspondence). And its object is Art not Power, sub-creation not domination and tyrannous re-forming of Creation"

Art attempts to (sub) create a secondary world in the mind, while the Machine is an attempt to alter the world

I think that the elven Art too alters the world, but it still remains "good", as noted above - they weren't "bulldozing the real world, nor coercing other wills".

All technology (which in Middle-earth includes Rings, Palantiri, etc) is 'evil' in that its purpose is to remake the world in the user's own image - even if that was not the intent behind their making.

"It would no doubt be possible to defend poor Lotho's introduction of more efficient mills" - letter #155 .

Originally Posted by Kath

The Witch King and Isildur were powerful people, and could see how magic would enable them to gain more power and more control,

I don't think that Isildur desired more power and control through the ring (which would have been a sign of coruption, which I doubt, since in his scroll he is all too willing to leave the ring to his heirs). He considered the ring "of all the works of Sauron the only fair" (cf. Council of Elrond, FotR).

Surely magic can only corrupt if there is the potential for corruption, and there need to be circumstances to create this potential.

Yet this potential exists in all Ea (even for the valar, who could at least err as a result, cf Letter #212, or show possesiveness, such as in the rising of the Pellori Mountains, cf Myths Transformed), since evil/corruption have been sub-creatively introduced and futhermore there is the actual marring of Melkor.

Looked from this point of view, there is a notion in Tolkien, that you could help things with technology - although it would end up in sacrifices'

Concerning the real-world, he has a rather hard stance:

Originally Posted by Letter #75 to Christopher

There is the tragedy and despair of all machinery laid bare. Unlike an which is content to create a new secondary world in the mind, it attempts to actualize desire, and so to create power in this World; and that cannot really be done with any real satisfaction. Labour-saving machinery only creates endless and worse labour. And in addition to this fundamental disability of a creature, is added the Fall, which makes our devices not only fail of their desire but turn to new and horrible evil. So we come inevitably from Daedalus and Icarus to the Giant Bomber. It is not an advance in wisdom! This terrible truth, glimpsed long ago by Sam Butler, sticks out so plainly and is so horrifyingly exhibited in our time, with its even worse menace for the future, that it seems almost a world wide mental disease that only a tiny minority perceive it.

[As far as outcome of the culmination of evil use of the machine, he has little doubt: (Letter #96)Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter - leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines.]

In his fantasy realm, his attitude is a bit more nuanced; he is more tolerant, in some cases, to the use and users of technology/Machine; Sauron "was not indeed wholly evil, not unless all 'reformers' who want to hurry up with 'reconstruction' and 'reorganization' are wholly evil, even before pride and the lust to exert their will eat them up", cf Letter #153; the elves of Eregion themselves, (even though compared to the catholics who would make tools, which given the circumstances, "are pretty certain to serve evil ends") are not necessarily to be blamed, even if aware of the consequences of their actions.

However, he also states (Letter #155):

"The Enemy, or those who have become like him, go in for 'machinery' - with destructive and evil effects - because 'magicians', who have become chiefly concerned to use magia for their own power, would do so . The basic motive for magia - quite apart from any philosophic consideration of how it would work - is immediacy: speed, reduction of labour, and reduction also to a minimum (or vanishing point) of the gap between the idea or desire and the result or effect. But the magia may not be easy to come by, and at any rate if you have command of abundant slave-labour or machinery (often only the same thing concealed), it may be as quick or quick enough to push mountains over, wreck forests, or build pyramids by such means. Of course another factor then comes in, a moral or pathological one: the tyrants lose sight of objects, become cruel, and like smashing, hurting, and defiling as such."

[In matters of writting style, it is also stated in the Notion Club Papers, that "real fairy-stories don't pretend to produce impossible mechanical effects by bogus machines. " - a role which is no doubt left to magic itself ]

[davem]

I think that the elven Art too alters the world, but it still remains "good", as noted above - they weren't "bulldozing the real world, nor coercing other wills".

Well, they weren't 'coercing' perhaps, but they were controlling - there was no 'stain' on Lorien. We can only take this to mean no parasites, no fungi, nothing to mar its 'perfection'. As I said, the Lorien we are introduced to in LotR is a 'hyper-natural' place, almost a higher state of nature, a glimpse of Arda Unmarred, yet there is no sense that it has been 'forced' into being that way. We don't even question how it is that way, we simply accept it. It is not an 'alteration' of the primary world but rather another 'state' of it.

Once Tolkien introduces the story of Galadriel's desire to rule a land free of death & corruption & her use of Nenya to bring this about, suddenly we are dealing with "bulldozing the real world,", because she is not allowing natural processes to occur. She will not allow death to enter in to Lorien. The trees are not allowedto die, parasites are not allowed to exist, because she does not want them to. Her suppport of the Ringbearer is a surrendering to nature, an allowing it to be. Only then could she truly be herself.

Their 'magic' is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations: more effortless, more quick, more complete (product, and vision in unflawed correspondence). And its object is Art not Power, sub-creation not domination and tyrannous re-forming of Creation"

This may describe the Elves at their best (Vanyar & Teleri), but I can't see that it applies to either the exiled Noldor or the Sindar. Certainly his condemnation of them as 'embalmers' would seem to contradict this statement.

[Raynor]

Once Tolkien introduces the story of Galadriel's desire to rule a land free of death & corruption & her use of Nenya to bring this about, suddenly we are dealing with "bulldozing the real world,", because she is not allowing natural processes to occur.

I wonder what is natural indeed (in Ea); as far as I can see it, a place in which the essence of Melkor is spread throughout creation, accelerating all decay, phisical and not only, is not natural. The fact that she tries to stay that decay isn't in any less blamable that the efforts of the valar to undo the evils of Melkor. Is the world bulldozed in Valinor? I think not - and that it occurs only where the influence of the Marrer can reach.

This may describe the Elves at their best (Vanyar & Teleri), but I can't see that it applies to either the exiled Noldor or the Sindar.

From the Sil, we pretty much know that the vanyar "received song and poetry" - artful indeed, but it is not the Art we are talking about; the Teleri are enamoured of the sea, with the height of their Art were the swan ships of Alqualonde.

The noldor? Oh, the noldor.. . They learned mostly from Aule, the smith of gods, and thus became "the most skilled of the Elves" (cf. The begining of days, Silmarillion). In Of Eldamar and the princes of Eldalie, we are also told that the "Noldor were beloved of Aule, and he and his people came often among them. Great became their knowledge and their skill; yet even greater was their thirst for more knowledge, and in many things they soon surpassed their teachers"; they even made Manwe's sceptre, and of their chief objects, the silmarils, it is said in Letter #131: "by the making of gems the sub-creative function of the Elves is chiefly symbolized". To conclude, I am pretty sure it was (primarily) the Noldor who Tolkien had in mind when talking about the elven Art.

So was Tolkien a conservative "luddite" (you remember this James Ludd, who went to destroy machines?), who just tried to say that machines are bad, or was his relation to technologies' more subtle?

Imo, letters #75 and #96, quoted above, pretty much points to the first option.

So should we be happy with the new things (peace, stability, welfare etc.) or sigh for the lost (action, heroism, virtues, honour etc.)?

Well, Estel, hope, would imply that of all His designs, the issue must be for his Children joy (cf Finrod's debate) - so I will go with the first option, again .

[Nogrod]

[QUOTE][QUOTE=Raynor] Well, he does distinguish between kinds of magic, esspecially in relation to the one of the elves (cf Letter #131):
"I have not used 'magic' consistently, and indeed the Elven-queen Galadriel is obliged to remonstrate with the Hobbits on their confused use of the word both for the devices and operations of the Enemy, and for those of the Elves. I have not, because there is not a word for the latter (since all human stories have suffered the same confusion). But the Elves are there (in my tales) to demonstrate the difference. Their 'magic' is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations: more effortless, more quick, more complete (product, and vision in unflawed correspondence). And its object is Art not Power, sub-creation not domination and tyrannous re-forming of Creation"But what is this art - power dualism about? In this context one would have to read 'art' as conjoining with an overtly romantic vision of artistry, fancied by the late 19th century poets' & painters' that got hold of the wider public imagination, at least after the WW2, and with the ideas of power then attaching to the nuclear bomb, Stalin etc. (Tolkien, of course being academically schooled, should have been cognizant of these ideas quite earlier, with lots of fellows' being productive artists' at the time). But what I myself am interested in, is, whether this interpretation on Tolkien is correct to begin with.

So was Tolkien a conservative "luddite" (you remember this James Ludd, who went to destroy machines?), who just tried to say that machines are bad, or was his relation to technologies' more subtle?

I would here vote for a more "down to earth" Tolkien, who saw the inevitableness of the advances of technologies and the requirement of sacrifices in front of them - that could actually bring forth good things, but quite a loss as well, f.ex. as a disappearance of "magic" with it. It's kind of a basic thing: when things change, they will be different: you lose something and you acquire something. And with a certain personality, you just take the new good things as given, and just make a slight sigh to the remembrance of the things past.

So should we be happy with the new things (peace, stability, welfare etc.) or sigh for the lost (action, heroism, virtues, honour etc.)? That's a question we could put to ourselves too....

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

I would here vote for a more "down to earth" Tolkien, who saw the inevitableness of the advances of technologies and the requirement of sacrifices in front of them - that could actually bring forth good things, but quite a loss as well, f.ex. as a disappearance of "magic" with it. It's kind of a basic thing: when things change, they will be different: you lose something and you acquire something. And with a certain personality, you just take the new good things as given, and just make a slight sigh to the remembrance of the things past.

So should we be happy with the new things (peace, stability, welfare etc.) or sigh for the lost (action, heroism, virtues, honour etc.)? That's a question we could put to ourselves too....

There seems, however, in Tolkien's Letters and Ring story, a sense of loss of something very good and beautiful, and the onset of something qualitatively inferior, and less good.

I see your point, Raynor, that Galadriel is trying to preserve a reality, in Lorien, that is the ideal and original reality, as expressed in Valinor. However, I see davem's point as well, that such an endeavor is vain in Middle Earth, and as such, not only doomed to fail (as she well knows .... "the long defeat" ....), but a mis-use; a technological effort, in as much as it is against the state of things. So even though the "state of things" in Middle Earth is cursed by Melkor's taint, it is nevertheless the way things are, and to try to stop them is to part from wisdom. Galadriel, as powerful as she was, was able to achieve the thing for a longer period of time, but only because Sauron's Ring still existed. Does that not clarify the futility of Galadriel's Art in the case of Lorien ... that it was based upon the existence of the One Ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them?