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Nordor
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Post Elf Magic
on: March 17, 2018 05:48
What was the nature of elf magic? Was it innate or acquired? Galadriel uses it; was it a result of her ring of power or did she already have the ability? Other elves don't seem particularly "magical." Are they mundane or is it that they haven't developed the ability?
Noriah
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on: March 17, 2018 06:21
In the Fellowship of the Ring, Sam says in Lorien, "If there's any magic about, it's right down deep, where I can't lay my hands on it..." To which Frodo replies, "You can see and feel it everywhere." This has always led me to believe that an elf's "magic" is a deep connected part of who they are. We see some elves doing more impressive feats of magic than others, so it's probably an innate skill that can be greatly improved and strengthened with practice.
The term "magic" is probably not the right one to use. "Magic" is used to describe something that shouldn't naturally be able to happen. However, elven "magic" seems to be mostly natural to them, so the term really dosn't apply. Even Galadriel said she didn't quite understand man's concept of "magic." She says to Sam, "For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem to use the same word for the deciets of the enemy."
Gandolorin
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on: March 18, 2018 02:39
The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once postulated in his “third law”: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Just think of how flabbergasted someone from 1000, or 500, or even 200 years ago would react to our present-day technology. Or even how gatherer-hunter or stone-age agricultural societies (in say New Guinea or the Amazon basin) reacted to first contacts with our stuff from the 1930s onward.

Now from what I assume JRRT’s opinion would be, we are all using Mordor-stuff, or at least Saruman thingies – from gadgets to large-scale industrial sites. Nothing Elvish about any of that.

And JRRT does avoid specific descriptions of how such enhanced powers actually work. I’m thinking about Lúthien (after Huan had thrashed Sauron), who “threw down the walls of [the former First Age Minas Tirith]”, releasing the remaining prisoners there, including Beren. Pretty much the same is stated about Galadriel and Dol Guldur after Sauron’s final destruction – well, bodily, at least. Or for that matter, how exactly Galadriel (Nenya enhancing her innate powers, is my guess) was able to strengthen the defenses of Lothlórien against the earlier attacks upon it by forces from Dol Guldur. Or how the Girdle of Melian worked (OK, now she was a Maia, but …).
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PSK
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on: April 15, 2018 03:25
One of the reasons that Tolkien's work is so unique and powerful for me is that magic is embedded into the very nature of the universe. If you contrast other fantasy works (GoT springs to mind), magic is concentrated in certain acts and people.
The elves are a prime example of the difference. You can see that there seems to be an innate magic, or perhaps power of the spirit, that is occasionally visible, like with Galadriel, but is often embedded into the world. Although it has been a while since I read the books, I remember perceiving this very clearly in the Paths of the Dead passage where Legolas is pretty cool about the whole thing. Certain elves do seem to have greater magic. Legolas' power (extremely impressive vision, a level of foresight, magic level fighting etc) looks very average next to the elf who's spirit burned fiercest according to JRRT: Feanor. You'd need a decent amount of magic to make the Silmarils. So I think it is generally connected to the (admittedly abstract) idea of the power and strength of spirit, which seems mostly innate - though many of the great elves had teachers that helped them refine their craft/powers, like Aulë with Fëanor. But the key thing is that the very matter of the universe contains magic - it's not really spells and charms, but the very nature of the world that Tolkien created. Elves as the firstborn and immortal, have a greater amount of this sort of magic, but is it too much to imagine the men of Numenor also had some sort of magic like this, albeit on a far lesser scale?

On Gandolorin's point - most examples I can think of (and the ones that he names) are in the Silmarillion, and the nature of that book is to skip over important details (Dagor Bragollach is a prime example). I think this actually adds to idea that this magic is innate. Some people can just do it, and the details aren't necessary.
"Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains." ~ The Doom of Mandos
GreenhillFox
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on: April 15, 2018 09:51
There is a quite interesting reflection on “magic” in JRRT’s letter 131, along with the “machines” being the antipode of “magic”. Let me put it here:

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. The 'Elves' are 'immortal', at least as far as this world goes: and hence are concerned rather with the griefs and burdens of deathlessness in time and change, than with death. The Enemy in successive forms is always 'naturally' concerned with sheer Domination, and so the Lord of magic and machines; but the problem : that this frightful evil can and does arise from an apparently good root, the desire to benefit the world and others (*) — speedily and according to the benefactor's own plans — is a recurrent motive.

(*)Not in the Beginner of Evil: his was a sub-creative Fall, and hence the Elves (the representatives of sub-creation par excellence) were peculiarly his enemies, and the special object of his desire and hate – and open to his deceits. Their Fall is into possessiveness and (to a less degree) into perversion of their art to power.
'There’s something mighty queer behind this.'
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