Of powers outside our realism?

[Paradus]

Greetings to all

One thing I love about Tolkien's world (and other fantasy settings) are of powers of which could not be obtained in the real world. The reason is for when reading I enjoy falling within a world quite seperate from our own, where your imagination can run free.

Now on to my question.
Of the many powers and abilities of arda's inhabitants I'am curious about.

What powers did the elves have over men (Besides superior senses)?

What is the so called inner power of the eldar races which is noted as "magic"?

How strong physically were the eldar races compared to men? Were unnatural or supernatural feats common?

What physical differences and abilities did the dwarves have from other races (besides body structure)?

How do the abilities of unique individuals (Beornings-shapeshifting, Malbeth- foresight, Witchking- flaming sword etc) manifest?

What of the glowing and superior power of elven blades?

How do the spirits of death manifest upon the physical plane (Barrow-wights, the fallen of dunharrow etc)?

How do the trees come to life (I.e old man willow for example)?

Does the power of Illuvatar have any limits?

What of the power of song and music?

Finally what powers did the great Morgoth have at his disposal?

cheers.

[Galadriel55]

OK, lots of questions. I'll try to address some...

Elves can reincarnate.

Anything that Men don't understand how it happens, they call magic. As for the power, it's probably the Elves' willpower and their deep connection with nature.

They can heal faster than men.

Dwarves are very good with stone, metals, etc.

I don't know about the Witch-king and Beorn, but I think that Malbeth just had the ability of his race more concentrated in him. The Numenorians in ME had foresight (eg Gilraen predicts Aragorn's future and her own, Aragorn predicts what will happen to Elrond). How - I don't know.

Elven blades are much sharpe than regular ones. Also, they can cut though "enchanted" material - eg. Sting cut through Shelob's webs. And the fact that they glow at the comming of enemies gives a big advantage to anybody who has them.

Music has a great power in the legendarium. It all begins with music - the Ainulindale. Then there is the Finrod vs Sauron singing competition. Then Luthien first singing Sauron, and then Morgoth into oblivion. In the 3rd age the song "A Elbereth Gilthoniel" gives Sam strength to continue. I'm not sure if it's the song, Elbereth's name, or just the sound of Elvish, though. I really have no clue as to why music is so powerful. Maybe because those who know how can channel their wills through their voices or the voices of their instruments?...

I believe that there is some sort of spiit living in Old Man Willow, but I don't know how it got there.


I skipped some questions that I don't think I can do justice right now.

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by Paradus

Greetings to all

One thing I love about Tolkien's world (and other fantasy settings) are of powers of which could not be obtained in the real world. The reason is for when reading I enjoy falling within a world quite seperate from our own, where your imagination can run free...

Lots of questions. I might take a stab a answering a few of them. For a really thorogh (if not difinitive) answer, you might try downloading a copy of the rules of Ambarquenta. It is a very detailed set of rules for role playing specifically designed for Middle Earth. It includes specific games mechanics for 'powers outside our realism' which might be described as magic. These include...

If you speak the name of a Valar, servants of the Enemy won't like it and will be under a handicap for a bit.

Speaking the name of a Valar, or in our game singing songs dedicated to a Valar, might improve use of skills associated with that Valar.

All elves are given the edge 'artificer', meaning once they have nine skill levels at making something, the thing that they make might have additional virtues. Boats might ride rapids, cloaks might hide one in a woods, or swords might not break. Elves aren't the only race that can have the artificer edge, but according to the rules anyway, all elves (who spend the non-trivial effort to get 9 levels of a craft skill) can create.

While I have been playing Ambarquenta for three years now, just a few months back they finally published Chapter 11 on magic. There is a list of spells, most of which come out of TLotR or The Hobbit, along with limits on who might cast them and how often. If one buys into the game rules, all elves are pretty good at certain spells centered on thoughts, speech and perception. Thus, they can communicate with beasts, talk directly from mind to mind, and a few can look into another's eyes and learn of the other's motivations, dreams and flaws. (Galadriel can tell you about that one.)

Thoughts, speech and perception is just one 'realm' of magic. One might also study other fields such as fire (Gandalf) or beasts (Radagast).

While non elves might learn magic, doing so tends to corrupt them. It is easy, if one uses sorcery or necromancy, to fall under the influence of The Enemy.

While elves start out with a significant advantage in spells associated with thoughts, speech and perception, there are no battle spells in that realm of magic. Such spells can be used to gain knowledge and understanding, but are not suited towards acquiring power or domination.

All player characters have different amounts of Ambar, an attribute which allows one to fulfill one's fate, or to alter probability somewhat. In game mechanic terms, every once in a while one can add a bonus to or roll again very important dice rolls. This might reflect how certain individuals, blessed or cursed by the Valar, have roles to play in the tale of the world. The Valar are looking over their shoulders and giving them a little boost from time to time.

Now, this is a partial list, and any item on the list might be controversial. Did the author of Ambarquenta, devout Tolkien fan or not, get it right? It is certainly possible to quibble a lot of points. As this forum reflects, there is certainly lots of room for discussion and debate.

But if you really want detailed answers to all of your questions...

[Azrakhor Akallabeth]

What an amazing mouthful of seriously time intensive questions. It would require writing a book (or 60) to answer properly at all.

The trouble I'm seeing is that they've already been written. And if I may be honest without honestly trying to dis you on the subject, this is like asking for a huge effort in order to give you a personal shortcut to hours upon hours of intensive (yet, thoroughly enjoyable) study.

This is why I believe you aren't receiving an overwhelming volume of response to these very relevant, and oh so interesting questions. But good luck finding them. The journey is worth the wait, I promise!

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Azrakhor Akallabeth

What an amazing mouthful of seriously time intensive questions. It would require writing a book (or 60) to answer properly at all.

The trouble I'm seeing is that they've already been written. And if I may be honest without honestly trying to dis you on the subject, this is like asking for a huge effort in order to give you a personal shortcut to hours upon hours of intensive (yet, thoroughly enjoyable) study.

This is why I believe you aren't receiving an overwhelming volume of response to these very relevant, and oh so interesting questions. But good luck finding them. The journey is worth the wait, I promise!

Actually, Azrakhor, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree that the answers are necessarily there to find. Paradus's questions seem to stem from a way of looking at fantasy worlds that is not particularly congruent with the way Middle-earth is written. At least to my mind, his questions seem to want to impose a scientific schema onto the various "magics" of Middle-earth. At best, this is comparable to the attempts of the Christians in late antiquity to explain their doctrines, which stemmed from a Semitic mindset, into the philosophical framework of Greek and Roman understanding. At worst, Paradus is trying to explain away the mysteries of Tolkien's mythology into a Dungeons-and-Dragonseseque rulebook.

However, even if Paradus *isn't* in danger of following Saruman's folly, that of breaking a thing in order to understand it, I would have to argue that the reason there is a dearth of responses here has less to do with the fact that "that they've already been written" as with the fact that they don't have an easy answer.

Of course, the answering of questions is greatly complicated by the fact that Paradus asks so many! Or rather, not the fact that he asks so many, since many threads could mean many interesting conversations, but rather the fact that he asks them all on the same thread. Several of these questions could have interesting discussions teased out, but lumped together in one thread, the prospective answerer either has to respond in a bullet-point list, or try to come up with a single unifying answer.

To focus on a single question, let's look at Question 1:

Originally Posted by Paradus

What powers did the elves have over men (Besides superior senses)?

Thus far, it has received one direct answer (Blantyr's answer, while comprehensive, deals with non-canonical sources. If Paradus is looking for a Dungeons-and-Dragons synthesis, I doubt he could do better than Blantyr, but if he is looking for a Tolkien-based exegesis to back it up, recourse to the Ambarquenta website isn't like to cut it):

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Elves can reincarnate.

In her typically direct way, Galadriel55 cuts right to the heart of the difference between Elves and Men, but there are problems here.

Firstly, is reincarnation is a power that the Elves possess? Arguably, it is not. Although the Elves are bound to Arda and from their very nature are supposed to live from their birth* until the End of Time, re-embodiment is not something that is within their own power: only the Valar can redress the injustice of an Elf dying, and they can delay this re-embodiment as their just judgment sees fit (or, as in the case of Fëanor, withhold it permanently as just punishment).

Consequently, I would say that the distinction between Elves and Men is not that Elves can be re-embodied, but rather that Elves are not supposed to die in the first place, whereas death is explicitly Eru's Gift to Men. This raises the second question, however, of whether or not longevity co-terminal with the life of the world is a "power" the Elves have over Men. Tolkien's own terminology ("the Gift", he calls it) and his discussion of the envy the Elves and even the Valar will eventually feel for it suggests that it is not something "better" to never naturally die. In any case, it is a question of nature or essence, and I would say that powers derive from differences in nature, and are not the same as the differences themselves.

However, there ARE consequences from the different Elven and Mannish natures that might manifest as 'powers' (Paradus uses this term on another thread, as I recall, and seems to like it, but it's a term that seems metaphysically inept for Middle-earth, so I'm struggling to use it). Because Elven nature is bound to this world, they are in a much closer communion with it. Men, who are but visitors to Arda and leave it indeed when they die, are not bound to Arda's fate, while the Elves do not know if they will have a life after the final destruction of Arda, and if they do, they believe it will be in an Arda Remade. This union of natures between Elves and Arda means that the Elves have a much closer relationship with the material things of this world, including with the other living things in Yavanna's domain (plants and animals--what we call "nature"). My contention is that any "powers" the Elves possess are the direct result of this close relationship that is built right into their fëa.

These powers include the heightened perceptions that Paradus mentioned in his original question, and also includes what Sam calls "magic" in Lothlórien--the magic that Galadriel distinguishes as "art," distinct from the "deceits" of the enemy. A little bit of western art history may be appropriate here: until the "modern times" the point of art was to imitate nature. There were different schools about how to go about this, about whether one should be realistic (depicting things as they are) or idealistic (depicting things as they ought to be), but there was no disagreement that art should imitate nature. Given what I have already said about the Elves having a closer relationship to the nature of Arda than Men, I feel it should therefore be self-evident that the "Arts" of the Elves--their "magic"--is contingent on their very essence being tied so closely to that of Arda.

As actual effects of this "power," we can see the various things that the Elves produced: Celebrimbor's Rings (all but the One), the Elessar, the palantíri, Galadriel's mirror, the Phial of Galadriel, the cloaks of Lórien, and supreme above all else: the Silmarils.

As an aside: we know that the Númenóreans were the most "Elf-like" of Men, and also that they had the greatest "technology." Given that, in modern times, technology is the product of science, which may be considered "knowledge of how the world works"--aka, knowledge of nature, perhaps we could say that Elves were able to do "intuitively" what we have to do mechanically--and because they were bound together in their very essence with Arda, there were not the catastrophic environmental consequences that our separated Mannish natures have effected by pursuing the same effects through our science.

And that, is one very long answer to only one of Paradus's questions. I certainly don't want to discourage him from asking more... but if I may give some unsolicited advice, it might be better to give them separate threads...





*I was about to say "conception" but the similarity of the terminology to arguments about the morality of abortion stopped me... though I do think it would be interesting to know if miscarried Elven babies would be re-embodied in Valinor. Even if miscarriages are not typical of Elves, there are surely instances of pregnant Elven mothers dying in the sack of Nargothrond, Gondolin, or elsewhere that would provide a similar scenario.

[Azrakhor Akallabeth]

Very possibly, good (or bad) Formendacil. Still, I tend to see the answers to each of the questions as readily available, if the time is taken. Perhaps my apprehension of these is something I take for granted because they appear obvious enough to me and I feel I could answer them all fairly thoroughly in a direct sense, not necessarily as you say, with a view to cataloging for (perhaps) a clinical dissection With a view to RPG, but rather as they appear to work in the writing. But your response was gracious, and thank you.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Azrakhor Akallabeth

Very possibly, good (or bad) Formendacil. Still, I tend to see the answers to each of the questions as readily available, if the time is taken. Perhaps my apprehension of these is something I take for granted because they appear obvious enough to me and I feel I could answer them all fairly thoroughly in a direct sense, not necessarily as you say, with a view to cataloging for (perhaps) a clinical dissection With a view to RPG, but rather as they appear to work in the writing. But your response was gracious, and thank you.

The thing is, though.... I don't think the answers are readily available in every case; and if you base your opinion about the general lack of response to Paradus's questions on their ready answerability, then if I were successful in demonstrating that the answers AREN'T readily available, your conclusion about the lack of response would no longer be supported.

Take, for example, Paradus's last few questions:

Originally Posted by Paradus

Does the power of Illuvatar have any limits?

What of the power of song and music?

Finally what powers did the great Morgoth have at his disposal?

I would contend that these questions have no ready answers, each in their own particular way, and that consequently an interesting discussion could be founded on each of them (and, admittedly, may already have been done in the vaults of time somewhere on this or another forum. In that case, Paradus may be faulted for not finding those discussions and contributing to those conversations... but I do not think he would find certain answers).

Firstly, "does the power of Ilúvatar have any limits?" This is no simple question, but ties in directly to the unanswered philosophical questions about the nature of God. Even if you assume that Ilúvatar has the same philosophical properties as the Christian God, you have to bear in mind that there is no complete agreement as to whether the Christian God has the qualities of omni-benevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience given in philosophy to the supreme being. Quite apart from the Problem of Evil on a technical level, you also have the Problem of apparent Evil in acts attributed to God in revelation--and, for that matter, you have the Problem of apparent Evil in the acts attributed to Eru in Tolkien's "revelation". Never mind the fact that the identification of Eru with the Christian God is disputed by some rather weighty minds on this forum in the first place.

And even if Ilúvatar's power does not inherently have limits, is it possible that He limits them Himself in giving governance of the world to the Valar and giving free will to Men (and Elves, Dwarves, etc)?

Regarding the second question, about the power of music in Middle-earth, there are admittedly a book-full of essays about music (Music in Middle-earth, edited by our very own Esty) which could be consulted, but after you go through the book, I would say (mind you, only having read through a third to half the essays) that you would left with a strong sense of "okay, now I know pretty much everything Tolkien said... but I still have to draw my own conclusions." It's one thing to survey every instance that links power and music in the corpus of Middle-earth texts; it's quite another to conclude solidly what the exact parameters of power might be.

Thirdly, "what powers did the great Morgoth have at his disposal." Much like the question of music, one could survey all the instances of Morgoth exercising his might in Tolkien's work, and still not know whether he could do more or not--though one might be able to block off certain directions (for example, we know that Morgoth could not create, only twist other's creations... at least in his later stages). However, the question is complicated by other things: Paradus says "Morgoth" so I assume that he means Morgoth-enemy-of-the-Eldar-in-Angband-during-the-First-Age, which is a different matter than Melkor-as-he-first-entered-Arda. What's more, Paradus adds the phrase "at his disposal." Well, we know that Morgoth had the power to change his form--when he took up a form at all... but this power was dispersed throughout the matter of Arda by the time he last took a shape as he escaped the clutches of the Valar... so this "power" that he legitimately possessed was no longer "at his disposal." If this was true of this power, would it be true of others? For example, if we assume that Morgoth "created" the orks and trolls before Utumno was destroyed and he was taken to Valinor, could he have done a similar act when he returned? This depends if all he did was breed Elves (or Men) for their most abominable traits... or did he actively use his subcreative power to mould them into different forms?

Again... it is not answerable, so unless "it is not answerable" is a legitimate "answer to each of the questions [that is] readily available, if the time is taken," then I have to conclude that the answers to these questions are NOT all readily available.



*cough* Okay, that gets the logical argument out my system, but quite beyond refuting your point logically, Azrakhor, there is a "moral" point I am trying to make--and I mean "moral" in the sense of "this is what ought to be done on the Downs." Even though I rather strongly disagree with Paradus's terminology, and even if I actually incline to your position that, by and large, these discussions already exist on the forum and can be found if one digs around... the purpose of a discussion forum is to discuss. While it is a minor fault to not dig up a pre-existing thread and add to what is there, rather than starting a new (possibly superfluous thread), it is also true that there are over a decade of discussions buried in the pages of this forum, and even the relatively long-term users have not read them all... and even if we have, we cannot be expected to find them.

In other words, even if Paradus's questions were readily answerable, it would still be within the scope of this forum to ask them. Not everyone on this globally-used site has access to all twelve volumes of the History of Middle-earth, even *if* they've all read The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, which they have not. Many of the best threads come out of topics that have been discussed many times--not because the topic is new, but because the input into the topic is. One of the treasures of the Barrow-downs is wealth of knowledge of its many members, and one of the whole points of the discussion forum is to allow that knowledge to be imparted and shared.

Mind you... I have a philosophy degree, so I've been conditioned to see the reasking of old questions, and the full reconsideration of ideas from start to finish--even when the conclusion is no different--as a good thing in itself.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Azrakhor Akallabeth

This is why I believe you aren't receiving an overwhelming volume of response to these very relevant, and oh so interesting questions. But good luck finding them. The journey is worth the wait, I promise!

There are some very interesting threads on many of them on the forum. Certainly a bit of use of the search facility might be more profitabel than expecting someone else to produce a cribsheet. I feel like Sam that some questions require a week's answer or none at all since they require a degree of evidence balancing and conjecture.

[Galadriel55]

I wouldn't call it "powers", but rather "power". I noticed that although he was once the most powerful ainu, during the first age he and Melian had a few "mental battles", and Melian won. (I can't quote right now, but there was something like "often did his thought stray to her, and there was foiled"). Which shows exactly how much power he lost over this time.

Well, maybe instead of "lost" I should say ''used". He put in into Arda and its creatures.

And more about powers: cunning lies.

[Azrakhor Akallabeth]

I can always readily admit when I make a speculation. In the case of the above quoted text, that's all it was. And I allow the fact that I can be wrong in my speculations. I'm sure my speculations are irrelevant, and I could have been wrong, and likely am. I shall certainly endeavor to stick to the researchable facts.