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08-01-2005, 11:52 AM | #161 |
Animated Skeleton
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i doubt it. my opinion is lotr isn't...witchcraft...for example, sauron, he blackens nature, while galadriel tends it, and nature flourishes... i dunno, hp is about wands, and things against church. but our church doesn't ban it, on the contrary alot of my church friends are not fans, but avid readers. apart from the wands, etc. the story and morals inside is down to earth and a good read.
*i recommend hp! **plus since churches havent banned lotr yet it's wasn't too big a problem, right??
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08-02-2005, 02:35 AM | #162 | |||||||
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The attitude towards death as the worst that can happen is Voldemort's position, and is shared by characters who do not yet know better. Though 'dementor's kiss' be a huge mistake on Rowling's part, unless, of course. she distinguishes soul from spirit and soul is supposed to mean the psychological image of the person, or midset that is being lost when dementor kisses one. (the distinction is never made clear, or not made clear yet, hope to see something in books to follow) But Dumbledore, up to and including volume 5 (I haven't got to 6th yet, there may be more interesting things to come there, I'll come back later with them) constantly hints about death as being not the worst that can ever happen. Dumbledore tells Ron and Harry by the end of Book I: Quote:
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In book 5, when Dumbledore directly opposes Voldemort in the ministry, such and intercourse occurs: Quote:
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C'mon, get off it, I myself thought there was nothing worse than death when I was fifteen! But any time Dumbledore and Harry are paired over the subject, they are almost Gandalf/Frodo-like figures, one wiser instructing the younger one in order for the latter to get the correct view of the world. It is not in an instant that Frodo comes to share Gandalf's opinion, is it? Same with Harry/Dumbledore. And as for 'magic originates within the world' issue, just as good it does so. Otherwise, the 'book banners' would indeed have had grounds to have some grudge against Harry Potter series. To quote myself from Acceptance of Mythology thread: Quote:
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08-02-2005, 06:06 AM | #163 |
Animated Skeleton
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I can't answer this question, not really at least. There is a difference between the LOTR and the Harry Potter. Harry Potter seems to make direct use of Witch Craft, and the Author makes it out to be a good thing. LOTR is deferent, J. R. R. Tolkien has magic in his book, but the book does not dwell around magic. I don't know enough about Harry Potter to say more then that, but I hope that helped the conversation if only a little bit.
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01-28-2006, 09:10 PM | #164 |
Shade of Carn Dűm
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Not a huge fan of HP, but I follow the books a little...
I think its a bit silly, banning books from school and public libraries. Religous places (churches, synagoges, mosques, etc) I guess have their own rules, since it is religon, but i think the main problem is that some kids get really into it, and play around like they're wizards battling monsters and read HP all the time. Then they get carried away and such.... But its usually either little kids who dont know any better and adults dont want any impression on them, or really (please excuse this term, at least here me out) honest-to-goodness-nerds that formulate their own Muggle religion and what not. Have I personally met someone like this? No, but I assure you there are. Sure, I think it would be really (mark me, really) cool to stop time and spend a year in Middle-Earth in the Fellowship or something. But I cant do that, so I have real things in my life....But anyway, the problem is when someone dosnt know when to take a break or a reality check or something. I admit, that after I 'discovered' Tolkien for about two or three years, i was in a sort of DIL-IM-A. (sp ) I read through all the Lost Tales, HoME, Silm, all that good stuff, all through Encyclopedia of Arda, so....Tolkien isnt exactly making new stuff, um....So I honestly did not involve myself in Tolkien for about six months (hehe not too long). And it was a nice little breather, but I found The Barrow Downs (forum anyway) and now I can disscuss Tolkien with other people!
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01-29-2006, 02:23 AM | #165 |
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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. The dwarves seem to have magic abilities (judging from their song in the Hobbit, their participation in the magic protection of the troll hoard, their moon letters and the magic doors of Moria).
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). The hobbits are a branch of Men, so it is rather unlikely they have magic powers (more or less seriously, Tolkien notes in the first chapter of the hobbit that "there is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off"). In the fourth age, the presence of magic among Men is bound to be restricted to the use of whatever magical objects are left (glowing swords, elven ropes cloaks and boats, the palantiri and to a much lesser extent Galdadriel's blessed earth given to Sam). |
01-29-2006, 01:58 PM | #166 |
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[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!
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01-29-2006, 05:54 PM | #167 | |
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Raynor wrote:
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Still, I think you are right that magic is, as a general rule, not accessible to humans in the way it is to Elves. |
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01-29-2006, 07:04 PM | #168 |
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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?
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01-31-2006, 03:02 PM | #169 | |
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01-31-2006, 03:35 PM | #170 | |
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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). |
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01-31-2006, 03:38 PM | #171 | |
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01-31-2006, 04:15 PM | #172 |
Everlasting Whiteness
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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.
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01-31-2006, 04:34 PM | #173 | |
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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..... |
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01-31-2006, 05:13 PM | #174 | |
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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...
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01-31-2006, 08:52 PM | #175 | ||||
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Now, how does this compare to J.K. Rowling's use of Technology versus Art? Or is she dealing with an entirely different set-up? If so, what is it? Is it valid on its own terms? (That last question is really a devil's advocate question, since I readily enjoy her stuff). |
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01-31-2006, 09:58 PM | #176 | ||
Late Istar
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02-01-2006, 08:39 AM | #177 | |
Illustrious Ulair
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Its only later that Tolkien presents us with the story of Galadriel & Celebrimbor & her deisre to rule a land where there is no death. It is at this point that Lorien becomes in part a manifestation of the Machine, & Galadriel herself a manipulator of reality (ie of the primary world) through the power of Nenya. This is Art 'embalmed' & thus not truly alive. I'm drawn to the former Lorien, but almost repelled by the latter - it makes me feel like I'm being duped..... |
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02-01-2006, 10:23 AM | #178 |
Flame of the Ainulindalë
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[[QUOTE]QUOTE=Nogrod]]So beating technology requires technology, but if you use it to defy your technological opponent, you will be consumed in the fight? [QUOTE]
[QUOTE=littlemanpoet] This seems to be what Sauron, Saruman, Denethor, and Boromir (until he repented) thought, except for the last phrase of your question. The strategy of the Fellowship was, in fact, to not use the technology, and to destroy it. I agree with this common reading myself, but what striked me in davem's message, and seemed to be opening interesting ways of interpreting the whole issue, were these sentences: [QUOTE][QUOTE=davem]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. So was it just an accident, that Gandalf kind of just happened to have the powers' he used to change the events in LotR? Were Imladri's & Lorien's being able to stay so long as to have their part in the making of the new world, just due to their being nice elves? So how about, if all this was really a work of "machines" (we really would need to define now here, what the word 'machine' means, or change the word!), the work of a world that was becoming, using all these heroes as it's own tool? So, in the end, the Great Victory over the bad principle led straight to the hands of technology & "machines"? Navigating past Scylla led straight to the hands of Charybdis? Elves and Maiar needed rings to fight rings, and thence disappeared from the world that those rings primarily were the first sign of (with Palantiri)? I'm not suggesting, this is a fool-proof interpretation, or even the most fruitful one. But certainly it gives some food for thought! At least to me it has given that.
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02-01-2006, 02:32 PM | #179 | ||||||||
Eagle of the Star
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"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" Quote:
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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 ] |
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02-01-2006, 02:53 PM | #180 | ||
Illustrious Ulair
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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. Quote:
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02-01-2006, 05:19 PM | #181 |
Flame of the Ainulindalë
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[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....
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02-01-2006, 05:56 PM | #182 | ||||
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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. Quote:
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02-02-2006, 12:24 PM | #183 | ||
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02-02-2006, 04:13 PM | #184 | |||
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02-02-2006, 04:18 PM | #185 | |||
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02-02-2006, 04:31 PM | #186 | |||
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02-02-2006, 04:35 PM | #187 | ||
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02-02-2006, 04:52 PM | #188 | ||
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02-02-2006, 05:02 PM | #189 | ||
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02-02-2006, 09:52 PM | #190 | |
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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? |
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02-03-2006, 05:51 AM | #191 |
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I think this is the point - Galadriel's motives may be right, her heart may be in the right place, but her methods are ultimately those of the Enemy. That's her tragedy in a way, & makes her acceptance of her doom (& the doom of Lorien) so poignant, coming as it does out of a realisation of her folly & a repentance for it.
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02-03-2006, 08:17 AM | #192 |
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Was her repentance directed towards her methods? Or rather was it directed towards the pride that drove her to ME in the first place? And once there, after an age, to rule? One needs to live in Blessed Realm to have a standard to shoot for, otherwise all you have is a Girdle that keeps everyone out. Whether her magic is parallel, or derives from the same source as Sauron's, her desire to rule and make order (to me) is what needs to be compared, if there is any comparison to make. But, this makes her poignancy much more of a human condition for me.
It seems to me, especially in the 2nd and 3rd ages, that she does see the end clearly. For her, a few thousand years is a fleeting thing. And if Sauron wasnt around marring things, her purpose in Lorien would be less clear. I dont see her regretting using her abilities, nor do I see her regretting the use of Nenya. Her regret reaches back before the sun and the moon rode the sky, when she was a young, fiery, ambitious, talented elf who was adventerous, and got caught up with some doomed Noldor. What was happening in Lorien was the last grasps that delayed an end that was hastened by what Sauron was doing. all my opinion of course |
02-03-2006, 08:33 AM | #193 |
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Po-mo Toko
I cannot tell you all how many times, seeing this thread in my "New Subscribed Threads", that I have read the thread title as "Outage". And for a moment I sit there in confusion wondering who or what was outed.
Reading through this analysis of Galadriel has been intriguing, and it sets me off on a related idea, which I throw out here, for what it is worth. Do correct me--gently -- if I misinterpret the points here. There seems to be some agreement that Galadriel's intentions were nostalgic, that is, a looking backward and longing for something viewed as better in the past. And, general agreement that while her intentions might have been admirable her method erred. Can we extrapolate this to many readers' interpretations of LotR? It seems to me that many readers enjoy Tolkien because he offers a nostalgic vision of a past world that was better than our sordid present one--higher, finer, free of dross. It upholds an idealism of values and behaviour which, as many readers also point out, are absent from modern literature. (Critics, too, but I won't go there for this thread!) Obviously I am generalising here. So, if we are to view Galadriel as tragically in err for her nostalgia, is there anything else in Tolkien which would "correct" or equally suggest that readers are in err for a nostalgic reading of Tolkien? (I'm using this term 'err' not proscriptively but simply descriptively for the sake of the argument here, as everyone knows that I don't subscribe to the theory that there is only one way of reading a text.) I am here suggesting that Galadriel is used as a model for a prime 'reader' of Middle-earth and that when we decode her reading as tragically wrong, we step back and see if this decoding can be applied--applicability!--to our own readings of Middle-earth. (Or those of some of us.) Is it possible that Tolkien gives us a text which invites us to fall into the elvish habit of nostalgia, to enjoy it and revere it and be inspired by it, but in the end he provides subtle suggestions that such nostalgia is a false or misplaced longing? Does Tolkien undercut the major response he seems to create in his readers? Are we to repent of our reading? I'm not saying he does, just throwing out some thoughts which the discussion here brought to mind as possibilities.
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02-03-2006, 10:25 AM | #194 |
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drigel: That Galadriel's methods included Art based upon the Technology of the Ring, shows how far she has fallen in her pride. So yes, it's most deeply the pride that she repents from, but also the method, for by not taking the Ring from Frodo, she places herself at the mercy of chance ('if chance you call it').
It occurs to me that Galadriel, for all her wisdom and power, has not seen certain things until Frodo shows them to her in his more intuitive wisdom. I call it intuitive because he was not entirely aware of what he was doing by offering her the Ring. For example, I doubt that Galadriel realized how far she had fallen until she was forced to examine herself in response to Frodo's offer. Bęthberry: Galadriel's Art/Technology is not the only instance of this nostalgia in LotR. Other examples of it are Treebeard and the Ents, and indeed the entirety of the Rohirrim story-line, which is (in part) a 'might-have-been' but for the Norman conquest. In our reading? Are you suggesting that we tend to read LotR according to late 20th century lenses and need to let it speak to us in a new 21st century way? And that Tolkien suggests this very thing in the course of the story? The end of the War of the Ring ushers in a completely new Age of Man (read Humanity). But the social norms don't change, only the demise (or diminishing) of Art (magic). Somehow I don't find in Tolkien an acceptance of this without much regret and mourning. |
02-03-2006, 11:16 AM | #195 | ||
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Dec 2002
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LMP well put. I wasnt implying that see saw all, merely the inevitable Defeat, and pre-Frodo - it was probably a vision where she would diminish, and, like her people, "...dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten". Post-Frodo, she "..will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel". What caused me to make the initial post was it seemed the sins of the ring maker were being thrown at the ring wielder. She (to me) didnt start the drama, but she did see how her ring could help affect her strategy of defiance towards Sauron.
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Beth thats an intriguing thought. I would almost say Romanticism is rearing her head at the idea. But, I would say that, at this time, I dont have (or remember) a longing for the good old days, but something somewhere in my genes apparantly does, which marks the genious of the works. Last edited by drigel; 02-03-2006 at 11:23 AM. |
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02-03-2006, 11:47 AM | #196 | |||
Eagle of the Star
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02-03-2006, 12:40 PM | #197 | |||
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
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(Sorry for the long quote - this is from Verlyn Flieger's 'A Question of Time' pps 111 - 112) Quote:
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“Everything was an object. If you killed a dwarf you could use it as a weapon – it was no different to other large heavy objects." Last edited by davem; 02-03-2006 at 02:06 PM. |
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02-03-2006, 12:51 PM | #198 | ||
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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02-03-2006, 02:02 PM | #199 |
A Mere Boggart
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: under the bed
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Maybe this explains the Gift of Death - that Men are not doomed to resisting change, they never have to fight the urge to live in a pickled version of the distant past, as it simply will not happen to them; they will die long before that 'doom' affects them. I think in Tolkien's work we see that change is inevitable. It might not be nice, but it is going to happen whether we like it or not. The Gift of Death allows Men to escape this tragedy; Aragorn will not live to see all his efforts in the War of the Ring fall, eventually, to nothing. And perhaps this is why Elves are naturally expected to live in the Undying Lands, as once there, they are protected from death and decay and change.
We visit this secondary world just as that 'magic' is about to decline and fade. I wonder if our own world ever had any of that magic anyway? We'll never know, but we can be sure that there was plenty of suffering in all periods of history, and in Tolkien's world there is plenty of suffering too. Not only is there the suffering of our 'heroes' like Frodo, but there is the suffering of the peoples enslaved by Sauron, the Ents who know they are going to die out, Hobbits made to starve when the Shire is taken over - it might be a fantasy world, but it's no Utopia. Galadriel in Middle-earth is really a big fish in a small pond, and she is no fairy princess, she is an Elf who has ambitions. She wants to create and rule her own realm, and it is to these desires that Celebrimbor panders when he tries to woo her with gifts such as the Elessar and Nenya. They are gifts of power and potency, not trinkets. She knows that when the Rings lose their power she has two choices: go back to the Undying Lands and be one of many fish in a pond, or stay in Middle-earth but lose her realm, and become as one of the 'common Elves' who she rules.
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02-03-2006, 05:12 PM | #200 | ||||
Eagle of the Star
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The noldor are described as the most skilled of the elves (surpassing even their teachers - Aule, the smith of gods and his followers); the manifestations of their sub-creative talents are the most extraordinary of all elven Art. Is ME change something that elves (completely) dread? I doubt it (from Dangweth Pengolodh, HoME XII): Quote:
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According to Letter #181, the elves represent "the artistic, aesthetic, and purely scientific aspects of the Humane nature raised to a higher level than is actually seen in Men. That is: they have a devoted love of the physical world, and a desire to observe and understand it for its own sake and as 'other' - sc. as a reality derived from God in the same degree as themselves - not as a material for use or as a power-platform. They also possess a 'subcreational' or artistic faculty of great excellence". Their ennoblement of the Men race (at least through the union of the blood lines) is part of a divine plan. In the same text quoted above, Dangweth Pengolodh, it is stated that: Quote:
My conclusion would be that the elves had a certain critical role in ME: to raise Men to a higher level, a point illustrated by the above refferences; yet in Middle Earth, the marring of Melkor threatens to accelerate not only the waning of the elven hroa due to the fire of their spirit but also their means of existence (general decay nature, which affects even the gift of the valar, lembas, whose corn can neither grow under the shadow of 'normal' plants, nor can it withstand the evil winds bearing the influence of Melkor). In order to conclude their mission to its fullest success, the elves need protection against such factors, a protection given by the power of their rings. I see Galadriel's realm as one in which the elves are allowed to manifest their sub-creative skills in all matters of life, to successfully resist Sauron and to ultimately fulfill a critical part of Eru's plan: the raising of Men to a higher level of their potential. |
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