Talk:Magic (Middle-earth)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Middle-earth, which aims to build an encyclopedic guide to J. R. R. Tolkien, his legendarium, and related topics. Please visit the project talk page for suggestions and ideas on how you can improve this and other articles. Note: Though it states in the Guide to writing better articles that generally fictional articles should be written in present tense, all Tolkien legendarium-related articles that cover in-universe material must be written in past tense. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Standards for more information about this and other article standards. |
|||||||||||||
|
Assessment
|
||||||||||||||
First of all, thank you very much for writing this page. Second of all, it does indeed need heavy editing. Fewer examples of magic and more discussion of the distinctions between magic in Middle-earth and magic elsewhere would be good. --Adanadhel 14:01, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I think that we should create subheadings with sections on different aspects of magic in Middle-Earth (eg, Magic of the Wizards as opposed to the magic of Sauron). Hoyohoyogold 06:35, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, the Wizards/Istari are generally considered to be Maiar (Olorin is for sure, at any rate) and hence of comparable class as Sauron. But then there is the magic of the Elves, and the Ents, and even the Dunedain, not to mention characters like Tom Bombadil. Anyway, I think some different headings in there would be a good idea. I'll get around to them if I can. Adanadhel 06:55, 09 January 2007
- The article definitely needs to be more structured, with suitable headings. Also, there seems to be some confusion within the article between magic and supernatural phenomena. For example, the penultimate paragraph describes the powers of the Valar and Eru as being supernatural but not magical, but earlier the article states that "the moon-runes and its response to a password are supernatural and thereby magical", implying that supernatural powers are a subset of magic. This is inconsistent. A decision needs to be made about what exactly constitutes "magic" for the purposes of this article. —Slowspace 00:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
It would also be good to cover the leader of the Ringwraiths. He is described as being a sorcerer when King in Angmar *before* he becomes a wraith. At the Bruinen ford, he's able to break Frodo's barrow-sword with a gesture, and issue mental commands. Another example of magic from LOTR is in Moria, where Gandalf speaks a "word of command" to hold the door of Balin's tomb shut, and receives a kind of counter-spell from the Balrog. Also, the customers in the Prancing Pony think that Frodo might be a traveling conjurer, which maybe indicates presence of real conjurers in the LOTR world (or maybe not). Magic items are of course common in LOTR, such as Boromir's horn (apparently made by Vorondil, a human), and the toys for Bilbo's party, which are described as "obviously magical", as I recall. The reviving drink and medicinal paste of the Orcs also seem magical. Certain Elvish phrases often have a magical effect, e.g. "Elbereth" hurting the Ringwraiths, even when spoken by a Hobbit. Mujokan 05:24, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I think that magic can be considered there to be performed by the will. The One Ring had its own evil will. The other Rings of Power could also influence their owners. I think that magical properties of elven swords was given to them in similar way by their creators and forging of Rings of Power was an extention of this form of "magic". 195.150.224.33 15:00, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Elven magic?
Do the elves of Middle-earth possess any magic at all? If so, perhaps it should be added to the article. Aidoflight 00:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
