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The White CouncilRe: MagicTolkien and Inklings Discussion |
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The White CouncilRe: MagicTolkien and Inklings Discussion |
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Posted by Michael Martinez on April 27, 1999 at 21:38:36 In Reply to: Re: Magic posted by Martin Read on April 27, 1999 at 08:59:20:
URL is below. The message board and some of the material are hosted on a different server, but the Middle-earth Online URL gets you to all parts and associated sites. : Is the term technology - systematic knowledge of industrial : arts - a very apt description of some of the instances of : "Magic" in Tolkien? It fits the production of the Silmarils or : galvorn pretty well though not shape-changing or the creative : abilities of the Valar. Well, Tolkien called the Noldor "technologists". I'm not entirely sure he was using the word in the way that we today would use it -- remember, solid state circuitry came out in the late 1950s, after he had written THE LORD OF THE RINGS. I have no idea of how much of an impact it could have had on his world-view in the twlight of his lifetime. I think Tolkien would have been impressed and in some ways appalled by Charles Babbage's calculating machine (devised in the 1800s, and completely mechanical, it is regarded as the first general purpose computing machine). We might be fascinated by it as a curiosity, but we obviously use far more advanced technology just to access this message board. I would not call the shape-changing or what the Valar do "technology", but their application of their skills would certainly be precise and functional when creating worlds and stars. Or, for a perhaps applicable analogy, if what the Elves do is technological, then what the Ainur do is millions of years beyond the Elves' abilities.
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