This week, I want to keep unloading my Tolkien-related thoughts, turning from last week’s character study to a look at the way ‘magic’ and spiritual power work in Tolkien’s legendarium and in particular to how contests between fundamentally magical beings in Middle-earth are decided. This is a topic that I think even the best adaptations have generally failed to grasp, representing (as Peter Jackson does) contests between supernatural beings as involving fireballs and telekinetic shoves. Rings of Power likewise seems, in its depiction of Gandalf, committed to magic that is very open, flashy and kinetic (and sometimes wielded by beings who ought not have it, reflective of a misunderstanding of where supernatural power comes from in Middle-earth).
So I want to lay out my reading of how all of this functions. While Tolkien’s magic system is often described as a ‘soft’ system (or even not a system at all), as if it had few rules or boundaries, I would argue that in fact we can perceive the basic patterns for how Tolkien understands supernatural power to exert itself in his legendarium and how supernatural being compete in strength.
Once again I should note we are not entirely departing from the craft of the historian here. After all, we frequently read the writings of past societies looking to understand how they viewed the world and part of that is often understanding how they understood the metaphysical (that is, supernatural) nature of their world: how do they imagine things like curses and gods and magic work? We’re effectively performing the same analysis, but on Tolkien’s writings, with the aim of trying to suss out how he imagines ‘magic’ works in his constructed ‘secondary‘ world.
Our starting point is something Treebeard says to the Gandalf as the Fellowship passed Orthanc on their way home, at the end of the story: “You have proved mightiest, and all your labours have gone well.” (RotK, 287). It is a striking statement and it picks up something Gandalf said at the Council of Elrond, “There are many powers in the world, for good or for evil. Some are greater than I am. Against some I have not yet been measured. But my time is coming” (FotR, 266). Treebeard is observing that the measuring has now been taken and Gandalf has “proved mightiest.” But measured against whom?
At first, one might think that Treebeard is merely commenting on Gandalf’s clear superiority in strength over Saruman, but this won’t do: Gandalf spoke to Treebeard after breaking Saruman’s staff in The Two Towers (TT, 226), so Gandalf’s victory there is no new information for Treebeard to observe with this statement. And in any case, that would merely make Gandalf mightier. Nor will it do to simply dismiss Treebeard as speaking empty words: for his slow pace, he is ancient and has seen many ages of the world and many powers as one of the oldest beings in Middle-earth1 and what is more, no one corrects him in that moment, despite quite a few of ‘the wise’ being present.
No, I would argue that what Treebeard is saying is that Gandalf has, at the end of his many labours, been measured against and “proved” mightier not merely than Saruman or the Witch King but mightier than Sauron and thus the “mightiest” creature in Middle-earth.2 And no one corrects him – because there is nothing to correct. It is a revealing reading! Although Gandalf and Sauron never met face-to-face, never appear to contest directly, it imagines Gandalf to have been, in a very real sense, in contest with each other not only in the physical (‘Seen’) world, but also in the spiritual (‘Unseen’) world, which is, as we’ll see, the more important one.
But how can Gandalf have proved mightier than Sauron, a being he never meets in person?
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Magic in Middle-earth
Before we dive in, I think we need to distinguish here between three different kinds of power in Tolkien’s writings that we might call ‘magic,’ though in each case, Tolkien himself might object. I am going to term them as craft-magic, spiritual power and then a subset of spiritual power, dark magic. We can begin with craft-magic: Elves and Dwarves sometimes produce objects or effects which are marvelous out of their deep knowledge and connection to parts of Arda. Bread that is wondrously nourishing, doors that open on their own at a word, swords that glow blue in the presence of orcs and so on. These are not magic per se – they do not really involve a supernatural power – but rather understood in Tolkien as something more like technology: wondrous, magical-seeming results borne of the tremendous skill and deep knowledge of the crafters. We are setting this sort of ‘craft-magic’ aside for now, except to note that it is unlike the other two forms of ‘magic’ we’re looking at, as it is not spiritual or supernatural at all.
By contrast, the Ainur – that is, the greater Valar and lesser Maiar (of which Sauron and the wizards are examples) – have access to what I am going to term spiritual power, because they are angelic, supernatural beings. Having been involved in the Song of Eru and the very creation of Arda, these beings are able to a degree to reshape Arda around themselves. This is the sort of ‘magic’ – spiritual power – that we’ll be focused on here. Like all ‘magic’ in Tolkien, such power is an expression of the primacy of the Unseen over the Seen and in a sense as a result such spiritual power does not effect or perform but rather reveals: the true, Unseen nature of the world is revealed by the exertion of a supernatural being and that revelation reshapes physical reality (the Seen) which is necessarily less real and less fundamental than the Unseen.
As an aside, note those moments where Gandalf’s manner suddenly changes and a character glimpses, however briefly, his true being as an angelic Maia of tremendous power. It is not that Gandalf makes himself seem bigger or older or wiser (nor is it that Saruman makes himself seem like a coiled snake, ready to strike, TT, 219), but rather that in those moments characters who normally can only observe the Seen world momentarily glimpse the deeper truth of the Unseen world.
Denethor looked indeed much more like a great wizard than Gandalf did, more kingly, beautiful, and powerful; and older. Yet by a sense other than sight, Pippin perceived that Gandalf had the greater power and the deeper wisdom, and a majesty that was veiled. And he was older, far older. (RotK, 30, emphasis mine)
This spiritual power also has a subset, which we might term ‘dark magic:’ certain non-Ainur are able to wield magic that is not craft-magic and is seemingly invariably evil. The Mouth of Sauron “learned great sorcery,” for instance (RotK 182), and the Witch King can make his sword ignite and command Barrow-wights. Such ‘dark magic’ is actually spiritual power, one step removed: what these mortal magic users command is actually the disseminated remains of Morgoth’s spiritual power, diffused through Middle-earth.3 What these evil magic users have learned, in essence, is how to manipulate elements of this ‘Morgoth-stuff’ to produce magical-seeming effects; because the ‘stuff’ is of Morgoth, the effects and their users are generally evil.
As an aside, I think the power of the Rings introduces some complexity into this question. The One Ring is very clearly an extension and focusing of Sauron’s own spiritual power and perhaps to some degree also his knowledge of ‘dark magic,’ and the fact that the Seven and the Nine, in which Sauron had a hand, tend to lead their holders to bad ends suggests to me they too had some element of either Sauron’s or Morgoth’s power in them. But it is unclear to me if the Three rings are similarly tainted: on the one hand, they are free of Sauron’s influence in the absence of the One Ring, but on the other hand, they fail when the One Ring is unmade, suggesting that some essential part of their design drew on the same source as it did, which is fundamentally Sauron’s spiritual power. Yet they do not seem to corrupt their wearers on their own, which might suggest they are close – or at least closer – to pure ‘craft-magic.’ My own suspicion is that in their design, drawn from the Seven and the Nine, there is some part of Sauron’s spiritual power reflected in them (included unintentionally by Celebrimbor), but that they are mostly ‘craft-magic,’ but I do not think this reading is at all required by the text.4 As an aside, it is striking that in the Lord of the Rings, the one instance we see that we might read as an elf doing magic rather than just craft-magic – Elrond flooding the Ford, comes from Elrond, bearer of Vilya and thus may have been an extension of his ring’s power.5
In any case, we’re interested here in spiritual power, the sort of magic Ainur like Gandalf, Sauron, Durin’s Bane and Saruman can wield – and which some of Sauron’s lieutenants can wield either as a delegated power from Sauron or as an extension of ‘dark magic’s’ manipulation of ‘Morgoth-stuff.’
While Tolkien is sometimes slotted into ‘soft’ magic systems or even no system at all, I want to argue here that spiritual power follows a clear pattern in Tolkien. What makes it tricky to assess as a ‘magic system’ is instead that spiritual power works at a very profound level, making it easy to mistake the most important uses of it as ‘chance’ or ‘happenstance’ when in fact we are observing the surface emanations of something much deeper. But in most cases – arguably all of the, – this spiritual power does follow a system, if we are attentive enough to detect it. Naturally, the fellow we see work the most of this sort of ‘magic’ is Gandalf and so upon Gandalf we shall focus, as he confronts and defeats other spiritually powerful beings.
Obvious Magic
We want to start by grounding our understanding in moments that are obviously expressions of spiritual, supernatural power: the obvious magic. That will help us set the ‘ground rules’ by which we assess some of the less obvious instances.
I can think of a few core examples of this sort of ‘obvious magic’ that we see first-hand in the text.6 Gandalf twice conjures fire (FotR, 347, 357) with an invocation, although this is an interesting example as it is the only time Gandalf uses another language (Sindarin) to do so, rather than doing so in the ‘plain’ (English standing in for Westron) language of the text; as we’ll see, I have my suspicions as to why. Gandalf’s confrontation with the Balrog is likewise a clear instance of supernatural power, a confrontation between to Maiar in which Gandalf breaks the Bridge of Khazad-dûm (FotR, 392). He also describes opposing Durin’s Bane – though he doesn’t know it yet – with a “shutting spell” that is answered by a “counter-spell” which he answers by a “word of Command” (FotR, 388) though we get this described to us rather than see it. The other very clear example is Gandalf’s breaking of Saruman’s staff (TT, 222). If we put these events together, we might begin to understand how Tolkien expresses spiritual power and in so doing begin to detect more subtle instances of its expression.
The first thing to note is that in every case there is a clear verbal invocation. Speaking seems to be, if not required, a normal part of expressing supernatural power, particularly larger expressions of such power (more than, for instance, a flash of light). But the form of that invocation too is interesting. Whereas ‘magic words’ are common in a lot of fantasy fiction, only one ‘spell’ is spoken not in ‘plain language:’ the conjuring of fire. On Caradhras, Gandalf ignites wet wood under heavy wind with something called a ‘word of command’ – a phrase Gandalf uses again later – in Sindarin, naur an edraith ammen, literally, “fire for saving us” (FotR, 347). Later, against the wolves, Gandalf uses a longer, more specific version of the same ‘spell:’ “Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan i ngaurhoth!” which we might render, “Fire for saving us! Fire against the wolf-host!” (FotR, 357). This is, to my recollection, the only time Gandalf invokes like this in Sindarin and I suspect the reason is precisely that this is fire magic and thus involves Gandalf’s carefully hidden Elven ring, Narya the Ring of Fire.
We do, by the by, get told about one other ‘spell’ invocation delivered in a language other than Westron and it is the spell upon the One Ring itself, which Gandalf notes, “For in the day that Sauron first put on the One, Celebrimbor, maker of the Three, was aware of him, and from afar he heard him speak these words, and so his evil purposes were revealed” (FotR, 304, emphasis mine). Gandalf goes on to recite those precise words shortly thereafter: Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul, “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them.” And invoking the words produces an immediate supernatural result locally (the sky darkens), as if the One Ring responds to them in a way it does not respond to their translation. That suggests to me that the Rings might require invocation in a specific language, the language of their creation, to function properly.
Our two other invocations are delivered in ‘English’ (English for Westron) and take a form I want to note: they are plain language assertions, in the present tense, about the state of the world. Gandalf’s spell to block the Balrog and eventually collapse the bridge is quite simple, “You cannot pass!” (FotR, 392), repeated four times. Of course this comes embedded in a larger speech:
‘You cannot pass,’ he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. ‘I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.’
Note that the orcs, lacking any kind of spiritual power capable of withstanding Gandalf in this moment where he unveils his power, stop immediately, but the Balrog presses forward, leading Gandalf, after a brief clash, to repeat his invocation, ‘You cannot pass!’ one last time. Then Gandalf strikes the bridge with his staff and both his staff and the bridge break, leading the Balrog to tumble down. Which is to say Gandalf told the Balrog something about the true nature of the world – that it could not pass – and and Gandalf was right.
We see the exact same construction mirrored with Saruman. For all of the exchanges of words, Gandalf does not stop Saruman’s effort to use his voice (which I suspect is as much an exercise of craft-magic as any) but only at the end engages in a direct supernatural confrontation:
He raised his hand, and spoke slowly in a clear cold voice. ‘Saruman, your staff is broken.’ There was a crack, and the staff split asunder in Saruman’s hand, and the head of it fell down at Gandalf’s feet. (TT, 222).
Note that Gandalf does not order the staff to break, nor does he say it will break or bids to let it break. He simply declares that it is broken just as he declares that the Balrog cannot pass. These are present tense statements asserting a reality rooted in the Unseen world which then express themselves through the Seen world. Saruman’s staff is broken because he has broken with the will of Eru which was always the true source of his power. We had actually spent several pages seeing that reality as Saruman tries but fails in using his Voice to win over one listener after another that “the power of his voice was waning” (TT, 224). Gandalf, invoking that fundamental reality of the Unseen, spiritual world makes it visible, manifest in the Seen physical world: he declares that the staff is broken and it conforms.
Notably, this moment, where Saruman hurls a fireball and Gandalf blocks it with magic, doesn’t happen. Supernatural beings do not generally fight this way in Tolkien, at least not in fights we witness first hand.
Doubling back for a moment, I think we can also say that our non-Westron invocations actually follow this formula, with a bit of a grammatical quirk. In formal English (which represents Westron), speakers cannot ‘gap’ (that is, drop) the verb ‘to be’ – though in informal English folks do all of the time (think “he a fool” for “he is a fool”) – but in many other languages you can and regularly do ‘gap’ simple present tense forms of the verb to be, especially in poetry. I am not an expert in Tolkien’s linguistics, but this is common enough, for instance, in Latin – especially in poetry – and of course famously throws many Latin students who meet a sentence composed entirely of nouns and adjectives, searching for a verb in vain only to be told to ‘supply est.’7
I think in the same way, we can understand naur an edraith ammen, “fire for saving us” and Ash nazg durbatuluk “One Ring to rule them,” simple descriptions of an object, to be ‘gapping’ a form of the verb ‘to be.’ The temptation would be to supply it in the optative, “let there be” but I think, given the above example, we ought to actually supply it in the present indicative – and indeed, there’s nothing stopping us, which renders the meaning of the invocations as, “[There is] fire for saving us” and “[There is] One Ring to Rule them.” And that is, in practice, the implication of both statements: they are describing something and so by ‘magic’ willing it into existence: fire for saving or a ring for ruling.
In short, then, we have our pattern for ‘magic’ – for exertions of true supernatural power in its most powerful and direct forms: characters exert their spiritual power through plain language assertions about the current state of the world – the spiritual power – works, the world alters itself to accommodate their statement, to make it true or perhaps more correctly, given the present-tense nature of the construction and the profundity of the statements, we might even say to make it always have been true, because what is being made ‘true’ is really a ‘truth’ derived from the more fundamental, more real reality of the Unseen.8 And because the Unseen is more profound and fundamental than the Seen, when its nature is revealed the Seen world, as if snapping to a reality that has already existed immediately conforms.
Gandalf declares “You cannot pass!” and indeed, it cannot. He declares there is fire and instantly there is fire. Sauron announces there is One Ring which will rule and bind the others and there is such a Ring, though note that there indeed has been such a ring for moments at least (for he is only in that moment placing it on his finger), yet it is the invocation that makes that Unseen reality real to Celebrimbor in the Seen world. And of course, Gandalf declares, “Your staff is broken” and, indeed, it is – and in the Unseen sense, perhaps has been for some time.
The Seen world conforms.
As an aside, because it fits nowhere else: it is also clear that these expresses of spiritual power seem generally to require a focusing object to be fully effective. Of course we see this in the staves of the wizards, but equally in Sauron’s spell upon the One Ring and – if my supposition above is correct – Gandalf’s use of Narya to focus his command of fire. Interesting that while both times Gandalf uses the naur an edraith ammen he holds a branch aloft, but only in the first case (FotR 347) does he make use of his staff. I wonder if, unseen to the book’s narrator, he is holding that stick aloft and tossing it (FotR 357) with his ring-bearing hand. In either case, that the object contains a portion of the spiritual power of its individual and its breaking matters is clear in both the unmaking of the ring and the breaking of wizard staves – Gandalf’s at the bridge and Saruman’s at Orthanc – and of course Gandalf’s care to make sure he still had his staff when he went to confront Théoden (TT 137). Of course if we understand Gandalf’s staff may be a part of him as much as the One Ring is a part of Sauron, we may equally understand his reluctance to lay it aside. So while we never get quite as clear a picture on the role of these focusing objects, I think it is a fair supposition that they matter quite a bit.
Tricky Magic in the Golden House
With our formula in mind, I think we can begin to detect moments in which supernatural power is expressed a bit more subtly or perhaps we might say more profoundly, which makes it a bit trickier to assess.
The smallest and first tricky example is Gandalf’s arrival at Meduseld. It seems clear some expression of spiritual power is intended here: “He raised his staff. There was a roll of thunder. The sunlight was blotted out from the eastern windows; the whole hall became suddenly dark as night. The fire faded to sullen embers” (TT, 140). But the nature of the magic is a lot less clear, particularly compared to the very clear and obvious power duel that Peter Jackson substitutes for this moment, complete with Saruman being thrown across a room miles away.
But I think we can make some sense of what is happening now that we have something of a model. For one, Gandalf is doing things with his staff here, raising it at first and then later “he lifted his staff and pointed to a high window” (TT, 140). But there also ought to be words and we are looking not for commands in the imperative mood but rather plain language statements about the state of the Unseen world, realized in the Seen world.
And I think we get two. The first, which produces the roll of thunder, is directed at Gríma, “I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a serving-man till the lightning falls” (TT, 140). And I hear you say, “but that’s a past tense statement” but in fact it is, if we can break out a bit more complicated grammar, a perfect tense statement. Tolkien, of course, a philologist whose training included quite a bit of Greek will have known how the Greek perfect tense functions: it expresses a past tense action which has been completed but the results of which continue to the present – a past tense action which creates a present tense reality. What Gandalf is saying is that the fact that he has passed through fire and death – and as we know, emerged as Gandalf the White, sent back with more power and an expanded remit by Eru Ilúvatar – has created a present tense reality that he is not going to be tied up with Gríma.
What to me seals this as the invocation is that ending, “till the lightning falls” because Gandalf then raises his staff and the very next thing that happens is “There was a roll of thunder” (TT, 140) and the light in the windows is blotted out, presumably by the coming storm heralded by the lightning (which will vanish shortly and equally magically). Gríma then moans that they ought to have forbidden Gandalf’s staff (and so he is unable to trap Gandalf in their war of words) and then the lightning falls, “there was a flash as if lightning had cloven the roof. Then all was silent. Wormtongue sprawled on his face” (TT 140). Gandalf thus declares the Unseen reality – that unlike the Gandalf the Grey who had visited this court before, he, having passed through fire and death, is no longer the sort of Gandalf who will be held off by mere words, “till the lightning falls” – and the Seen world conforms to the stated reality: Gríma retreats and the lightning does indeed fall.
The second instance fits our model even more cleanly, though it may just be the conclusion of the same expression of supernatural force:
‘Now Théoden son of Thengel, will you hearken to me?’ said Gandalf. ‘Do you ask for help?’ He lifted his staff and pointed to a high window. There the darkness seemed to clear, and through the opening could be seen, high and fair, a patch of shining sky. ‘Not all is dark. Take courage, Lord of the Mark; for better help you will not find.’ (TT 140, emphasis mine)
Here our sequencing is the complication. Our plain language statement of the Unseen reality is clear enough: “Not all is dark” as is the Seen world conforming to that statement, “There the darkness seemed to clear.” Merely the order is tricky: the Seen world is conforming to the Unseen first, with the statement coming after. But I don’t think this is an insurmountable problem, because remember that the ‘magic user’ is not creating a new reality but merely revealing the Unseen reality, the more fundamental spiritual reality, which already exists.
Also, as an aside, because this fits nowhere else, Gandalf needs Théoden to consent, to “ask for help” (though he does so with actions – leaving his chair and going outside – rather than with words) in order to work his ‘magic.’ This, of course, is what separates Gandalf from Sauron or the fallen Saruman: he has not the will to dominate which is the root of all evil in Tolkien. He will not force Théoden, he will merely show him the better path and bid he take it. Indeed, he will not force Gríma either: even once Gandalf reveals Gríma’s treachery, he urges Théoden to “Give him a horse and let him go at once, wherever he chooses. By his choice you shall judge him,” by which he means if Gríma rides to war with Théoden he might be forgiven, but if – as he does – he flees to Saruman, then he is revealed in his choice.
Underneath the Gate of Minas Tirith
The other major confrontation between supernatural beings that we view directly is the confrontation between Gandalf and the Witch King beneath Minas Tirith’s main gate. This is one of my favorite moments from the book and actually the entire reason I decided to write this nearly 7,000 word post was because I am still sore that Peter Jackson, for all of the quality of his adaptation, got this moment very wrong (in the extended edition). Not only does he have Shadowfax rear up and quail before the Witch King, rather than being, “Shadowfax, who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a given image in Rath Dínen” (RotK, 113) but he has Gandalf’s staff shatter, as if Gandalf has lost – or even has nearly lost – this confrontation.
First, I would argue this is a misunderstanding because it can only be overweening, staggering hubris that the Witch King even imagines he has any shot at winning this spiritual confrontation (though overweening arrogance is his great flaw, so it is in character). It’s unclear to me if the Lord of the Nazgûl actually quite realizes what he is up against – he calls Gandalf “Old fool!” and one wonders if he has mistaken Gandalf for an aged lore-master and magic user rather than the far more powerful Maia he is. But there is no doubt in my mind that Gandalf would always be the stronger here. Recall Gandalf’s statement to Gimli at their first re-meeting that, “And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet, unless you are brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord” (TT, 122). Note the change from the Gandalf who once demurred that “Against some I have not yet been measured” (FotR 266) – this Gandalf knows himself to be the most dangerous thing Gimli could meet, short of Sauron himself. The Witch King hasn’t a hope of winning this confrontation.
But more to the point, he very clearly doesn’t win this confrontation. Instead, what we get is an expression of supernatural power, same as the others, in the same form:
“You cannot enter here,’ said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. ‘Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your master. Go!’ (RotK 113).
And look what we have: a present tense plain language statement of the state of the world, in particular a clear declaration that it is the case that the Lord of the Nazgûl cannot, is incapable, of entering. The WItch King, of course, dismisses this as words, mocks Gandalf, reveals his iron crown, raises his sword and with dark magic sets it alight (RotK, 113). But you know what he doesn’t do?
He doesn’t enter. Because he cannot.
Once again, I think it is worth stressing that Gandalf does not speak idly: when he is uncertain, he says so. If he thinks something is possible, he says that too, using words like ‘may’ and ‘hope.’ But here he states a cold reality: the Lord of the Nazgûl cannot enter here, the same way that Durin’s Bane cannot pass. A reality about the Unseen world is being expressed. And then, of course, the Seen world conforms to the deeper reality of the Unseen world.
And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last […] the darkness was breaking too soon, before the date that his Master had set for it: fortune had betrayed him for the moment, and the world had turned against him; victory was slipping from his grasp even as he stretched out his hand to seize it […] King, Ringwraith, Lord of the Nazgûl, he had many weapons. He left the Gate and vanished. (RotK, 113, 125)
In understanding how spiritual power can express itself in Tolkien, I think this confrontation is the essential bridge. Because on the one hand it is, in structure, paradigmatic, complete with that clear, present-tense statement of the state of the Unseen reality. That this is such a confrontation is made clearer in how closely it mirrors Gandalf’s clearly ‘magical’ confrontation with Durin’s Bane on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm: “You cannot enter here” neatly matching “You cannot pass,” and if we missed it, in both cases the villain produces a flaming sword with which to challenge Gandalf (FotR 392; RotK 113). On the bridge, Gandalf and Durin’s Bane are so close in power that both fall and so Gandalf staff breaks as he reaches the utmost of his power, but under the gate, the Witch King is not so near a peer (and Gandalf is now far stronger) and so the Witch King merely withdraws; Gandalf’s staff does not break. But the structure of the supernatural confrontation and its fundamental nature as rooted in spiritual power remains.
What is revealing however in this moment is how that power is expressed. Gandalf does not drive the Witch King from the gate with fireballs or curses or swordplay. Instead, the physical reality of the Seen world conforms to the spiritual reality of the Unseen world: the arrival of the Rohirrim prevents the Witch King from entering and so he “cannot enter.” Again, this mirrors the confrontation on the bridge: Gandalf declares the Balrog cannot pass and indeed he cannot, not because Gandalf is going to punch him out, but because the bridge will break beneath him if he tries. The victory in the spiritual contest is expressed not in direct, flashy confrontation, but in the truth of their vision of the world. Gandalf’s victory in both cases is born out by the fact that his statement about the world was correct, while the Balrog’s unstated assumption and the Witch King’s open mockery were incorrect.
I didn’t grab screenshots, but Rings of Power is equally blunt with ‘Gandalf’s magic, having him summon sand tornadoes, cause trees to bloom instantly and explode and so on.
Of course, Gandalf is not uninvolved with the arrival of the Rohirrim, even if we might not imagine his participation to seem particularly ‘magical.’ Gandalf was very involved! He has – even if he didn’t know it fully – been setting the terms for this very confrontation for weeks now, by pulling Théoden from his depression, aiding him against Saruman, bringing Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas to him (all of whom play crucial roles at Helm’s Deep), all thereby ensuring that when the Witch King tries to enter “under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed” (RotK 113) it would be the case that he “cannot enter.” The Witch King, arrogant and overconfident, does not recognize this reality in the Unseen world, but Gandalf – the wisest of the Maiar – perceives it, having efforted himself to bring it about. The ‘spell’ is thus the product of Gandalf’s many labors, because as a fundamentally spiritual, angelic being, all of these labors too are expressions of spiritual power, all aimed at producing an Unseen reality, which Gandalf then describes, manifesting it into the Seen world.
You Have Proved Mightest
And now our road, having gone ever ever one turns at last to home and our starting place: Treebeard’s judgement on Gandalf, that he had “proved mightiest,” as if we had seen Gandalf engaged in some direct contest of wills and spiritual power with Sauron, like the confrontations we see between Gandalf and Durin’s Bane, Saruman and the Witch King, and come out the stronger (RotK, 287).
But, my dear reader, we have seen that. We have been reading that for the entire three books.
The remit of the Istari, the wizards, as the Elves understood it is described to us in the Silmarillion, “that they were messengers sent by the Lords of the West [that is, the Valar] to contest the power of Sauron, if he should arise again, and to move Elves and Men and all living things of good will to valiant deeds” (Sil. 299). Only Gandalf stays fully true to this mission (though only Saruman, perhaps, fully failed it) and “Now all these things were achieved for the most part by the counsel and vigilance of Mithrandir [=Gandalf]” (Sil. 304), so it is fair to say that in a sense Gandalf is, throughout the story, directly, personally contesting the will and power of Sauron.
As we’ve seen above, the line in these spiritual contests between ‘magic’ and ‘labors’ is not just blurry but functionally indistinct: Gandalf triumphs over the Witch King in a clear by-the-numbers spiritual contest of wills not by casting lightning bolt, but by having set in motion days and weeks before the movement in the hearts of men which would bring the Rohirrim to Minas Tirith, which is of course, perfectly fitting with his mission. Gandalf may not even have fully known that – in the plan of Eru Ilúvatar – this is what he was doing, setting the stage for that very confrontation. Yet his actions first create a reality in the Unseen, in the hearts of people, which then at the critical moment manifests in the Seen world.
And of course, you can see where I am going with this. Gandalf has been working his ‘spell’ to defeat the evil of Sauron, at this point, for many years kindling in the hearts of Men and Elves the will and courage for valiant deeds most of all in setting Frodo upon his quest and in his counsel priming Frodo to make the crucial choice to spare Gollum (FotR 85-6) and to bring Sam (FotR 90-91), the decisions that in the end, though made by Frodo of his own free will, are the decisions that will cause the Quest to succeed where it might have failed at the very last. As we’ve noted before, while the Seen world of Middle-earth is ruled by physics, its Unseen world is ruled by morality and the choice to do right can ripple through the Unseen world with a profundity that the Seen world lacks. After all, Gandalf himself notes, “My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least” (FotR, 86) and once again, Gandalf’s deep sense of the Unseen reality is fundamentally correct: because Bilbo and Frodo did the right thing and showed pity and mercy (the latter having been encouraged to do so by Gandalf), the Quest succeeds and evil is defeated. Of course that is just one of the many, many interventions Gandalf makes.
All we need is our invocation, our present-tense statement about the state of the Unseen world, as it manifests into the Seen world.
But Gandalf lifted up his arms and called once more in a clear voice.
‘Stand, Men of the West! Stand and wait! This is the hour of doom.’
And even as he spoke the earth rocked beneath their feet […]‘The realm of Sauron is ended!‘ said Gandalf. ‘The Ring-bearer has fulfilled his Quest.’ And as the Captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell. (RotK, 252, emphasis mine)
And so we have our complete formula for a confrontation rooted in an expression of spiritual power. Gandalf declares that the “hour of doom” is at hand, and so it is and then that “the realm of Sauron is ended!” a truth that already exists in the Unseen world but which now manifests even as the Captains gaze south into Mordor, the Unseen truth very literally becoming part of the Seen world as they see it. And the spiritual power of Gandalf’s statement, to which the world around him is rapidly conforming, is of course rooted – as was his victory over the Witch King – in Gandalf’s many labors, a ‘spell’ many years in the making.
Treebeard is thus correct when he observes to Gandalf that “You have proved mightiest, and all your labours have gone well” (RotK, 287). It is, of course, in line with a story that already sought to surprise the reader by having the Quest completed not by the Noble Knights (Boromir and Aragorn) but rather by the smallest and weakest creatures, the hobbits, that Gandalf’s great power is revealed not in his physical might or by throwing fireballs or commanding armies, but rather in his wise counsel, in his compassion and his pity: he has overwhelmed Sauron’s power with goodness and in so doing, “proved mightiest.”
In his ability to move others to right action, to one good deed after another whose morality shaped the Unseen world until at last the grand magic of Doing The Right Thing bears out in unmaking the very “realm of Sauron.”
Because it was always the Unseen world, shaped by hearts rather than armies, which mattered the most.9
- Not Arda, mind you – there are older beings that either pre-date Arda (the Ainur) or in Valinor, surely.
- But not in Arda, of course.
- For those unfamiliar with the broader lore in the Silmarillion, Morgoth (also known as Melkor) is the setting’s equivalent of Satan, an angelic being that defied the will of the singular creator God and rebelled against the divine order, thus giving rise to evil. By the time of the events of The Lord of the Rings, Morgoth has been thus into the Timeless Void, having been defeated by the Valar in the War of Wrath that ended the First Age of Arda and began the Second Age.
- Which is to say, I do not think it was possible for the Elves to create the Three Rings entirely out of craft-magic, because the Three Rings subvert the will of Eru and this could only be done through the spiritual power of an Ainur to change the song as Melkor/Morgoth did. Though Celebrimbor didn’t know it, there was no morally neutral way to create the Three Rings.
- This fits nowhere else so I shall put it here in a note: I think there is significant ambiguity in the text as to the degree to which Elrond’s intervention here is magic. Gandalf notes that “the river of this valley is under his power, and it will rise in anger when he has great need to bar the Ford” (FotR, 271) which sure sounds like magic but equally could be a lyrical way to describe the fact that Elrond, as ruler of Rivendell, can order dikes opened and the river flooded. Equally, this could be craft-magic, that Elrond’s careful cultivation and development is such that he can flood the river at will, easy enough to understand as a sort of ‘sufficiently advanced’ craft-technology. Notably, the one truly supernatural element of the flood – the waters taking the form of horses – was the doing of Gandalf, an expression of his spiritual power and Gandalf implies that he intensified the flooding himself (and then worried he had gotten too carried away, FotR 271). In short, then, I am happier to term Elrond’s intervention at the ford not magic (on his part), but simply craft-magic. If it was true magic, I think we would have to regard it as an expression of the power of his ring, as the Three Rings clearly are capable of something beyond pure craft-magic in their preservation of people and places from decay.
- Unfortunately, we do not see Gandalf’s confrontation with the Nine on Weathertop first hand, merely see it at a great distance (FotR 226) and then only briefly described (FotR 317)
- Est in Latin is the word for “he/she/it is,” but equally can have on its own the sense of “there is.”
- Oh boy does English not like that tense construction, but I think that is correct and also why it is easy to miss ‘magic’ being used: the ‘effect’ can happen before the ‘spell,’ as an extension of the actions and spiritual power of the speaker, as we’ll see in just a moment.
- Here at the end I want to note that it didn’t really fit into any specific citation or footnote, but my thinking on these points has been fairly heavily shaped by M. Dickerson’s Following Gandalf: Epic Battles and Moral Victory in the Lord of the Rings (2003), which explores the theme of moral victories and their importance in The Lord of the Rings.
I do think that ‘craft magic’ is supernatural – it comes from a supernatural understanding of the world, rather than a mere technology. Elves and Dwarves are both said to be imbuing their craft with ‘magic’, as opposed to the Goblins (from the Hobbit) who very much aren’t supernaturally skilled at creating weapons of death, but nevertheless were the ones to invent every advancement in weaponry – I always presumed this draws a difference between the magical swords so well known to said goblins/orcs that they fear the sight of them, as described in the same section, and, say, the invention of the ballista (apologies for poor referencing but I don’t have a copy to hand). Notably, along with the more recent examples as magic fades from the world, Feanor notably got so good at making gems as to literally cause what seems like spiritual injury to Morgoth, like the Devil Went Down to Georgia but for jewellers. While it might be argued that Morgoth had influenced Feanor, the silmarils being his own ‘spiritual power’ would also imply he stupidly turned up to steal what he would know to be burning hot coals with his bare hands, which even for a dark lord seems an inexplicably bad idea.
Maybe it’s more likely that craft magic is a combination of a ‘technological’ understanding of the world, and whatever means more-powerful-than-angel hermits and sun eating spiders just show up without warning occasionally. As by all indications, spirits like Bombadil and Ungoliant are things you just sort of find wandering around. They’re certainly possessed of spiritual might, but are also seemingly an example of Eru-Iluvatar moving in mysterious ways, or a side effect of Morgoth’s distortion to the original song of creation, like in all the confusion someone just coughed and now there’s this strange little man and a great big spider. No one even does anything about Ungoliant, and the presumption is that with her basically being the embodiment of hunger (and the author’s fear of spiders) she eventually ate herself, which seems both poetic and the sort of thing you should probably actually check, given, again, she once ate the concept of light itself.
‘ Feanor notably got so good at making gems as to literally cause what seems like spiritual injury to Morgoth’
Feanor’s big invention was creating silima, indestructible substance that could hold Light, and putting Light of the Two Trees into three gems made of silima. Varda then hallowed the Silmarils:
And Varda hallowed the Silmarils, so that thereafter no mortal flesh, nor hands unclean, nor anything of evil will might touch them, but it was scorched and withered;
In his right hand Morgoth held close the Silmarils, and though they were locked in a crystal casket, they had begun to burn him, and his hand was clenched in pain;
His hands were burned black by the touch of those hallowed jewels, and black they remained ever after; nor was he ever free from the pain of the burning, and the anger of the pain.
Simply making the Silmarils didn’t harm Morgoth. Holding hallowed gems did.
And if we adhere to the formula Dr. Devereaux describes, well… Varda, one of the Valar, is a peer of Morgoth’s and can contest him with effects that will affect him lastingly or even permanently. One imagines Varda saying something to the effect of “no thing of evil can hold these jewels,” perhaps. And then, some time later, Morgoth tries, and cannot hold them.
‘spirits like Bombadil and Ungoliant are things you just sort of find wandering around’
Personally I think Bombadil is a unique Incarnate, not a spirit. But he’s a deliberate enigma from Tolkien, so who knows.
Early versions of Ungoliant made her sound like a Lovecraftian Outer Entity, beyond the sphere of Eru. The Silmarillion makes her sound like just another rogue Maia, without spelling it out. Twice-rogue, having followed Melkor and then left him (before he recruited her again for the Tree-raid.)
I’m not sure Bombadil is completely unique. There is also Goldberry “the River-woman’s daughter” and, presumably, the river-woman herself.
I’m inclined to consider Bombadil some kind of spirit of Arda, with the river-woman the spirit of the Withywindle River, and Goldberry the spirit of some kind of lake fed by it. Lesser beings of the same kind.
‘completely unique. There is also Goldberry’
I feel they’re not supposed to be the same kind of being, but there’s little point in arguing over marginal evidence. I _am_ amused that for 100 threads asking “what is Tom Bombadil?” there is maybe one thread asking “wait, what is Goldberry?” Though “the River-woman is some minor Maia” satisfies a lot of people. One fanfic had Goldberry be an elf-Maia child, like Luthien.
Well, usually elves pair up with elves, maia pair up with maia and so on, so I take it as likely that Bombadil and Goldberry are the same class of being.
There is also the question of the apparent malignant spirt that opposes the Fellowships passage of Caradhras, and Aragorns comment that some such beings have been in the world longer than Sauron. The principle of parsimony suggests to me that these beings are all of the same general, if undescribed, class. Otherwise, I must speculate about several such classes of being.
“What is Goldberry?” is a question that’s always been just as interesting to me as Bombadil. She’s the “River-woman’s daughter,” or “daughter of the River.” So, do all rivers have children? Or only some? The River-woman being a minor Maia is fine I guess, but doesn’t quite satisfy me. Then again, I’m not going to ever know, in this life at least.
Rukisama, we may not know what Tolkien was inspired by, but presumably a man with a professional interest in ancient mythology would be aware of the many water spirts people have believed in around the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_spirit
“Outside the sphere of Eru” is cool idea, but seems to imply some level of polytheism or ditheism that I assume Tolkien would not have been OK with?
> ditheism that I assume Tolkien would not have been OK with
Tolkien worked on this stuff for much of his life, and his attitudes changed. Early on, the Valar were more like pagan gods; he would even call them ‘gods’ at times, and beings like Eonwe (nee Fionwe) were literal children of the initial Valar, and as I’ve described re “The Hiding of Valinor”, most of the Valar were a lot more feckless, too. So a monster from beyond Eru’s thought, or at least outside the Music of the Ainur, was probably more tolerable to him than it would be later. But here’s the text in BoLT 1:
‘for here dwelt the primeval spirit Móru whom even the Valar know not whence or when she came,’
‘Mayhap she was bred of mists and darkness on the confines of the Shadowy Seas, in that utter dark that came between the overthrow of the Lamps and the kindling of the Trees, but more like she has always been;’
‘The original idea of ‘the primeval spirit Móru’ (p. 151) is made explicit in an entry in the early word-list of the Gnomish language, where the name Muru is defined as ‘a name of the Primeval Night personified as Gwerlum or Gungliont’.’
yea, “more like she has always been” definitely implies being uncreated/eternal. That’s really interesting, I had no idea Tolkien was willing to experiment with ideas outside the monotheistic, Catholic framework that he believed in.
I like to imagine Ungoliant was Eru’s house spider that got into his universe lol
I apologize if this is too off topic, but I had a thought, a question it never occurred me to ask a few weeks ago. And this seems the best place to ask. Third Age Middle Earth seems to have gunpowder, but not guns. Why is that? Surely the Goblins and Orcs would have no qualms about using them.
‘Third Age Middle Earth seems to have gunpowder, but not guns.’
Middle-earth in general doesn’t have gunpowder. Gandalf has “fireworks”, and orcs working for Saruman have some sort of blasting-fire at Helm’s Deep. Either might or might not be gunpowder as we know it, or conversely dependent on the Wizard’s power.
My understanding, regrettably not based on the very latest archaeology, is that the Chinese invented gunpowder and used it for display and to cause terror on the battlefield before they thought to use it for firing projectiles. Saruman’s blasting power seems to be his own invention (“a devilry from Orthanc”); perhaps in time he might have invented firearms.
It took 100-200 years from the invention of gunpowder to the invention of the fire lance in the real world. Perhaps it is a fairly recent invention in Middle Earth (only Gandalf appears to have fireworks). Saruman appears to be the first to put it to a military purpose.
Perhaps we were only inches from orcish fire-lances when it was all cut short by Ent.
For reference, that’s still potentially another hundred years from the first cannon (depending on when the first fire lance was), and a couple of hundred years again before the first medieval handgonnes.
As far as more direct contest between Gandalf and Sauron goes, it’s interesting to note that there is actually one instance that seems to get overlooked a lot.
When he first meets back up with the trio, Gandalf relates the fact that among his labours since they last saw him was having tried to work to keep Sauron’s attention further afield than where he might notice Frodo and Sam trying to approach Mordor. To that end, Gandalf describes having engaged in some mystical working that appears to have been somewhere between being a big challenging signal to Sauron to get noticed and something to actually literally drag Sauron’s perception away from home to focus on Gandalf. And for all that Gandalf, perhaps informed partially by his characteristic humility, emphasises the point that to do so against somebody as strong as Sauron was a great effort and ultimately exhausting, he did actually succeed. Indeed, I think it’s supposed to have been part of the inciting incident for Sauron deploying his armies too early, even if Aragorn’s challenge with the palantir is what sealed it; he can only conceive of Gandalf having the nerve if their side has the Ring and intends to make a play with it.
As for the Lord of the Nazgul, I think calling Gandalf “old fool” could be a reflection of an idea that Sauron is contemptuous of the Istari for having incarnated in forms resembling elderly men that actually continued to age (if very slowly) throughout their tenure.
‘Gandalf relates the fact that among his labours since they last saw him was having tried to work to keep Sauron’s attention further afield than where he might notice Frodo and Sam trying to approach Mordor.’
I think it’s a lot simpler and more direct than that:
Two Towers side:
“Very nearly it was revealed to the Enemy, but it escaped. I had some part in that: for I sat in a high place, and I strove with the Dark Tower; and the Shadow passed. Then I was weary, very weary; and I walked long in dark thought.’”
Fellowship side:
‘He heard himself crying out: Never, never! Or was it: Verily I come, I come to you? He could not tell. Then as a flash from some other point of power there came to his mind another thought: Take it off! Take it off! Fool, take it off! Take off the Ring!’
‘The two powers strove in him. For a moment, perfectly balanced between their piercing points, he writhed, tormented. Suddenly he was aware of himself again, Frodo, neither the Voice nor the Eye: free to choose, and with one remaining instant in which to do so. He took the Ring off his finger.’
Frodo on the Seat of Seeing (a big case of unexplained magic), wearing the One Ring, seems to have been really plugged into the Unseen. He had many visions, like an inside-out palantir, but it also made him very visible. Sauron perceived him, as did Gandalf; Gandalf was able to get Frodo to take the Ring off before Sauron pinned down his exact location.
Y’know, I just thought: it would have been neat if Frodo later on ever went “oh hey, I recognize this place from my vision.”
I can just see Gandalf, in some high place, surrounded by the paraphernalia of hallowed power (the peak of Caradhras?), jumping up and down in his white robe, tearing out his hair and screaming “That fool! Why won’t he take the damned thing off?!?”
> surrounded by the paraphernalia of hallowed power (the peak of Caradhras?)
We have a timeline:
16 Feb: Farewell to Lórien.
17 Feb: Gwaihir bears Gandalf to Lórien. (Lol. He missed the Fellowship by one day.)
26 Feb: Breaking of the Fellowship. (With Gandalf assisting Frodo.)
1 Mar: Aragorn meets Gandalf the White.
No further detail there on Gandalf’s movements. Though, “I saw him [Treebeard] four days ago striding among the trees,… for I was heavy with thought, and weary after my struggle with the Eye of Mordor;”
So Gandalf was in Rohan/Fangorn during the Breaking.
If I ever put those points together, it made less of an impression than reading Gandalf’s account of struggling with Sauron by itself.
I’m satisfied by the point that Gandalf still characterises it as an exertion of actually fighting against Sauron’s influence, rather than just being about getting through to Frodo.
Although that does make me wonder if it’s meant to be that the one calling Frodo a fool and telling him to take off the Ring is himself, and Gandalf’s presence is just clearing Sauron’s will enough that Frodo can first hear himself and then actually act upon it.
“as a flash from some other point of power there came to his mind another thought: Fool, take it off!”
‘from some other point’, so I think the words are Gandalf’s. Especially given the indicator word ‘fool’. Gandalf _loves_ using that. “Fool of a Took.” “Wise fool.” “Fly, you fools!” And less famous uses:
‘You will be a fool if you do, Bilbo,’
‘Bilbo very foolishly told Gollum himself;’
‘‘Wretched fool! In that land he would learn much,’
‘‘Don’t be a fool!’ (to Sam)
‘“Ass! Fool! Thrice worthy and beloved Barliman!”’
‘Did he say: “Hullo, Pippin! This is a pleasant surprise!”? No, indeed! He said: “Get up, you tom-fool of a Took!’
‘yet he still dreams of riding the storm. Unhappy fool!’
Gandalf isn’t the only one to use ‘fool’, by any means, but I’m pretty sure he’s well in the lead for use count. (Saruman might lead in proportion, having far less dialogue.)
Yeah, I’d actually recalled that point in a way that put all doubts to rest.
The perhaps clearest example of this sort of thing is in Ainulindale where Eru says “ Eä” and the Unseen of the Music becomes the Seen in a moment.
This view on how the metaphysical world interacts with the physical world is surprisingly alike to its anthropocentric cousin: Discworld’s Narrativium. There, the “Unseen” is not shaped by Eru’s will giving morality weight, but by the combined conviction of all sapient creatures that things happen for a reason. In both, abstract concepts are the driving force for the Unseen, and the Seen may have to scramble to catch up.
At the same time, actions in the Seen carry weight in the Unseen world. This may be Boromir giving his life for two seemingly unimportant hobbits because it’s the right thing to do, or Sergeant Colon standing on his head because he fervently believes that million-to-one shots always hit.
It’s almost unthinkable that Pratchett wasn’t very familiar with Tolkien’s work. This is a wild assumption, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these similarities are not a coincidence.
This is a very interesting point. I’d not made the connection before.
I think Pratchett said a number of times that he was very aware of Tolkien’s work. There is something he said (I think back in the ’90s) which has always struck me. I’m not sure if this is exactly right but close enough: ‘Tolkien is to modern fantasy authors what Mount Fuji is to Japanese landscape painting. Sometimes the mountain is prominent in the foreground, or sometimes it is just a smudge on the horizon. If it is not there, this means the painter has either made the deliberate choice to exclude the mountain, or is in fact standing on it.”
Quite often, I’ve thought that Pratchett’s ‘view of Mount Fuji’ is to look at Tolkien through an inverting prism. Tolkien is there – in the use of fantasy to discuss moral questions in the real world – in the subtle glimpses into human frailty – in the depictions of courage and wisdom in the most ordinary of people. But Pratchett was more of a humanist than Tolkien: his Gods were callous fools, and the great quest of The Last Hero was to blow the buggers up (and was only stopped at the last minute by another human rather then the Gods themselves), and Pratchett put his final word on religion and faith into the mouth of a literal tyrant.
Plus of course, Pratchett has punes.
From what I remember of the Silmarillion, Mithrandir being Ainur was part of the choir before the beginning of the world, which not only created it *but also recounted its history*. Possibly even to its ending.
Since he’s not Eru, he doesn’t have the perfect and complete memory to know all of the song in its entirety, but he has more knowledge than others who weren’t there.
His memory is good enough that he can say to himself at climactic moments “I recognize this bit; the next little part should go like *this*”. Which may account for his wisdom; he’s heard this part before though he wasn’t able to see it coming until just now.
This could account for the “magic” that the Ainur can do – they all heard it. Some didn’t like it and want to change it; those fell into the power of the original one to try to do that. They may even have tried not to remember the bits they didn’t like (because it tells the part where they fail), until it’s brought home to them.
Wow. This means Tolkien basically applies a bayesian framework to the world, where everything in the world exists not as physical things, but as probabilities to be realised. As a frequentist this hurts my very soul. Should i subscribe to Rings of Power instead?
That… only vaguely relates to my understanding of Frequentism versus Bayesianism. To me, they’re different definitions of what “probability” is, which in most cases produce say essentially the same thing, but in edge-cases, can give very different results, which are both mathematically true, but need to be properly disambiguated and explained for any listener who is not well-versed in statistics.
Could you expand on what you’re saying here?
I think the article implies, though doesn’t quite state, a conclusion that I think is a bit too strong given our evidence: that “overt magic” is not possible for incarnates such as Elves or Men without manipulating the “Morgoth element”. I can’t resist the opportunity to quote from the Lay of Leithian:
He [Sauron] chanted a song of wizardry,
Of piercing, opening, of treachery,
Revealing, uncovering, betraying.
Then sudden Felagund there swaying
Sang in answer a song of staying,
Resisting, battling against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
Of changing and of shifting shape
Of snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps.
Backwards and forwards swayed their song.
Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong
The chanting swelled, Felagund fought,
And all the magic and might he brought
Of Elvenesse into his words…
To recall the story from Silmarillion, the Man Beren and Elf Finrod Felagund are disguised as Orcs when taken captive and interrogated by Sauron. Finrod loses the battle of powers, but is certainly not weaponless here. And whatever exactly Finrod is doing here it’s quite a bit more overt (and less “crafty”) most of the explicit examples of magic in the legendarium.
I was just thinking that! Possibly the Lay of Leithan should be considered an unreliable source – it’s epic poetry, after all, in-universe, and Tolkien writes it in a very different voice from the one he writes the Lord of the Rings in – but if you are going to take it seriously, it gives a very clear model of how magic works in the setting. You have the example you gave above, which I’ll note ends when Sauron turns the mention of Valinor into his own curse – when he invokes the Kinslaying against Felagund, the first act of evil done in Valinor itself and the legacy of which is the Doom of the Noldor, Felagund passes out.
But I’ll also want to mention Luthien working her spell:
A magic song to Men unknown
she sang, and singing then the wine
with water mingled three times nine;
and as in golden jar they lay
she sang a song of growth and day
and as they lay in silver white
another song she sang, of night
and darkness without end, of height
uplifted to the stars, and flight
and freedom. And all names of things
tallest and longest on earth she sings
the locks of the Longbeard dwarves; the tail
of Draugluin the werewolf pale
the body of Glómund the great snake;
the vast upsoaring peaks that quake
above the fires in Angband’s gloom
the chain Angainor that ere Doom
for Morgoth shall by Gods be wrought
of steel and torment. Names she sought
and sang of Glend the sword of Nan
of Gilim the giant of Eruman
and last and longest named she then
the endless hair of Uinen
the Lady of the Sea, that lies
Through all the waters under skies.
This magic is worked through song (as is the disguise-spell of Felagund in Book VII to disguise them as orcs, as is the disguise-spell of Luthien in book IX to make them wolf and vampire) and seems to work by invoking a specific thing to gain a fraction of its strength, calling upon some element of the Song of Creation to produce an effect that “rhymes” with it. It’s hard to see a sharp distinction between this and craft-magic, in that it is a skill that can be learned and a skill which belongs to great singers (given the context, I’m inclined to see Dairon’s “enchanted fluting” as song-magic), but also hard to see a sharp distinction between this and spiritual-magic, because Sauron and Luthien are clearly in a distinct tier of power from the elves.
Though, as we see, Morgoth can invoke power much stronger than Luthien’s just through an order, no need to bother singing:
‘Liar art thou, who shalt not weave
deceit before mine eyes. Now leave
thy form and raiment false, and stand
revealed, and delivered to my hand!’
There came a slow and shuddering change
the batlike raiment dark and strange
was loosed, and slowly shrank and fell
quivering. She stood revealed in hell.
It seems as though song adds additional strength to words, possibly a case of craft-magic augmenting spiritual-magic? Though that could just be an addition of the author of the Lay to ‘the truth’ revealed in the Lord of the Rings…
So,
A) I love this— it’s one of the most interesting bits of Tolkenalia I’ve read in a long time, and really persuasive on how things “work” with Gandalf and the other Maia.
but
B) I think you’re understating the magic of some of the Elves— specifically those who had been to Valinor.
Consider Gandalf’s conversation with Frodo in Rivendell.
“And here in Rivendell there live still some of his chief foes: the Elven-wise, lords of the Eldar from beyond the furthest seas. They do not fear the Ringwraiths, for those who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm live at once in both worlds, and against both the Seen and the Unseen they have great power.”
“I thought I saw a white figure that shone and did not grow dim like the others. Was that Glorfindel then?”
“Yes, you saw him for a moment as he is upon the other side: one of the mighty of the First-born. He is an Elf-lord of a house of princes.”
Those who know post-LOTR lore might say “Glorfindel is special because…” but that’s not what the text says here; Gandalf describes Rivendell as housing more than one of the Elven-wise and describes their special character as deriving from having spent time in Valinor. He doesn’t suggest that Glorfindel *uniquely among Elves* in living in both worlds.
That also applies to Galadriel, about whom we get the clear sense that, as Sam puts it, “She’s so strong in herself,” and her spiritual power is not just derived from her ring. And she opposed Sauron from a distance for a long time— and once up close, at Dol Goldur.
I think we could then think backwards and include Celebrimbor here. He was born in the Blessed Realm and came to Middle Earth with the Noldor. Per Gandalf, he thus “lived at once in both worlds” and “against both the Seen and the Unseen [had] great power.” He would not have been as powerful as Sauron, but like Sauron, he would have had true magic, true supernatural power, that he could have used in the forging.
If we say “Elves who spent time in Aman came back with a true connection to the Unseen World, and thus had some lesser portion of the kind of power that incarnate Maia had as described here,” it reconciles what you say here with the text more successfully.
What’s striking is that Gandalf uses the indicative rather than the subjunctive mood. (I think that’s what I mean.)
If he’s somewhere dark, to take a hypothetical example, he does not say “Let there be light” – “fiat lux”, subjunctive, “may light be made”. He says “it is light”. In Latin he’d say “fit lux”. It’s a statement of fact, “light is being made”. He doesn’t say “may you be unable to pass”, he says “you cannot pass”.
And I wonder if this is because Tolkien wants to make it clear that he can’t create. Only Eru can create.
All this talk about how powerful Gandalf is in his magic being so powerful is important. He might be powerful and everything that people are saying. All this is important. The greatest feature that makes him so great and unbeatable is that he is willing to go among the people that is doing the fighting and supports them. This makes them so that they are going to back him even when they are not willing or the odds against them. Others like Sauron must force their followers to do the same and then they quickly abandon when things start to turn away from what they desire, and their grip is loosened.
Tangential note: A very similar magic system (present-tense assertions that become/reveal-themselves-to-be True if the speaker can back them up) is how gods work in Ann Leckie’s “The Raven Tower.” I hadn’t made a connection to Tolkein before, but I wonder how closely linked they are after reading this!
Another thought. I wonder what might happen should a reality be created in the unseen that is never spoken into the seen world.
Could Durin’s Bane have crossed the bridge at Khazad Dum had Gandalf not stated that it could not? Would Saruman’s staff have remained whole until someone of sufficient unseen insight had stated it was not?
We perhaps gain some insight in the waning power of Saruman after the metaphysical breaking of his staff (but before the physical one), but how far could the charade stretch?
I suppose we also blend into the bit I most love about magic in Tolkein: the fact that the big, powerful spells may not even be spells at all. Did Gandalf truly magically contest the bridge with the balrog, or did he simply goad it into a misstep on a bridge he’d guessed wouldn’t take its weight? Was Gandalf’s contest with Sauron a magical one, or simply one of respective rallying of forces?
I suspect the answer to these is ‘yes, both’, but the plausible deniability of it all is just a lovely thing to read about.
I really enjoyed this, thank you for sharing your analysis of Tolkien’s work.
For most of the article, I was thinking of that infamous extended edition scene at the Gates of Minas Tirith. Peter Jackson’s trilogy is incredible, even there are a ton of sections that are fun to debate if they were the correct choice or required in the adaptation to film. This ridiculous scene where Gandalf loses his staff, is the only moment that I think is definitively, inexcusably wrong. The scene isn’t needed, it’s wrong on every level, and it doesn’t need to be there for tension or a plot hole, or to build tension. I skip it every time I watch the extended editions.
“And of course, you can see where I am going with this. Gandalf has been working his ‘spell’ to defeat the evil of Sauron, at this point, for many years kindling in the hearts of Men and Elves the will and courage for valiant deeds most of all in setting Frodo upon his quest and in his counsel priming Frodo to make the crucial choice to spare Gollum (FotR 85-6) and to bring Sam (FotR 90-91), the decisions that in the end, though made by Frodo of his own free will, are the decisions that will cause the Quest to succeed where it might have failed at the very last.”
This begins even earlier with the Quest of Erebor, one of Gandalfs major moves against Sauron. It not only denied a potential ally to Sauron, or even just chaos agent who would have hurt the free peoples, Smaug, but it also reestablished a stronghold of those people that could resist Sauron’s militarily during the War of the Ring.
Not only that, but it was that quest that resulted in the rung ending up in Bilbo’s possession, and from there to Frodo.
“First, I would argue this is a misunderstanding because it can only be overweening, staggering hubris that the Witch King even imagines he has any shot at winning this spiritual confrontation (though overweening arrogance is his great flaw, so it is in character). It’s unclear to me if the Lord of the Nazgûl actually quite realizes what he is up against – he calls Gandalf “Old fool!” and one wonders if he has mistaken Gandalf for an aged lore-master and magic user rather than the far more powerful Maia he is. But there is no doubt in my mind that Gandalf would always be the stronger here. Recall Gandalf’s statement to Gimli at their first re-meeting that, “And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet, unless you are brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord” (TT, 122). Note the change from the Gandalf who once demurred that “Against some I have not yet been measured” (FotR 266) – this Gandalf knows himself to be the most dangerous thing Gimli could meet, short of Sauron himself. The Witch King hasn’t a hope of winning this confrontation.”
He should know who Gandalf is and that he has no hope. The fought on Weathertop, where Gandalf held off all nine of the Nazgul (while Gandalf was his lesser self).
“But more to the point, he very clearly doesn’t win this confrontation. Instead, what we get is an expression of supernatural power, same as the others, in the same form:
“You cannot enter here,’ said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. ‘Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your master. Go!’ (RotK 113).
And look what we have: a present tense plain language statement of the state of the world, in particular a clear declaration that it is the case that the Lord of the Nazgûl cannot, is incapable, of entering. The WItch King, of course, dismisses this as words, mocks Gandalf, reveals his iron crown, raises his sword and with dark magic sets it alight (RotK, 113). But you know what he doesn’t do?”
Reading this it occurred to me this may tie into the Witch-King’s defeat by Eowyn and Merry. Since that’s what happens right after.
Now there is an interesting thought. I don’t have the book in front of me, so I can’t cite the actual text(found a quote though), but I seem to recall the Witch-King boasting “No Man can hinder me”, and wiki sources indicate a prophecy by Glorfindel along those lines. Curiously though, it doesn’t seem like the Witch-King is actually present for the prophecy, but rather it is uttered to Glorfindel’s comrades to encourage them not to pursue the fleeing being. With this interpretation, it could well be an observation of the Unseen by Glorfindel, identifying some supernatural quality, or perhaps sorcery that the Witch-King has placed upon himself.
“Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!’
A cold voice answered: ‘Come not between the Nazgûl and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.’
A sword rang as it was drawn. ‘Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may.’
‘Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!’
Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel.
‘But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.’ ”
It honestly seems like a combination of a Tolkeinesque spell, and an inverted old school geas (I am thinking like Cú Chulainn. The hero has great strength and power, but has two taboos that he cannot break without breaking himself, a taboo against eating dog meat and against refusing hospitality. Breaking one weakens his metaphysical power, and dooms him. By contrast, the spell uses metaphysical power to strengthen the Witch King under similarly narrow circumstances) to an extent.
The Witch-King in his arrogance declares that ‘No living man may hinder me’, interestingly different from the prophecy of Glorfindel, which reads “Glorfindel, looking into the gathering dark, said: “Do not pursue him! He will not return to this land. Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall.'” Glorfindel is making an observation of the nature of the spiritual power and Unseen that the Witch King wields, but doesn’t appear to be invoking a spell per se. He sees the Unseen, but doesn’t bring it into the Seen as Gandalf does.
But after the Witch-King declares his power in the Unseen, and states that no living man may hinder him, the Unseen becomes the Seen metaphysically, and literally, as Dernhelm reveals that she is Eowyn, and not subject to his spell, before a woman and a hobbit indeed hinder him, and then slay him.
As an aside, it is really fascinating just how narrow the spell is. One could read it as arrogance, that he believes only a man may be a threat to him, but one could easily read it as insecurity. The Witch King of Angmar has just failed miserably in a contest of power with Gandalf, and is on the brink of ruin. To his perspective, he is faced with some anonymous horseman and possibly their kid who is currently incapacitated. He may fear death, but given his forces’ position on the battlefield, he also fears the interruption of his plans, which the King of Rohan may yet play a role, dead or alive. No living man may hinder me, restricts the actions that might be taken by the victim, but a living man excludes anyone not male, or from the race of man, or indeed living. He is laying a spell directly targeting Dernhelm here. It could not ward off Eowyn or Merry yes, but it probably fails to target Gandalf, any of the Maiar, any of the Nine who are not really alive, or indeed any random orc who decides they want to go down in history.
“wiki sources indicate a prophecy by Glorfindel along those lines”
It’s in Appendix A of LotR.
” it doesn’t seem like the Witch-King is actually present for the prophecy”
WK is busily running away from Glorfindel (or as I liked to say, skedaddled), but wraiths have good hearing, he might have heard it. Or ‘heard’ it in the Unseen. Or picked it up at some point in the subsequent 1000 years, including when he (probably) gave King Earnur a slow death by torture, Earnur being the guy that Glorfindel told the prophecy to.
‘But it is said that when all was lost suddenly the Witch-king himself appeared, black-robed and black-masked upon a black horse. Fear fell upon all who beheld him; but he singled out the Captain of Gondor for the fullness of his hatred, and with a terrible cry he rode straight upon him. Eärnur would have withstood him; but his horse could not endure that onset, and it swerved and bore him far away before he could master it.
‘Then the Witch-king laughed, and none that heard it ever forgot the horror of that cry. But Glorfindel rode up then on his white horse, and in the midst of his laughter the Witch-king turned to flight and passed into the shadows.’
Lots of things in that passage:
a) the ‘cheat code’ fear power of the Nazgul
b) the resistance or immunity to that power of Numenoreans or at least sufficiently bold men. (Earnur doesn’t take after his father in ‘wisdom’ and seems more like a Boromir than a Faramir, so I dunno his mental powers, but he disappeared at 122 and his father died at 160, so we’re still in the time of Blessing for royal Dunedain). Maybe stronger powers of mind would have protected his horse, too.
c) the Witch-king does not want to face Glorfindel, and exits stage right.
This discussion strikes me as odd for a historian. The most important thing about the Real Word, and the one that thinkers have to have to keep working hard to remember, is the complete absence of an underlying Unseen which operates on a fundamentally *moral* structure. A Pratchett said, “Roundworld has no narrativium!”
There are a few reasons why this isn’t odd.
Bret has written extensively on Tolkien’s works. It’s pretty much inevitable that the question of morality will arise among any who study Tolkien in this depth–it’s fundamental to Tolkien’s world-view, and he openly discusses how it plays into his fictional world. You CANNOT understand Tolkien without understanding these issues. So as a Tolkien fan, it makes perfect sense for Bret to weigh in on these.
Also, Tolkien and Bret both are historical researchers. Bret is applying the same procedures to LOTR as he does to historical literature in order to draw conclusions about how the text relates to the culture it’s found in. Tolkien is a great author to do this with because his work in historical texts made him acutely aware of these issues. Bret is playing with Tolkien’s toys in the way Tolkien DESIGNED THEM to be played with. See the whole conceit of translation issue, for example. Whether or not the Unseen impacts the real world, Tolkien meticulously designed his world such that it does, and put textual evidence in place to demonstrate this–evidence that can be discovered using standard historical techniques applied to text (because again, Tolkien was, fundamentally, writing a pseudo-historical text).
Finally, it’s useful to occasional apply techniques from serious academic study to fun topics. This does a few things. First, it gives you a relatively safe way to teach or demonstrate these things. No one’s feelings are going to be hurt if someone misinterprets Tolkien’s work, and it won’t cause any international conflicts. Misinterpreting historical works can do both and more. So you demonstrate where it’s safe, until you get the techniques down. Second, it allows you to practice these techniques and determine where your own weaknesses lie. Again, no one’s going to be harmed if you screw up your reading of Tolkien–but if your reading says something that’s clearly nonsense, it indicates an area where you need to improve. (Tolkien is good for this because, again, this is precisely how he approached these works. Other authors are less good.)
These are not trivial issues. These are important enough issues that if we can’t find things to use for these purposes we make them. When phylogenetics was developed, for example, paleontologists created fictional entities specifically to be used for these purposes.
Third–and, frankly, most importantly–it’s just good, clean fun. I know a paleontologist who occasionally produces cladograms of My Little Pony collectables, for example. That person is into both paleontology and MLP, so they combine the two just for the sheer entertainment of it. I know a geologist who applies geological principles to his world-building for TTRPGs–made a trubidite a plot point at one point. Sometimes “I enjoy this” is a sufficient reason to write a ten-page essay; in fact, I would argue that it’s one of the best justifications for such an activity.
Hm. I can see you’ve never participated in a Balrog wings flamewar!
“Hear me out – when Gandalf said ‘Fly you fools’, he meant they should call the Eagles and fly to Mordor.”
That’s fair. And I’ve been online long enough to have participated in far stupider heated debates! But no one is likely to start an actual shooting war over it. People have over interpretations of historical documents in the past, particularly those with religious connotations.
And honestly, nerds are going to be nerds (I say that as a proud member of that group); you can treat flame wars as a constant, and thus they fall out of the equation. Arguing is half the fun, and we’ll find SOMETHING to argue about!
Granted … I don’t find Tolkein or Tolkein’s world to be interesting. So meticulously studying how it differs from the real world seems to me to be pointless.
He’s expanding the breadth and depth of his criticisms of the failure of the Rings of Power as an adaptation by applying the critical analysis skills that he possesses professionally.
That said, as you will note he said at the outset, it is in fact a direct part of the repertoire of the historian to observe works of writing and derive understanding of the values held therein. Not as a way of making conclusions about the world, but of making conclusions about the worldview of people in the past.
If The Lord of the Rings was written by Cicero, this is the exact kind of analysis that would tell you how Cicero thought the moral and spiritual structure of reality worked.
Dinwar’s covered the majority of points really well, but I feel there’s one more to be added.
*We* may understand the real world to have no ‘narrativium’, but that doesn’t appear to be how the vast majority of people across the entire breadth of human history have understood the world to work (including a significant proportion of people in the present day, if not the majority).
Understanding the different ways that different cultures perceived their world to function around them is an important part of understanding those cultures historically (as well as presently). It’s important because it will influence the choices made by people within those cultures, and thus the events that happened, and thus the history that we’re looking at.
LoTR is a useful case study for exercising these approaches, that can then be applied to trickier material that’s not so clear to us (i.e. attempting to tease out how the beliefs of the Maya articulated in the Popol Vuh influenced and influences their history).
“*We* may understand the real world to have no ‘narrativium’, but that doesn’t appear to be how the vast majority of people across the entire breadth of human history have understood the world to work (including a significant proportion of people in the present day, if not the majority).”
When one looks at the world at large, rather than Europe and North America, it is unquestionably the majority–and even within Europe and North America, it is probably the majority outside of frequent Internet users and the highly academically credentialed.
When one looks at the world at large, rather than Europe and North America, it is unquestionably the majority–and even within Europe and North America, it is probably the majority outside of frequent Internet users and the highly academically credentialed.
Depending on how broadly you define “unseen world” and “moral structure”, I’d bet it certainly includes a majority of frequent internet users and possibly even a majority of the highly credentialed.
You don’t have to be affiliated with a formal religion to believe in the supernatural, in some degree and to some sense.
That seems a little off. Obviously there is an Unseen World which influences, maybe even governs the Seen, unless you are claiming that Christianity (and Islam and Buddhism etc.) have had no influence on history. Maybe you are saying that Christianity (and the others) are just in people’s heads, but as Dumbledore said, “Why would that make them any less real?”
A very thoughtful and enjoyable piece. The only major thing I felt your taxonomy missed out was the “oath-magic” which proves Gollum’s (and Sauron’s) ultimate undoing:
“Would you commit your promise to that, Sméagol? It will hold you. But it is more treacherous than you are. It may twist your words. Beware!”
[…]
“Sméagol will swear never, never, to let Him have it. Never! Sméagol will save it.”
I find it inconceivable that this is just coincidence or dramatic irony, especially given the importance of oaths in Norse and OE belief, but it’s neither craft-magic nor the straightforward present-tense statement about the world typified by your spiritual magic. It’s much more future-focussed and conditional than that. And neither Frodo nor Sméagol is spiritually powerful in the way that Gandalf is, so the magic here must be leaning entirely on the Ring.
Maybe this shares something with the prophecies, e.g. “not by the hand of man will he fall” or “the Halfling forth shall stand”, but it feels like more than that to me.
“And neither Frodo nor Sméagol is spiritually powerful in the way that Gandalf is,”
They are not AS powerful, and not AS wise, but I feel cautious about calling them entirely without power.
Along with what ad9 said, it’s notable that, in proper medieval oath fashion, Smeagol must swear *on* something, as a witness to the oath, responsible for punishing him if he breaks it. And he swears on the Ring, which punishes him when he breaks the oath, leading him to falling to his doom.
I think the delineation between craft-magic and spiritual power can be overstated. Craft-magic heavily relies on the subcreator imbuing their spirit into the subcreation. Fëanor’s jewels were created with his own fea; Fëanor himself was created by his mother Miriel Serinde (:P) imbuing his body with her own fea. Arguably the most important bit of craft-magic, the creation of Ea, is also the greatest exercise of spiritual power and authority (and revealed and authorized with a present tense command, no less!).
One other point, of course, is the role he plays in the Hobbit. Bilbo, a county squire, becomes a burglar after Gandalf makes the mark on his door. Readers would see this at face value: Gandalf has played a trick on the hobbit, albeit a sly one because Bilbo proved to be adept. But using your overlay, on stating that Bilbo *was* a burglar, he became a burglar and the ripples began.
The hobbit doesn’t neatly fit into the wider lore because of its age, but the seeds of the later books / wider mythology are there.
Great post.
So, in a sense, the real magic is the friends we made along the way
I agree Gandalf is most likely using the Ring of Fire to help him set fire to things, but I’m not sure an invocation in the ring’s language is absolutely required.
During the siege of Gondor we have
“Wherever he came men’s hearts would lift again, and the winged shadows pass from memory (…) And yet, when they had gone, the shadows closed on men again, and their hearts went cold, and the valour of Gondor withered into ash.”
I think this is Gandalf using the ring, it matches what Cirdan told him it was for “with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that goes chill”. He doesn’t seem to be running round shouting anything in Elvish though.
Also, I’m not sure what to make of Frodo’s “Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fires of Doom”. It’s clearly not an ordinary statement spoken by a powerless hobbit, and the Ring is involved, but it’s spoken in common tongue and also “Frodo inadvertently tricks the ring into using its own power to get thrown into a volcano” feels kind of off somehow.
I came here to post about this passage! It follows the grammar of the spells here, is arguably the most important spell in the story, the speaker clearly doesn’t intend the exact effects, and the speaker should not, per the rules, be a magician.
I would, under the taxonomy provided, call this “Dark Magic”, in that the ring is an artifact of Sauron’s power, itself derived from that of Morgoth, and has the power to bring about supernatural occurences, though I would not describe it as having an entire will of its own – it largely has capriciousness and spite, plus a measure of desire to serve Sauron over any other master.
As the source of Frodo’s magic here is a spiteful thing, his spell is cast/wish is granted in a spiteful manner that brings harm to himself and others, including 1: the ring and 2: Sauron, which is part of why I do not consider the power of the ring merely a lure by Sauron – he is laid low by a wish it grants. That said, I do not think Frodo is “declaring a truth about the unseen world”, really.
Alluding to a truth about himself, perhaps, and the extent to which he has come to consider the ring his, but while he has an actionable legal claim to it through adverse possession and others have observed that claim does seem to metaphysically matter on some level, the ring is clearly able to contest his ownership of it, even as Sauron, whose claim arguably ended when it was taken from him as weregild, is not.
This part of the book also immediately came to mind for me!
Reading this passage again I think it’s also fair to include what Frodo says just before to Gollum:
“Down, you creeping thing, and out of my path! Your time is at an end. **You cannot betray me or slay me now.**”
Given that Gollum attacks Frodo a short while later, but ultimately saves Frodo by doing so, this certainly leaves room for interpretation. We can declare Frodo to be a magician, and what would be one more surprise about the capabilities of hobbits be if not on brand! But we could also claim he is simply wrong.
As for the later quote that brought me here, it’s not quite as clear if we should even attribute it to Frodo, rather than the ring itself:
… but at it’s breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice. “Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fires of Doom”
In a fairly literal interpretation it is simply the ring speaking, perhaps through, but not as Frodo, cursing Gollum, bringing about it’s own demise.
I hadn’t previously considered the reading that the ring was speaking here, but it is more consistent with some of Tolkien’s comments about his story. I do still like the bookend effect of Frodo claiming the ring, despite knowing it to be a bad idea, both at the council of Elrond and here at the crack of doom, but I will be offering your reading alongside mine going forward.
How very profound.
Not.
Gandalf admits that he fears the Witch King, he is not certain that he can defeat him in a direct confrontation.
All the pseudo deep gobbledegook about how Gandalf wins by activating the goodness in peoples’ hearts, sure, granted.
Bullshit from a real life perspective but in the context of Tolkien’s writing, sure.
Still, Gandalf fears the Lord of the Nazgul.
Are we to assume that he is lying?
Quite possible, after all the people of Middle-Earth are supposed to be close to total despair so that the eucatastrophy is all trhe more powerful.
They are supposed to believe or close to believing that Evil is unbeatable and winning, while in reality Evil never stood a chance because Eru is the most powerful and rigged the game.
Tolkien loved his non/pre christian mythologies, especially norse mythology, because it had actual stakes. He famously admitted that the pagan norse heroes had and needed more courage to fight because they knew that they were not fated to win, indeed, it was the monsters who were supposedly fated to be victorious.
He also loved his tragedy and knew that strictly speaking tragedy is impossible under christianity, where (supposedly) everything happens according to God’s will (that is not only good but maximally good by definition, regardless of the suffering it might cause) and everyone ultimately gets what they deserve and everyone who doesn’t realize and accepts that is deservedly sent to hell while the good guys in heaven rejoice forever at the sufferings of the damned.
So he on one hand wanted the illusion that Evil might win to create the illusion of drama and stakes, but at the same time he also on some level wanted both the readers and the characters in universe (at least the “wise” ones) to know that it is all an illusion.
Now personally I prefer my stories to have actual stakes, not just illusiory ones, but Tolkien’s house, Tolkien’s rules.
Can’t help thinking though that this reflects not only badly on Eru but more importantly also badly and very, very weirdly on Gandalf to deceive his supposed friends like this, for no deeper reason than that Eru’s script requires them to experience sufficient terror and despair, even if it means that Gandalf has to actively lie to achieve that effect.
Thankfully there is actually another option that reflects less badly and weirdly at least n Gandalf (even if Eru is a lost cause).
The assumption that Witch King stands no chance quitew eeasily may be wrong and Gandalf genuinely afraid and withb good reason.
And thankfully I think this is actually MORE in accord with Tolkien’s intention, leaving Eru as a weird ass manipulator and deceiver, but not Gandalf.
For one it needs to be pointed out that non maiar being greater and at least in some ways more powerful than Maiar is not that rare and unusual in Tolkien.
Gandalf himself in total and utter awe speaks about the unimaginable hand and mind of Feanor for example.
That he calls it “unimaginable” in particular seems to imply that he doesn’t just mean “Yeah, he is pretty impressive, for a lowly elf.”
Non maiar clearly can match and surpass maiar, at least in certain regards and under certain circumstances, this hinted and indeed arguably shown many times.
Just to cast some doubt oon the simple assumption that Ainu always and everywhere automatically trumps non Ainu.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg.
The Lord of the Nazgul clearly also has become vastly stronger than at any prior point in the narrative.
Of course he is arrogant, but he is not stupid and to conclude from “Old Fool” that he doesn’t know who or what Gandalf really is seems quite the assumption to make.
Sauron knows perfectly well after all (Tolkien explains that he considered the Istari as an attempt of the Valar to regain some of their old influence on Middle-Earth after Illuvatar basically pulled them back from the material plane of existence, but he was perfectrly aware of their maiarin nature) and he isn’t an idiot to say the least either.
He wouldn’t sick the Witchking on Gandalf if the wraith beating Gandalf was as outrageously stupid an idea as you try to make it seem.
Indeed in one of his letters Tolkien writes that Sauron “upgraded” the Lord of the Nazgul with greater, additional demonic power specifically to counter the now stronger Gandalf the White.
Which of course leads us to the question of what kind of demonic power this could have been and where it would have come from, since the most obvious source, Sauron himself, is rather unlikely to say the least since Sauron would hardly have parted (quite possibly permanently) from another significant chunk of his power after having already bound so much of it into the One Ring, rendering himself even more vulnerable.
Luckily he probably didn’t need to as there was a huge reservoir of demonic power available to him.
And that reservoir was the “Morgoth-Element”, the power of Melkor himself that he had pumped into the basic building blocks of all matter (by the way not only in Arda but in the entire Halls of Ea) to bring it under the absolute dominion of his will (I would indeed argue that Melkor had basically tried to absorb/assimilate the entirety of material creation into his own being as to basically artficially usurp a position as sort of panentheistic God, though this turned out to be impossible to fully achieve, even if he had enough of a partial success to be able to for all intents and purposes reprogramm the entire universe to decay and degenerate into shit over time, something that the Valar were completely helpless to stop even after he managed to get stuck on a measely planet and render himself vulnerable enough to be defeated and physically removed from the universe, the process of decay he initiated continued apace completely on autopilot, with Sauron’s defeat don’t doing anything to stop the long defeat either)-
This was the actual source of dark magic or dark arts in Middle-Earth that could be practiced by non Ainur as well, even if only to a very limited degree.
They utilized either the spiritual power/essence of Melkor directly or they manipulated more natural forces that had been corrupted and rendered vulnerable to such manipulation and usurpation by the presence of the Morgoth-Element or both.
Tolkien mentions that Sauron himself also made use of the Morgoth-Element in these ways and no doubt nobody was more adapt at doing so or could do it on a larger scale then him.
In “Morgoth’s Ring” Tolkien explains that the One Ring also is related to and basically serves as a tool to control or direct the power of the Morgoth-Element too.
It is made of gold because the Morgoth-Element is particularly concentrated and strong in gold, which in turn might have been a rationalisation on why gold so often tends to have such a powerfully corrupting influence on people and why it is so attractive to dragons as well.
And why the ring for as long as Sauron wore it actually made him significantly more powerful than he ever had been before forging it in the first place (confirmed in a letter too and less likely if Sauron himself was truly the sole source of the ring’s power).
No doubt one can easily see where I am going, I propose that the additional demonic power that Sauron supercharged the Witchking with specifically to be able to match the himself upgraded Gandalf the White was derived from the Morgoth-Element, over which Sauron even in absence of the One Ring retained a significant degree of mastery.
> Gandalf admits that he fears the Witch King
Let’s look at the actual words.
“‘No,’ said Gandalf. ‘But he still lived when I left him. Yet he is resolved to stay with the rearguard, lest the retreat over the Pelennor become a rout. He may, perhaps, hold his men together long enough, but I doubt it. He is pitted against a foe too great. For one has come that I feared.’”
“‘Then, Mithrandir, you had a foe to match you,’ said Denethor. ‘For myself, I have long known who is the chief captain of the hosts of the Dark Tower. Is this all that you have returned to say? Or can it be that you have withdrawn because you are overmatched?’”
“Pippin trembled, fearing that Gandalf would be stung to sudden wrath, but his fear was needless. ‘It might be so,’ Gandalf answered softly. ‘But our trial of strength is not yet come.”
I read this as Gandalf fearing the effect of the Witch-king on the battle — rightly so, the fear magic of the Nazgul is potent, plus whatever sorcery the WK can wield, and Gandalf can’t even counter all the fear effect. But a personal conflict? Gandalf speaks modestly, as is his wont, but he doesn’t sound afraid. He had previously told Gimli that there wasn’t anyone more dangerous than Gandalf, save Sauron. And in the actual (brief) confrontation, Gandalf is written as steadfast and confident, not afraid.
There’s also Letter 156:
“where the physical powers of the Enemy are too great for the good will of the opposers to be effective he can act in emergency as an ‘angel’ – no more violently than the release of St Peter from prison. He seldom does so, operating rather through others, but in one or two cases in the War (in Vol. III) he does reveal a sudden power: he twice rescues Faramir. He alone is left to forbid the entrance of the Lord of Nazgûl to Minas Tirith, when the City has been overthrown and its Gates destroyed – and yet so powerful is the whole train of human resistance, that he himself has kindled and organized, that in fact no battle between the two occurs: it passes to other mortal hands.”
I’m pretty confident that a battle between Gandalf and the WK would have gone badly for the WK, and I think Gandalf would agree. How badly it might go for Gandalf is another matter; Balrogs _were_ slain by elves after all, though the elves didn’t survive. Still, you’d usually bet on the Balrog — and Gandalf defeated a Balrog _before_ he was enhanced and sent back by Eru.
Another fantastic exploration! I never looked as closely as you’ve done to see the cause & effect relationships you’ve pointed out here. Another layer revealed to this 50-year fan of LOTR. Thank you.
I feel like this magic system implies that magic users can see the future and know whether or not their statement about the world is in fact going to be true or not. Like, there’s never a situation where a supernatural user makes a statement and turns out to be wrong. There’s never a scene where Gandalf says “this is on fire” or “your staff is broken” and then nothing happens and he ends up looking silly, he only ever says something when his magic works, which implies that he knows it’s going to work in advance. Likewise, the Witch King, who is fatally wrong about his proclamation, still says something technically true.
And like, that works for Gandalf, because he’s supposed to be the wisest so it’s no big deal that he knows his magic is going to work in advance. But if you were, say, trying to implement this as a TTRPG system, where the players and the GM don’t actually know what’s going to happen, I’m not sure how you’d do so.
Good thing this isn’t an RPG, but a story that’s being told, then.
Regarding “You cannot pass“ versus “You shall not pass”: the french military order is “On ne passe pas,” which is obviously (as an order) present tense. Thanks for connecting the dots!
Regarding Citations of the Lay of Leithian:
There’s a LOT more ‘magic’ in it than her hair. Sauron had chains that “feasted on flesh’. Finrod disguising himself and his companions as Orcs, as noted above.
Daeron in an outburst of bitterness cursing Doriath to silence: which the Lay notes as leaves that rubbed without any rustling sound, a waterfall that usually roared making hardly a murmur, bees wings were silent- very eerie. Daeron, by the way, is hailed by Thingol as master of music and magic, whose eye nor ear can be ensnared nor deceived by any spell. A later revision removed the word magic, but the sentiment remained. Daeron knew everything, and couldn’t be fooled.
Thingol, Daeron, and Beren are engaged in a contest of spiritual power and strength of in the Throne Room in Menengroth- though I concede some of it to be metaphor. Not all, I think. Melian’s face and gaze and presence took Thingol like wine, stilled Valinor to silence, and froze Beren simply by looking.
Sauron is implied in the first version of the Lay to have called up a phantom of a man’s dead wife, and explicitly credited with it in revisions.
Huan is described as a nigh-unstoppable force. ‘No wizardry, nor spell, nor dart, no fang, nor venom devils’ art could brew had harmed him” under something analogous to the doom of the Witch-King, to be slain by no man. Glorfindel saw the witch-King’s fate and pronounced it, and it was proven. Huan’s was “That fate decreed and known to all:
Before the mightiest he should fall,
before the mightiest wolf alone
that ever was whelped in cave of stone.”
Sauron clad himself in the form of a wolf to try to best Huan that way. But he wasn’t the mightiest wolf ever born naturally in a cave, and couldn’t prevail. Luthien stumbled but brushed her cloak against his face, and he stumbled in turn. Huan proceeded to stomp him into the ground, and crushed his throat. And Sauron re-shaped the body he used several times, but couldn’t escape Huan’s grip. (Huan is theorized to be like Gandalf, Maia himself, about official business. The verse repeats, but with a subtle and pertinent change:
”No wizardry, nor spell, nor dart,
no fang, nor venom, nor devil’s art
could harm that hound that hart and boar
had hunted once in Valinor.”
Note, that Devils’ Art is no longer being credited to brewing venom, but direct working. And it still doesn’t prevail against Huan. Then Luthien tells him they can kill his body here, and he can go beg a new one from Morgoth while reporting how he’s lost and face Morgoth’s torture, or he can give her the keys of the fortress and its words that hold stone to stone, and the self-destruct phrases too. (I’ve presumed she knew they must exist from how she hadn’t been able to pull it down before, when the tower trembled at her song.) Words of opening are constant in every version, from Tolkien’s drafts onwards.
Sauron ditches the wolf body- leaving behind a corpse- and flies off as a vampire. Luthien brings down the entire building, and every shackle and chain come undone as well.
All oaths have power, even those sworn on nothing. Even leaving aside the Oath of Feanor, or the curse Thingol brought down on Doriath by trying to keep his word technically and not in spirit. Beren gives us this gem
My Word alas I must now keep,
And not the first of Men must weep,
for oath in pride and anger sworn.
Too brief the meeting, bright the morn,
Too soon comes night when we must part!
All oaths for breaking of the heart,
With shame denied, with anguish kept.
Or Finrod. When his oath of aid came calling, he HAD to keep it. And if his city and his people would not be beholden to him in it, he HAD to go himself. To deal in that dishonesty is to unravel everything, as this article has discussed. I’ll go no further there.
Fingolfin’s sword is described as “devised with elvish skill to pierce the flesh with deadly chill.” Craftmagic again, presumably.
Morgoth knew something of all evil and deceit wrought in the land, save in Doriath. Mostly because of spies, but not all. All falsehood was in his power, and one could not speak it to him, but must face him with plain truth. Luthien uses such misleadingly, but not falsely. Her father let evil enter Doriath when he double-dealt over Beren. This, by the way, is also conveyed in the revision of the Lay, and I believe it to be why Luthien’s disguise had to come off once he was looking straight at it. First, he ordered the flittering shadow down, and reluctantly, she came drooping down. And then Morgoth focuses all his will on her, and they have an exchange, and she tries more open falsehood, and it fails. He replies that “liar thou art, who shalt not weave
deceit before my eyes. Now leave
thy form and raiment false, and stand
revealed, and delivered to my hand!”
We must not forget either The Girdle of Melian, in which Enemy forces vanished without a trace, and which Beren alone passed through without any trouble, once. The second time he reached the border of it, we glimpse it at work. I’ll quote this part in full:
“Passing beneath the guarding spell
that Melian on the borders laid
of Thingol’s land. There now they stayed;
for silence sad on Beren fell.”
And a separate file for Luthien. Luthien calling plants to bloom and shake off winter’s sleep when Beren saw her from afar in Doriath, Luthien healing Beren when he stumbled into her joint work with Daeron- and she didn’t even know he was there, she was simply renewing her environs by her joy- Luthien’s hair, and the making of her cloak. The rope that she climbed down to escape Hirilorn. Luthien being said to have never enchanted Huan, unlike all else she met. Luthien sat upon the bridge of To-In-Gaurhoth and sang, and the isle trembled from the top of the tower to the rocks in the dungeon. Luthien bringing down Tol In Gaurhoth with the self-destruct codes she wrenched from Sauron. Luthien sweeping her cloak over Carcharoth, calling him what he is, and telling him to sleep and forget. He went down. Luthien setting Angband to sleep.
And Orodreth in Nargathrond, refuses to let his people kill the Sons of Feanor, “lest the ancient curse from evil unto evil worse” work further in his brother’s city.
Spelling Check:
“Between to maiar” -> “between two maiar:
” and and Gandalf” -> “and Gandalf”
Also fun fact: In the “news reel” image of Sauron forging the one ring, he holds a dagger in his left hand. That is because in an earlier version of this shot, the precise creation was shown by Sauron melting gold in his hand and then stabbing that hand with the dagger, the blood mixing with the gold forming the one ring. I understand why they cut it, though it would have been visually stunning.
I think the question of whether Lord of the Rings is hard magic is awkward because in a way that’s relevant to the question it’s in a space that isn’t “on the map” that shows the boundary between the fuzzy mental categories of hard and soft magic. It definitely has rules which are consistently followed and whose implications are thoughtfully explored in a way that “soft” magic doesn’t, but those rules don’t govern the things that a traditionally “hard” magic system’s rules govern. The kinds of systems we generally think of as hard magic tend to start from processes, and then use the rules of those processes to turn actions into results. By contrast, Tolkien magic starts from actions, then proceeds to the results the rules specify those actions must lead to (mostly, that acting with wisdom or decency leads to positive outcomes and acting with arrogance or malice negative outcomes), and THEN fills in the intervening processes if it’s important. As such, basically everything can be explained by the fairly simple rules of how magic works, but at the same time it is very hostile to any effort to engage with it like a traditional hard magic system, both in the sense that you’ll be wasting your time and in the sense that thinking that way is, in the story, how you become a villain.
I love Following Gandalf!
This was such a good analysis of LOTRS, which I think a lot of people dismiss out of hand & which actually makes it so long lasting & enduring.
Also side note, I’ve discovered I dislike the short hand of “magic systems” Because then the focus is on power & what you can do rather than moral implications & truth which LOTRS does brilliantly.
Ereyesterday, when spending way too much time reading blogs I by chance stumbled upon this here: https://braddelong.substack.com/p/the-nearly-ultimate-tolkien-magic about this very blog post.
Apparently, Brad DeLong thinks that what Bret Devereaux states here is only ‘mostly true’.
DeLong quoted sections of Gandalf’s first encounter with the Balrog of Moria containing references to ‘shutting-spells’, a ‘counter-spell’, and a ‘word of Command’. Which according to DeLong was closer to voces mysticae rather than ‘spiritual power making the Seen correspond to the Unseen’.
However, I wonder what that people with more knowledge of Tolkien think of that argument. It is already many years ago I have read The Fellowship of the Ring, and in translation at that.
So Gandalf is Brett Con from Rick & Morty?
An additional thought, but I wonder if this is part of why Gandalf in particular is shown being so careful with his words in Tolkien’s works. If spiritual power is invoked by making statements about the nature of the world, then for one blessed with power like Gandalf to make a false statement might risk setting his power in motion to try and make that statement a true one, with unpredictable and potentially catastrophic consequences.
While I do think this is why Gandalf is so careful with his words, I don’t think this is a danger. Gandalf, as an Istari, fundamentally *is* careful with what he says. That’s not something he does, it’s something he is. There is no risk of him saying something unintentionally, that just could not happen.
This is an absolutely fascinating delve into how magic in Lord of the Rings works. I’m in awe. It’s a far more truly mystical treatment than most other magic systems in the world. Rather than simply throwing fireballs around- a mere expression of brute force- this is a fundamental truth of the universe, something fitting of the power of a servant of Eru Illuvatar. This makes a lot more sense to me than the Istari just having superpowers, and is more accurate to what Tolkein would write.
I’m wondering how confrontations where Gandalf lost- such as against Saruman in Orthanc- might have gone. No mere energy blasts like in the Jackson movies, but Saruman asserting that Gandalf is his prisoner and Gandalf being left with no choice but to obey. But I suppose that might not be a fight for mortal eyes to witness anyway.
It reminds me a great deal of Genesis, where God declares “Let there be light” and “Let there be birds” and there simply are. The sheer power of naming something creates it out of the Unseen World and places it in the physical one. Magic is symbolic of knowing how the world works, and being able to name it gives it power.
I think the Three were not linked to Sauron spiritually, only under the power of the One (because the craft put into the One was done in order to dominate the Rings), this is why the Three can be used safely when Sauron does not have the One, while the others still lead to bad ends.