Spoilers What do people get wrong about Tolkien?
- Thread starter Whizbang Dustyboots
- Start date
Rune
Once A Fool
That was AD&D, so: 5th level Magic User.Of course he is. He's a 5th level wizard
In 5e he’s clearly a Lore Bard.
Hriston
Dungeon Master of Middle-earth (He/him)
Well done, sir! You have out-nerded me. I stand corrected.
He had a number of takes on the origins of orcs: bred from heat and slime, bred from animals/"beasts", descended from maiar in goblin form, corrupted elves and/or men, etc. My personal favorite theory is some version of all of the above.
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Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
When Gandalf is standing outside of the gates of Moria he says, "I once knew every spell in all the tongues of Elves or Men or Orcs, that was ever used for such a purpose..."
I sincerely doubt that he would be running around learning dark magic from evil sorcerers. That statement says that mortals came up with spells since 1) he didn't know them and had to learn them, and 2) he uses "every spell" and not "the spell," which means that the races had multiple different versions of spells of opening. If Sauron was providing them all, I doubt that he would bother to make up multiple versions for each of the races, rather than just handing out one to every magic caster.
While Sauron did teach magic to mortals, the Maia also taught and gifted men(the Numenoreans) with knowledge and ability long before they fell to evil. It seems like that magic was taught, since they forged the Daggers of Westernesse which had power beyond mere metal(magic items). They probably wrought other magic items, but we didn't get to learn about those that I know of.
Elves of course have their own magic, but apparently they also can develop spells, which is probably how Luthien and Finrod were able shapechange/polymorph themselves and others.
Reynard
aka Ian Eller
Here's the neat thing about Tolkien: if there is anything you have a theory about, you can find writing from.the Professor about it. If you want to know what Gandalf meant, just dig.
That's the real issue: folks have thoughts and ideas and opinions, and very rarely actudo the research.
With respect, you are now interpreting the text. Which is fine, but does not carry the weight of what is in the text.
Even if there are others who use magic in the world, it remains that there is no support in the text for calling them "wizards".
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
I didn't call the mortals wizards. I said whatever kind of wizard Gandalf was, it was in addition to being maia. And I said mortals had magic spells. So call them magic users and him a wizard. He was still able to learn and use their spells. Since Sauron could teach magic to mortals, it seems likely that it worked both ways for Gandalf as well, so there's at least some compatibility/overlap between whatever mortal magic users are called and the Istari(maia wizards).
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
In some of Tolkien’s writing he posits that the Blue Wizards created magic cults/traditions and took students, which to me strongly suggests that the human students would have eventually made their own spellcraft. Additionally, IIRC Radagast had taken people under his wing by the time of LOTR and it’s implied (I may be super wrong) that he taught them magic.
Two other signs are the dwarves and the words of the Rohirrim about Saruman.
The dwarves seemed to be dweomerwise, and they aren’t blessed like the elves, which suggests that dweomers are learnable.
The Rohirrim talk about Saruman being dweomerwise, in a way that seems very odd if they have no knowledge of people doing magic anywhere ever except for the Wizards.
And I think the Barrow Kings had artifacts of magic that weren’t elven or dwarven but their own craft. On this one again I may be wrong.
Clint_L
Legend
He's a complete outlier, whose style was wildly out of synch with 20th century literary trends. In many ways, he could be considered a bad writer. He's often expository, his dialogue is often stilted and not how real people talk, he relied heavily on stereotypes, his class and gender assumptions are regressive, and, well, actually, almost everything about his work is regressive (fantasy as a genre tends to be regressive by its nature). He has almost zero range - you can't imagine him writing a mystery, or a romance (lol), or, well, anything but epic fantasy.
I write all that as a fan. He's a genre of one, excepting maybe Milton, and his work carries an epic weight that not only outweighs all of his faults, but turns them into strengths. I find him almost impossible to critique, for this reason, because what he is doing obviously works, but only for him. His many imitators are miles behind - he's not like a Joyce, who changed the game for everyone and reinvented the modern novel, inspiring many more great innovators. Tolkien is Tolkien.
I write all that as a fan. He's a genre of one, excepting maybe Milton, and his work carries an epic weight that not only outweighs all of his faults, but turns them into strengths. I find him almost impossible to critique, for this reason, because what he is doing obviously works, but only for him. His many imitators are miles behind - he's not like a Joyce, who changed the game for everyone and reinvented the modern novel, inspiring many more great innovators. Tolkien is Tolkien.
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