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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 2042363" data-attributes="member: 7240">Given that Gandalf can freely come and go from the Houses of Healing and Aragorn cannot, and given that Gandalf knows more about the Nazgul than Aragorn does, how does your argument hold up in the actual situation in the book? Also, do you have any textual evidence that Aragorn does not have the power to heal as part of being the rightful king?Are you seriously telling me that athelas's properties are connected to healing the wounds inflicted by kings? That wounds inflicted by Anduril would therefore be best healed with athelas?That's because I agree with it. Of course a fit king is a man who is just and compassionate.This is what I mean about the difference between reading history and reading literature. If LOTR were an historical document, your reasoning would be correct. But in literature, the absence of anyone else healing actually is evidence; Tolkien is choosing not to show anyone else healing.Are you really saying there is ancient lore that Aragorn knows and Gandalf does not? You're resting an argument on Gandalf's ignorance?I really can't continue to argue with you if you're going to take this view. Arguing that Tolkien might have been unaware he was referencing the healing power of medieval kings with a prophecy that "the hands of a king are the hands of a healer" is just plain ridiculous. I have absolutely no time for an argument that rests either on Tolkien's ignorance of medieval history and literature or on Tolkien not being a good writer.All I've done here is reorder your statements. I hope that's sufficient to make my point. But just in case it isn't, what you're saying here is: by choosing to be men, they lost their elvish nature but by choosing to be men, they did not lose their angelic nature. You can't be serious.When did Arwen cast a spell?When did that happen?Because he had a D&D class based on him? By that reasoning, I guess Merlin must have been able to cast Fireball.While I do not agree with this with respect to the athelas healing, I do agree with it as a general principle for looking at "magic" in Tolkien. You'll recall the scene in which Galadriel explains that these "magic" elven things are not magical at all -- they are just really well-made.But nobody (except possibly Joshua) is arguing that Aragorn's magical healing is not magical; we are just arguing that it is not a spell.Joshua makes a very important point here. Why is everybody invested in believing that LOTR can be modeled using D&D. There are all kinds of worlds that cannot be modeled well using D&D rules; Middle Earth is just one of them.This is a sci-fi definition of magic by somebody who never studied the history of magic. If you want to read all fantasy as sci-fi, more power to you I guess but I must admit you're cheating yourself out of a lot of fun.</blockquote>

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