Hookbill
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In some cases the names become stories and it is the stories and significances that give them power.
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I agree. The name is significant. A name attaches an identity, a story. The Ringwraiths are not named, their personal identity has been lost, and they are in absolute servitude to Sauron. The same can be said about the Mouth of Sauron, his true name has been forgotten and "The Mouth of Sauron" is just a title, a position, not an actual name.
The Ents names (their Entish names) Treebeard says he can't tell Merry and Pippin because his name is constantly growing. The Ents' names are essentially their life stories.
Speaking of 'enchanted' swords I wonder exactly when do these magical weapons get named? Do they get named upon being crafted (was it the Japanese who named their swords?) or were they named after accomplishing a great deed? Was "Narsil" really some special/enchanted blade or was it because of the name, the story, attached to the blade? Names can create stories and those stories can form part of the legend, or the magic.
What about why the Elven Rings were given names but not the other rings of power? 'The One Ring' is afterall a title, not a name.
Lalwende
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Or should we bring forwards this general idea of a "fall from grace" here? So in the earlier times everything was better and now all is crap? People used to live in paradise but now they are estranged from that holy or primordial union with God / nature / natural relation with the world... what have you?
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I think people do make that assumption and it can be a dangerous one to make. The ideas of "progress," "advancement," "reform,"...etc is what is new, not the belief things were better in the past and now we're all 'falling from grace.' Mass crime, prostitution, scandals, corporate greed, adultery and the whole lot has existed for a long, long, time. It wasn't until about 160-170 years ago when people thought the problems got so bad, reform needed to happen. That's where progress, and the ideas of "reforming the person" to rid the world of its evils, took off.
What's interesting is technology and mass production was seen as the way to get out of the "savage" curses of the past. The first dagguerotypes (I believe about 1820s?) were seen as magicians. Nathaniel Hawthorne's
The House of the Seven Gables is I believe an excellent book which tries to argue that through technology, and interesting enough...nature, we can achieve progress and escape the dark, often dirty, past. This argument was the new idea in the world, not society had fallen from its glory days, and needed to be restored to its glory days - Society needed to make its own new glory days.
We get a revolution of ideas through history, and I think WWI brought out a new side to technology and mass production that people never thought was possible. That side left a huge black mark on technology, and using technology for "advancement."
In my opinion it's not technology, the sciences...etc, that is evil, it's how we decide to use it. Didn't Tolkien say something similar about magic in his books? It can be used for healing, preservation, protection, but also domination and destruction.