Quote:
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but a strong whiff of supernatural powers nonetheless
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It is arguable that no magic in ME is
supernatural at that. Supernatural, as far as I can understand the term, means something taken, imposed, intruding from
outside the nature(the implied feeling of something descending from above as with 'super' prefix nevertheless may be stretched to contain "outside" meaning). As a consequence, all powers acting within ME (yes, even Valar, for those are 'powers of the world', therefore parts of the world, so inside nature) are, in fact,
natural. The only supernatural act we know off is the Intervention of Eru in case of Numenor, and, possibly, Gandalf's resurrection. In both cases the event is to be quilified as
miracle and not magic. The definition of magic applies from the mortal point of view, for mortals do not possess such powers, and, due to their ignorance, label the art "magic" (as the abovementioned quote of Clark's goes: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic)
As for HP, same principle may apply (if we draw the logical chain, it will lead us to conclusion that HP witchcraft is not magic either, for powers implied are also natural - so people are born to be wizards).
Therefore I, to my own slight surprise, come to conclusion that there is no magic (if it is what we define as supernatural powers) whatsoever in both books. Another conclusion follows that the whole fuss around HP comes from the usage of terms by the author. If she bothered to replace the 'bad' words with some scientific crap (as for telepathy, mental power tra la la tra la la), there would be nothing to clash our lances for.