Music and Magic in Middle Earth

[Farael]

Great! A few thoughts on what I read.

I had never considered swords, silmarils and horns as 'magical' because I could always somewhat picture an explanation for them.

The easyest ones are the horns. Any sport player will tell you that if you want to rally your team or get in the collective head of the other teame you want to be loud. I played volleyball for seven years and I've cheered and "been cheered against" and it does have a great effect. The same thing applies with armies and soldiers. A horn would sound to call for help or rally the troups and it's sould would be enough to intimidate the enemy as they would then expect the horn-blower to attack more decisively.

Swords that shine? Well, I always figured that when they were forged, the elves used some sort of ork-detecting material. I can't remember the swords shning for all evil creature but rather just orks, so it's plausible that the elves found some element that recognized somehow that orks were nearby. It didn't loook like magic to me but rather science. Same thing with the cloacks and the rope, some of the elves had THOUSANDS of years to explore all the building materials in the world by themselves, perhaps they found unusual elements.

Same thing with the silmarils, Feanor managed to get the light of the sun and the moon in them, and those were created by the gods (or semi-gods) of the Middle Earth so we would assume they have some sort of inherent power against evil as the Valar (not counting Morgoth as Vala here) stood for all that was good and pure.

What I do agree with of the posts mentioned above, as I said on my original post, is that there were different kinds of magic. I'd say that we have the "magical song" and the "word of comand" (borrowing from what I read before, but I can't remember who said what and I'm trying to churn everything together and state it again, with my thoughts on this matter.)

The Magical Song would be an act of altering reality in a plausible way. People fall asleep and sometimes think they see something when there's something else going on (refering to Luthien's "magic") Doors can be locked or unlocked (Gandalf) winds blow and clowds form (Sauron and perhaps Galadriel altering weather). All those things can be affected by magical songs and it does not seem to take much out of the singer (but he/she has to know the right song or the right way to sing it)

Sweet-talking, like Saruman seems to be able to do would be a variation of this singing. By choosing the right words, someone could alter perception, which is a reality in itself (After all, we only know for 'real' what we percieve as real) and thoughts. Somehow like the songs I mentioned before, but possibly less powerful or resiliant, as ultimately it is up to each individual to accept those words (and fall into the spell) or reject them.

Then we have what... Davem?... called Word of Command. This is something that is in conflict with reality and therefore it spends some of the 'energy' of the caster. Gandalf's "You shal not pass!" is a good example as he is not shutting a door which stands on the way (plausible reality) but rather creating a 'wall' by his sheer strenght of will. This magic is only 'momentary' (as we don't have any indications that forever after people were not able to walk by the place Gandalf pronounced his words) and dissolves once the caster's mind is set elsewhere.

I think I could keep on expanding, but I have to think some more on what I want to add. I'll edit this post later unless someone else replies to what I wrote so far =) Feel free to do so!