Enchantment or advancement.

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well, it looks as if I will be the only one with hesitations about this craftsman/mechanical division. I've seen brass items, wood work, jewellery, rugs that have been hand made in these modern times and I wouldn't say that all of them were so special. Some yes. But I've seen faults and weaknesses that the modern craftsman has just shrugged off or was too harried and hurried to fix, possibly because he had a quota to meet. Or joints where too much material was blobbed together. At the same time, I've seen hand made modern quilts that are every bit as meticulous and beautiful as historical quilts, but these quilts were not made to be marketed.

Rather than a craftsman/mechanical division, I meant more of a craft/mass production divide. As in craft itself, and learning through experience, and other such aspects which are not incorporated into mass-produced products made by machines. Yes, craftsmen can skimp while machines can't, but they can also create great works, not just as the product itself but as a work of art. Machines cann't make art. They can only create what they've been told to do.
That is why a machine could never create a weapon with a "soul" like Gurthang.

And when I say craft, I separate it from craftsman because the crafting I mean is like a long time ago, when crafting was your life's work, and everything you made had your name on it, so if you ever produced a product that anyone hated, your reputation would be damaged. Now peole can just change their company name to avoid this, but then it was the craftsman who personally associated themselves with the product.