# Aragorns healing powers **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 9, 2003, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aragorns-healing-powers/200536 "2003-09-09T15:11:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Deep\_Throat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@Deep\_Throat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deep_Throat)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aragorns-healing-powers/200536/21 "2003-09-12T02:28:42Z")
…sarcastically of course… :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aragorns-healing-powers/200536/22 "2003-09-12T04:49:59Z")
Um, I own and have read and re-read the _Silmarillion_, _Unfinished Tales_, and _Lost Tales_. The question about the Silmarils was meant to be rhetorical. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aragorns-healing-powers/200536/23 "2003-09-12T05:42:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by C K Dexter Haven \* > **The lure of the ring is in greed, we never see actual “magic” (aside from the invisibility trick.)** I thought the whole point of invisibility was that you don’t see it? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aragorns-healing-powers/200536/24 "2003-09-12T14:28:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chronos \* > \*\*Um, I own and have read and re-read the _Silmarillion_, _Unfinished Tales_, and _Lost Tales_. \*\* But can you identify Makar and Meassa yet? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aragorns-healing-powers/200536/25 "2003-09-12T14:38:38Z")
The Silmarils are just the biggest McGuffins ever in the history of the worlds! I don’t have my books handy, but there is a passage in LOTR at the departure from Lothlorien where Pippin\* asks “are these magic cloaks”? The reply is that the cloaks were woven by Galadriel and her women, and they have no magic except that which inherent in the materials they were made of, and contain the best of the fields, and the forests, and the valleys, etc. A truly beautify passage, and maybe somebody out there can dig up the exact quote. Anyway, it seems to indicate very clearly that the magic of the Elves is the magic of the good things in nature. \*or Merry, but it’s such a dumb question, I assume it’s Pippin. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2003, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aragorns-healing-powers/200536/26 "2003-09-13T01:52:54Z")
Good quote, **Cadfael** , exactly my point. Yet the elven cloaks have great “power” to hide or camoflage the wearer. Even in THE HOBBIT, one of the opening lines is that hobbits don’t have “magic” about them, except the normal every-day magic that allows them to move quietly through the woods, hide without being seen, etc. That, to me, crystalizes Tolkien’s attitude towards magic – it’s “natural.” Magic in the Silmarillion is different from magic in LotR, and more explicit. I can’t help but wonder if that’s one reason the JRR himself never published it. I do like the bit – very much – where Luthien sings to Morgoth, and the singing puts him to sleep, to rest from the cares of all the evil he was doing. I think that’s brilliant. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2003, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aragorns-healing-powers/200536/27 "2003-09-13T05:06:14Z")
Yeah, Tolkien’s idea of magic, especially Elven magic, is very different from D&D type spells and other fantasy. It’s much more tightly integrated with the world than it is a supernatural force. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aragorns-healing-powers/200536.md?page=1)