More LOTR questions!

Cafe Society
1

I’m going by the movies, extended versions:

  1. Are elvish bows enchanted, or just really well crafted? Legolas gets a new white bow from Galadriel, is that one enchanted in some way?

  2. For that matter, what enchantments, if any, beyond glowing in the presence of orcs and goblins, does Glamdrig, Orcist, and Sting have?

  3. When the Fellowship finds the entrance to the Mines of Moria, Gandalf can’t figure out the password, then Frodo says it’s a puzzle, what’s the Elvish word for “friend”? Does Gimli have no clue about this secret password? Why does a Dwarven mine have a password in Elvish?

  4. Not a question so much as an observation: when Theoden and Aragorn and company ride out to meet the Uruks, Gimli somehow gets horn-blowing duty? They couldn’t get anyone else? Given Gimli’s love of battle, wouldn’t horn duty be a major letdown?

2

Thought of a couple more:

  1. Who is the oldest character we encounter in the story? Shelob is supposed to be older than Sauron. Treebeard calls Gandalf “young”. Galadriel seems older than Elrond, who is thousands of years old. I know the movies don’t include him, but I understand that Tom Bombadil is incredibly old.

  2. How strong are dwarves, elves, and wizards in comparison to normal humans? Gandalf seems superhuman in strength, Legolas pulls up Aragorn AND Gimli at Helm’s Deep seemingly by himself, etc. For that matter, Aragorn in that instance holds Gimli in one hand and holds the rope with the other, no easy feat for a normal human.

  3. “Swords are of no more use here” Gandalf says, then proceeds to use his sword to fight the Balrog. Ha! Just thought that was funny.

3

Let me try to help with #1 and #2, and any others along that vein …

Tolkien’s writings are not a Dungeons and Dragons sourcebook.

A great deal of D&D came from Tolkien’s writings, but Tolkien is doing something else. Elves are a creation of the greater powers with an innate bond with the world, as it was created, and they understand its inner workings intuitively. They craft things that are in a sense “bound to the source code” of creation. Everything they make, is magic.

So, a direct answer:

*Are elvish bows enchanted, or just really well crafted? *

Yes. And yes.

Which? Magical?

Yes.

Which +to hit, what +damage bonus? What saving throw bonus to crushing blow roll for item damage? What bonus for elf hands vs. human hands?

No. Or unknown. Or whatever the story demands. But yes. Except.

4

I don’t think Frodo said that. Merry realizes it is a puzzle and Gandalf solves it.

And it isn’t in English, the answer is “Mellon”, which I think is friend in Dwarvish.

Unknown. It’s either Tom Bombadil, Sauron, or one of the wizards. Treebeard makes a claim at being the oldest, but I think the Elves woke the Ents.

5

1: Tolkien’s works don’t really feature “magic items”, like you might be used to from modern games. There’s no line drawn between “these items are nonmagical but really well-crafted, but these other items are magical”. Most of what ends up getting called “magical” by ignorant folks is what the makers of those things would call “high craft”.
2: As to specific weapons: The swords that Sam, Merry, and Pippen wield are better than ordinary swords. When Merry uses his against the Witch-King, it’s destroyed just like any weapon would be, but that’s literally the highest purpose for which that sword was created, and so it’s able to penetrate the Witch-King’s magic, making him vulnerable to Eowyn’s killing stroke.

On the other hand, Sam’s matching sword was all but useless against Shelob’s webs (it took something like a half-dozen strokes to cut a single strand), but Sting slashed through them like they were ordinary cobwebs. So in that regard, at least, and possibly in other unspecified ways, Sting was superior.

Both Sting and Orcrist glow in the presence of orcs, but it’s implied that Orcrist is the superior weapon (at the very least, it’s already well-known and named, but Bilbo has to name Sting himself, because none of its specific history is known).

Glamdring is certainly superior to Orcrist: It was originally the personal weapon of the King of Gondolin, the most powerful of the ancient Elven kingdoms. And it glows in the presence of all enemies, not just orcs. On the other hand, the Orcs regarded both swords with equal dread, which suggests that Orcrist might be especially effective against them specifically.

Anduril (renamed Narsil when it’s reforged) might be on a par with Glamdring. But its main significance is that it marks Aragorn, its wielder, as the true legitimate King. That means something, to Tolkien.
3: That particular entrance to Moria (there were many) bordered on Elvish lands. The password was a relic of a happier time, when relations between the two nations were friendly, and there were few or none of the evil creatures about. The door was more about keeping out inclement weather than enemies, and so no real security was needed. The inscription of “speak, friend, and enter” was the equivalent of a sign saying “push here to open door”.
5: Treebeard is the oldest creature under the Sun, but there are those around who are older than the Sun: Galadriel, in particular, was born in the Years of the Trees. Shelob was spawned some time after her dam, Ungoliant, left the West, and therefore after the Years of the Trees, but it’s unknown whether she was before or after the Sun. Tom Bombadil, it’s very difficult to say anything about, but I think he’s as old as the World. Gandalf, Saruman, Sauron, and the Balrog might be young in their current forms, but in essence, all predate the World, and in fact played a part in its creation. Elrond, by comparison, is a youngster, born at the very tail end of the First Age.

Or to put them in order from oldest to youngest:
Illuvatar (the One, the Creator, God Almighty)
The various Maiar and Valar (Gandalf, Saruman, Sauron, the Balrog, Melian, Elbereth, Melkor, etc.)
The World, and probably Tom Bombadil with it (or maybe not, who knows)
Ungoliant
Cirdan (the elf who waits at the Grey Havens, and builds the ships: He’s of the First Generation)
Galadriel (of the Second Generation of elves)
Treebeard
Shelob (or possibly ahead of Treebeard)
Young elves like Elrond, Thranduil (Legolas’ father), etc.
Legolas
Most Dwarves
Bilbo
Aragorn
All other humans and hobbits

6

I think you may have misunderstood; in the movie, at least, Frodo asks what is the word for “friend” in Elvish (English is never mentioned, nor would it be) and that password works. So the question is, why, with the animosity between Elves and Dwarves, would a Dwarven mine have an Elven password? Regardless of who solves the puzzle in the books, it’s still an Elven password for a Dwarven mine, yes?

7

Thanks, great answer!

8

Many things in the films were changed from the books, to be more cinematic, to further character arcs (Tolkien wasn’t real big on character arcs – only gave them to the hobbits, and that was for Christian didactic purposes – and Eowyn). And because Peter Jackson is an entirely different person than JRR.

If you want to understand LOTR you have to read the books. If you want to understand the movies, watching the “making the film” DVDs (I think there are at least six separate ones included in the extended complete version) would be more to the point.

9

I’m not sure if you want answers in the context of the movies or the book, but I’ll answer from the book’s point of view.

  1. Nothing is said about elvish bows being enchanted. In fact there is almost no overt physical elvish magic in the book. At one point Merry asks an elf if a cloak he has been given is “magical”. The elf replies that he doesn’t understand what Merry means by the word, and explains that the cloak is “fair”, is “Elvish” and that the elves “put the thought of all that we love into all that we make”. I am reasonably confident that if asked the question directly, Tolkien would say that elvish bows are not enchanted or magical.

  2. Glamdring, Orcrist and Sting glow when orcs are near. That is all that is said about any supernatural properties. Merry’s sword from the Barrow Downs on the other hand does seem to have some magical property because after he stabs the Black Rider the narrator says “no other blade … would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will”.

  3. The password was not a secret – it was printed right on the door: “Say ‘friend’ and enter”. The door was created at a time when there was, quite unusually, good relations and much commerce between the elves and dwarves of Hollin. The text on the door and the password “Mellon” are elvish, not dwarvish.

  4. I forgot that nonsensical change from the book in the movie.

  5. Sauron, Gandalf and Saruman are Maiar and therefore existed before the creation of the world. They are older than any elf or Treebeard. It’s not clear who Tom Bombadil was. He claims to be “Eldest”. If he is a Maiar then he is the same age as the other Maiar. But honestly, he doesn’t really fit into Tolkien’s legendarium, and Tolkien included him in the book because he had already created the character in an unrelated poem and wanted to use him.

10

OK, so the special attributes of the Elvish weapons are a result of the maker’s understanding of nature and the world, right? So the named weapons must have been especially well-made. And even rank-and-file Elvish weapons would be superior to those made by men, right? I’m guessing Dwarvish weapons fall somewhere in between in terms of durability, sharpness, etc? I would think Dwarves also had a very close connection with the earth, so I would also think Gimli’s axes are superior to anything forged by men. Am I on the right track?

11

Elven stuff is magical the way an Iphone would be magical to a medieval peasant. It’s not magic, they just know how to make shit better.

12

She’s third generation, daughter of Finarfin, and grand-daughter of both Finwe and Olwe.

13

There are (or at least, have been) great craftsmen of all races. The blades wielded by Sam, Merry, and Pippen, for instance, were created by humans, as was the Tower of Orthanc that even the Ents couldn’t damage (though most of those techniques are lost to humans, by the time of the story). The greatest craftsman of all times happened to be an Elf, but I don’t think any of his works ended up being relevant in the Third Age. Overall, the biggest difference between human and elven craftsmen seems to not be the presence of great craftsmen, but in the absence of mediocre ones: We never see anything made by elves of merely ordinary quality.

DigitalC, I’d liken it more to the difference between a Rolls Royce and a Ford. Both are cars, and both work on the same basic principles, but the Rolls is just that much higher quality (and of course, that quality is expensive).

EDIT: Baron Greenback, one of the great things about this forum is that if you make a mistake, someone will invariably correct you.

14

Denethor was a year older than Aragorn. Aragorn was the oldest human at the end of his life, but not at the time of LotR, being a mere 80 or so.

15

Particularly in matters of Tolkienology, I find.

16

So the Maiar and Valar are analogues to angels, right?

17

The physical battle, visible to mortal eyes, was only a tiny fraction of that fight.

18

To expound on this a bit:

The elves in Tolkien’s world originally came in different “flavors” (if you will). Most of the “High” elves that the LotR talks about, properly called the Noldor, were originally his conception of gnomes. We’re not talking the small statues that you find on your lawn these days; in Tolkien’s mind, gnomes should represent elves who are focused on knowledge (from gnomic, derived ultimately from greek γιγνώσκω, “to know”). So the Noldor are the elves who turn to knowledge and technology. Not shockingly, they are the elves that are the creators of things like the Silmarils, the Palantiri, the written characters used in elvish writing, various swords (including Glamdring and Orcrist), etc. Their later descendants, not shockingly, are the creators of the various rings that Sauron sought to control through the One Ring. They are the world’s techies.

Tolkien had a love/hate relationship with the concept of progress and science. This is born out in the fact that it is the Noldor who are the focus of his great legendarium, of which the best published example was The Silmarillion. The Vanyar and the Teleri who went to Aman are hardly mentioned, except on the few times when they ended up interacting with the Noldor (such as the Kinslaying). In his stories, one of the themes is that an essential part of the character of the Noldor was that they paired with their thirst for knowledge a pride in themselves and their knowledge, which bordered on (indeed, often slopped over into) arrogance. This is constantly used to get them into trouble. So Tolkien is warning about the danger of thinking that it’s imperative, vital to progress through knowledge, then falling in love with the products of that knowledge.

Thus, in one sense, there is no “magic” involved in things like Glamdring or Orcrist (or Sting, which is just a long knife, really), or in the Seeing Stones, or in the Silmarils themselves (or Galadriel’s Phial that she gives to Sam, as a more "modern: (meaning Third Age) example). They are the result of technology, a technology that humans do not possess. The same, by the way, is true of things like Minas Tirith, the Argonath (those huge statues on Anduin), or Orthanc (Saruman’s home, but not built by him). These workings of stone are the results of a technology that the modern human kingdoms simply do not know how to replicate. The humans that built them, the Numenoreans, learned how to do those things from the elves, particularly from the Noldor (gnomes). So, as DigitalC notes above, it’s not magic except in the sense that any higher order technology is magical to a population that can’t understand the science.

Probably the only “magic” that we witness in all of Tolkien’s version of the LotR is evidenced by Gandalf, when he does things like make his staff glow in Moria, or shoots a bolt of light at the flying Nazgûl to ward them off from Faramir’s retreating company outside Minas Tirith before the siege. But Gandalf is an angel, so that’s not really a shock. :smiley:

19

The items that the various races crafted had an “affinity” for their own kind and were hostile to their foes. It was just a part of their nature. The elven rope that Sam climbed down on was thoroughly tied and held them securely. But when they needed it back, it came loose automatically just because that was the most helpful thing. But when tied to Gollum, it stung and burned because it was inherently hostile to him. Merrys’ long knife wounded the Witch King because it was the weapon of the Witch Kings old foe and therefore was anathematic to him.

20

There’s a sort of working theme that Tolkien explored in his later musings - starting with Melkor pouring so much of his essence into the fundamental corruption of Arda that he left himself ultimately weakened. Similarly with Sauron and the Ring, and with Feanor and the Silmarils (and possibly the Palantir). It’s not quite magic - its a transfer of innate power, with a cost attached.

In that context it’s not so unlikely that a very motivated Elven smithy could produce some serious weapons.