The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls.

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:34:07 GMT from Steuard Jensen
<steuard.DeleteThis@slimy.com>:
> [Cross-posted to a.f.t since many people have retreated there due to the
> sporge flood.]

WHAT sporge flood?

Anyone who is seeing sporge should complain to their ISP, because
it's pretty easily filtered out. individual.net, for instance, isn't
showing any of it.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
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more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

Steuard Jensen wrote:

> The point is, a normal human being who led a lifestyle like Gandalf's
> would have pretty high odds of dying young, and Gandalf led that
> lifestyle for thousands of years without taking any lasting harm. Sounds
> like they had some level of superhuman good fortune, at least. Does that
> tell us anything about the sort of powers they may have routinely been
> able to use, or the sort of protection or guidance they may have
> received from the true Powers?

I suspect it's the pipeweed. Never leave home without it!

--

-- FotW


Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-earth.
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

"Stan Brown" <the_stan_brown.TakeThisOut@fastmail.fm> skrev i meddelandet
news:MPG.21f49911b77ea18b98b3a7@news.individual.net...

[snip]

> Anyone who is seeing sporge should complain to their ISP, because
> it's pretty easily filtered out. individual.net, for instance, isn't
> showing any of it.

I can attest to that. Very little sporge makes it through the blockade.

Öjevind
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:55:03 -0500, Stan Brown
<the_stan_brown.DeleteThis@fastmail.fm> wrote:

>Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:34:07 GMT from Steuard Jensen
><steuard.DeleteThis@slimy.com>:
>> [Cross-posted to a.f.t since many people have retreated there due to the
>> sporge flood.]
>
>WHAT sporge flood?
>
>Anyone who is seeing sporge should complain to their ISP, because
>it's pretty easily filtered out. individual.net, for instance, isn't
>showing any of it.

I still see a little of it, but not every day, and (IIRC) 10 messages
or so/day at most. My ISP is Earthlink.

It's not that hard to identify and delete; for one thing, it is almost
always concentrated at the /end/ of the group (when sorted "earliest
thread first").
--
"A portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature,
but contrary to what we know as nature."
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

Bill O'Meally wrote:
> Steuard Jensen wrote:
>> The point is, a normal human being who led a lifestyle like Gandalf's
>> would have pretty high odds of dying young, and Gandalf led that
>> lifestyle for thousands of years without taking any lasting harm.

> Elves also were able to survive thousands of years and survive all the
> pitfalls of living harsh lifestyles. We know that this is due to the
> superior power their fear over their hroar...

That is the most likely explanation, I agree. But on the other hand, in
most ways (except mortality) it seems that the Istari were more like Men
than Elves. So we can probably conclude that the exceptional health of
the Elves was directly tied to their longevity (rather than the two
being independent advantages of Elvishness).

That's in contrast, for example, to the longevity of the Ents, which
apparently did not provide the same level of protection against the
mischances of the world. So I would guess that the fea of an Ent did
not control the hroa the way that an Elf's did; their long life was
simply the natural long life of trees.

Seem reasonable?

Steuard Jensen
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

Steuard Jensen wrote:
> Bill O'Meally wrote:
>
>> Steuard Jensen wrote:
>>
>>> The point is, a normal human being who led a lifestyle like Gandalf's
>>> would have pretty high odds of dying young, and Gandalf led that
>>> lifestyle for thousands of years without taking any lasting harm.
>
>
>> Elves also were able to survive thousands of years and survive all the
>> pitfalls of living harsh lifestyles. We know that this is due to the
>> superior power their fear over their hroar...
>
>
> That is the most likely explanation, I agree. But on the other hand, in
> most ways (except mortality) it seems that the Istari were more like Men
> than Elves. So we can probably conclude that the exceptional health of
> the Elves was directly tied to their longevity (rather than the two
> being independent advantages of Elvishness).
>

[snip Ents]

How about their susceptibility to Fate? That could explain why many
Elves keep going longer than the risk factors of lifestyle might dictate
- they were being dragged along by their Fates.

It's also probably worth splitting out two ways in which Elven control
over their hroar would help:

1 - What we would call a strongly improved constitution with respect to Men
2 - Superior agility/dexterity/balance, which reduces the chances of
accidents.

Plus, of course, the reduction in "accidents" occuring as they are tied
more strongly to the Fate of the world.

So, in the "linked to Fate" aspect, my guess is that, as Ainur, the
Istari were still under the thumb (so being "pulled along" by their
Fates - albeit still with free will. Hmm. This could get weird ... )

In the "health" side of controlling their hroar, my guess is that the
Istari were on the Elven side of the ledger. On the
balance/dexterity/agility front, my vague impression is that they are
better than a Man of their apparent age, but without the abilities of
Elves (I'd expect descriptions of their grace of movement, and none of
my visualisations of Gandalf has ever been overly graceful ...)

--
Andy Cooke
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

In message <news:a5Lij.24916$UX2.21501@trnddc08>
Steuard Jensen <steuard DeleteThis @slimy.com> spoke these staves:
>
> Bill O'Meally wrote:
>> Steuard Jensen wrote:
>>>
>>> The point is, a normal human being who led a lifestyle like
>>> Gandalf's would have pretty high odds of dying young, and
>>> Gandalf led that lifestyle for thousands of years without taking
>>> any lasting harm.
>>
>> Elves also were able to survive thousands of years and survive
>> all the pitfalls of living harsh lifestyles. We know that this is
>> due to the superior power their fear over their hroar...
>
> That is the most likely explanation, I agree.

Me too

> But on the other hand, in most ways (except mortality) it seems
> that the Istari were more like Men than Elves.

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to



But were they really more like Men than Elves? Their appearance was
that of Men, but surely their spirits were closer to the fëar of
Elves than the fëar of Men (also their 'magical' powers seems closer
in nature to Elvish magic than to the few examples we have of Mannish
magic). The possibility of falling from their mission doesn't seem to
have been particularly mannish or elvish, since we know that

the Istari, being clad in bodies of Middle-earth, might
even as Men and Elves fall away from their purposes and
do evil, forgetting the good in the search for power to
effect it.
[UT 4,II 'The Istari']

> So we can probably conclude that the exceptional health of the
> Elves was directly tied to their longevity (rather than the two
> being independent advantages of Elvishness).

I'm not sure that that follows -- at least I think it depends on what
you mean by 'longevity'.

If you mean simply the ability of the body to endure long ages in
Arda, then it seems pretty straight forward that this would require a
particularly resilient and healthy body, suggesting that the
longevity is a direct result of their great health, but if you're
referring to the spiritual nature of the Elves (their immortality or
'limitless serial longevity'), then I'm not convinced.

We do know, as Bill points out, that the Elven ability to sustain
more damage to the body and yet survive was due to the superior power
of their fëar over their hröar. Their immortality (within Arda),
however, was an inherent quality of their fëar that wasn't
necessarily related to their hröar.

On the other hand there might still be a causal connection in that
the fëa that had to last in Arda until the very end would have to be
much stronger than the fëa of the 'Guests' and hence also, as a side-
effect, give that additional power over the hröa that allows the
longevity of the /hröa/ also.

I'd agree that both are tied to the immortality of the Elves with
which they were created by Eru (IMO the greater resistance of the
elvish hröa is a necessary corollary to their immortality in order to
make it serve the literary function for which it was intended), but
any further causal connection is, I'd say, conjectural.

> That's in contrast, for example, to the longevity of the Ents,
> which apparently did not provide the same level of protection
> against the mischances of the world.

I'm not sure exactly what you think of here. It seems to me that the
Ents are also quite well protected against the mischances of the
world:

But arrows are no use against Ents. They hurt them, of
course, and infuriate them: like stinging flies. But an
Ent can be stuck as full of orc-arrows as a pin-cushion,
and take no serious harm. They cannot be poisoned, for one
thing; and their skin seems to be very thick, and tougher
than bark. It takes a very heavy axe-stroke to wound them
seriously.
Merry, LotR III,9 'Flotsam and Jetsam'

The explanation of the Ents implied in Silm QS,2 'Of Aulë and
Yavanna' is, IIRC, later than LotR and may not be reflected in the
'reality' of LotR, but the explanation offered there, of the 'spirits
from afar' who would dwell in the olvar, to me implies an Ainurin
origin of the spirits of the (original) Ents.

> So I would guess that the fea of an Ent did not control the hröa
> the way that an Elf's did; their long life was simply the natural
> long life of trees.

It is difficult to compare. The Elves were the Firstborn of the
Children of Ilúvatar, and the Ents were conceived by Yavanna as part
of the Music and were animated by 'spirits from afar'. That is, right
from the outset, a fairly fundamental difference.

If we accept that these 'spirits from afar' were some kind of lesser
Ainur (and I'm reluctant to propose another kind of spirits), then
they would also be tied to Arda while it endures (though that doesn't
necessarily mean that they necessarily had the same power over their
physical bodies that did the Elves), but otherwise? I don't know.

For one thing, these spirits apparently (at least that's how I
understand it) took up residence in existing trees, wakening them. So
they couldn't have had the same level of integration from the start
that did the Incarnates. On the other hand the naturally tough
'body' of trees was clearly made stronger and more resistant for an
Ent.

Hmmm -- I seem to be arguing both ways at once here

> Seem reasonable?

As always.

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human
stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
- Albert Einstein
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

In message <news:fmgdm4$1hp9$1@energise.enta.net>
Andy Cooke <andy DeleteThis @andycooke.adsl24.co.uk> spoke these staves:
>

On the Istarion survivability

> How about their susceptibility to Fate? That could explain why
> many Elves keep going longer than the risk factors of lifestyle
> might dictate - they were being dragged along by their Fates.

What an absolutely wonderful topic to drag into the debate

You cannot mention fate in Tolkien's world without mentioning the
Music, which 'is as fate to all things else'. The Elves enterered,
together with Men, with the Third Theme and were solely Eru's
contribution, and while they 'were being dragged along by their
Fates', it is also their Fate to live long. I think that the question
that occupies Steuard is rather the practicalities of this -- how did
this 'fated for immortality' design choice influence the
implementation

> It's also probably worth splitting out two ways in which Elven
> control over their hroar would help:
>
> 1 - What we would call a strongly improved constitution with
> respect to Men

Yes. This is the ability that allows them to survive wounds that
would have killed a Man.

> 2 - Superior agility/dexterity/balance, which reduces the
> chances of accidents.

That's a good point. Even if they can survive extreme trauma, they
are perhaps also less likely to sustain it.

> Plus, of course, the reduction in "accidents" occuring as they are
> tied more strongly to the Fate of the world.

I think this could cut both ways -- being unable to escape the Music
would also make them unable to avoid the accidents they are fated to
sustain.

But there's another thing to this also: the pace of elvish life seems
to be much slower than for Men, and that of course also serves to
reduce their risk.

> So, in the "linked to Fate" aspect, my guess is that, as Ainur,
> the Istari were still under the thumb (so being "pulled along" by
> their Fates - albeit still with free will. Hmm. This could get
> weird ... )

The role of the Ainur with respect to fate and the Music does indeed
seem /very/ weird. In many ways they seem doomed to enact what they
have already foresung and been foreshown, and so you might say that
they're acting with an even greater degree of Free Will & Action than
does Men, but that they exerted this freedom in the Music before Eä.

Gandalf several times, by implying that things are 'meant' to happen,
suggests that he is serving a higher intention, even if he has no (or
at most very little) recollection of how things are meant to be (he
seems to have a sense of 'rightness' that he uses, but that's about
it).

> In the "health" side of controlling their hroar, my guess is that
> the Istari were on the Elven side of the ledger.

Yes, I agree.

> On the balance/dexterity/agility front, my vague impression is
> that they are better than a Man of their apparent age, but without
> the abilities of Elves (I'd expect descriptions of their grace of
> movement, and none of my visualisations of Gandalf has ever been
> overly graceful ...)

It probably didn't hurt either to be able to launch a bit of
judicious magic . . . a few fiery pinecones or a bright flash of
light in a dark place can evidently go a long way towards saving the
day


I wrote an essay on Free Will in Tolkien, which can be found here:
<http://tolkien.forchhammer.net/Fate_FreeWill.html>
I am currently reading Verlyn Flieger's /Splintered Light/ and will
definitely need to update the essay after that, but much of what I
say will stay, in particular with respect to the manner of Free Will
for the Elves.

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

A common mistake people make when trying to design
something completely foolproof is to underestimate the
ingenuity of complete fools.
- Douglas Adams, /Mostly Harmless/
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

"Troels Forchhammer" <Troels.TakeThisOut@ThisIsFake.invalid> wrote:
> Steuard Jensen <steuard.TakeThisOut@slimy.com> spoke these staves:

<snip>

>> But on the other hand, in most ways (except mortality) it seems
>> that the Istari were more like Men than Elves.
>
> The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
> That flesh is heir to
>
>

You like Shakespeare? Do you think it is possible to do a thread comparing
Tolkien and Shakespeare? It could cover both their literary status and
popular appeal?

<snip>

[Elven fëa]

> On the other hand there might still be a causal connection in that
> the fëa that had to last in Arda until the very end would have to be
> much stronger than the fëa of the 'Guests' and hence also, as a side-
> effect, give that additional power over the hröa that allows the
> longevity of the /hröa/ also.

I haven't read that essay for a long time. Does it explain the way some
Elves had such 'fiery' fëa that their bodies were consumed from within? Such
as Fëanor for example (hey, I've just noticed the fëa- element in Fëanor's
name!)?

<snip>

[Ents]

>> That's in contrast, for example, to the longevity of the Ents,
>> which apparently did not provide the same level of protection
>> against the mischances of the world.
>
> I'm not sure exactly what you think of here. It seems to me that the
> Ents are also quite well protected against the mischances of the
> world:
>
> But arrows are no use against Ents. They hurt them, of
> course, and infuriate them: like stinging flies. But an
> Ent can be stuck as full of orc-arrows as a pin-cushion,
> and take no serious harm. They cannot be poisoned, for one
> thing; and their skin seems to be very thick, and tougher
> than bark. It takes a very heavy axe-stroke to wound them
> seriously.
> Merry, LotR III,9 'Flotsam and Jetsam'
>
> The explanation of the Ents implied in Silm QS,2 'Of Aulë and
> Yavanna' is, IIRC, later than LotR and may not be reflected in the
> 'reality' of LotR, but the explanation offered there, of the 'spirits
> from afar' who would dwell in the olvar, to me implies an Ainurin
> origin of the spirits of the (original) Ents.

But what happens to the spirit when an Ent dies? Did Tolkien ever address
this question. And it seems that burning works quite well against an Ent.
Can Ents drown, I wonder?

>> So I would guess that the fea of an Ent did not control the hröa
>> the way that an Elf's did; their long life was simply the natural
>> long life of trees.
>
> It is difficult to compare. The Elves were the Firstborn of the
> Children of Ilúvatar, and the Ents were conceived by Yavanna as part
> of the Music and were animated by 'spirits from afar'. That is, right
> from the outset, a fairly fundamental difference.

I also got the impression that Ents were not trees exactly, though they
could become tree-ish. And trees could become Ent-ish. Quite how this works
is, quite rightly, left to the reader's imagination, though Treebeard has a
fair bit to say, including the bit about Elves starting it all: "Elves began
it, of course, waking trees up and teaching them to speak and learning their
tree-talk. They always wished to talk to everything, the old Elves did.
[...] " (Treebeard)

> If we accept that these 'spirits from afar' were some kind of lesser
> Ainur (and I'm reluctant to propose another kind of spirits), then
> they would also be tied to Arda while it endures (though that doesn't
> necessarily mean that they necessarily had the same power over their
> physical bodies that did the Elves), but otherwise? I don't know.
>
> For one thing, these spirits apparently (at least that's how I
> understand it) took up residence in existing trees, wakening them. So
> they couldn't have had the same level of integration from the start
> that did the Incarnates. On the other hand the naturally tough
> 'body' of trees was clearly made stronger and more resistant for an
> Ent.

I think that you have to consider the Huorns as well. What are they in
relation to the Ents? Are they inhabited by spirits as well? Let's try out a
few quotes to see what we know from LotR:

Treebeard on Ents: "The trees and the Ents [...] I do not understand all
that goes on myself, so I cannot explain it to you. Some of us are still
true Ents, and lively enough in our fashion, but many are growing sleepy,
going tree-ish, as you might say. Most of the trees are just trees, of
course; but many are half awake. Some are quite wide awake, and a few are,
well, ah, well getting Entish. That is going on all the time." (Treebeard)

I wonder if Istari can get sleepy like this?

More on Ents: "Sheep get like shepherd, and shepherds like sheep, it is
said; but slowly, and neither have long in the world. It is quicker and
closer with trees and Ents, and they walk down the ages together. For Ents
are more like Elves: less interested in themselves than Men are, and better
at getting inside other things. And yet again Ents are more like Men, more
changeable than Elves are, and quicker at taking the colour of the outside,
you might say. Or better than both: for they are steadier and keep their
minds on things longer."

Again, try applying this to the Istari.

Treebeard on Ents dying: "None have died from inside, as you might say. Some
have fallen in the evil chances of the long years, of course: and more have
grown tree-ish. But there were never many of us and we have not increased."
(Treebeard)

Can Istari die like this?

On Huorns: "Treebeard won't say much about them, but I think they are Ents
that have become almost like trees, at least to look at. They stand here and
there in the wood or under its eaves, silent, watching endlessly over the
trees; but deep in the darkest dales there are hundreds and hundreds of
them, I believe." (Flotsam and Jetsam)

Can Istari go "bad"? Well, Saruman is an obvious example.

So an interesting question, following on from the mini-questions posed above
after each quote, might be how the changes in spirit within the Huorn and
Ent scale, can be compared to that seen with Istari and Ainur? If Huorns can
be seen as "tree-ish Ents", can the Istari be seen as "Mannish Ainur", or is
it a completely different process?

And no-one has yet mentioned Dwarves. There is a bit in /The Silmarillion/
about how their bodies were made to endure:

"Since they were to come in the days of the power of Melkor, Aulë made the
Dwarves strong to endure. Therefore they are stone-hard, stubborn, fast in
friendship and in enmity, and they suffer toil and hunger and hurt of body
more hardily than all other speaking peoples; and they live long, far beyond
the span of Men, yet not for ever." (Of Aulë and Yavanna)

Maybe the Istari bodies were more like those of dwarves?

Christopher
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:

> You like Shakespeare? Do you think it is possible to do a thread comparing
> Tolkien and Shakespeare? It could cover both their literary status and
> popular appeal?

I've recently learned of a book called /Tolkien And Shakespeare: Essays
on Shared Themes And Language/, but I haven't seen a copy of it. Here's
the link, though: http://tinyurl.com/2e9w82
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

Troels Forchhammer wrote:
> Steuard Jensen <steuard.RemoveThis@slimy.com> spoke these staves:
>> Bill O'Meally wrote:
>>> Steuard Jensen wrote:
>>>> ...a normal human being who led a lifestyle like Gandalf's
>>>> would have pretty high odds of dying young

>>> Elves also were able to survive thousands of years and survive
>>> all the pitfalls of living harsh lifestyles.

>> But on the other hand, in most ways (except mortality) it seems
>> that the Istari were more like Men than Elves.

> But were they really more like Men than Elves? Their appearance was
> that of Men...

That's at least a substantial fraction of what I was thinking of: they
looked unambiguously human, as far as I can recall. The more I think of
it, the more I wonder whether I had any other particular evidence in
mind for them being more man-like than elf-like.

[Side note: I just hesitated at "man-like", and then realized that it
was entirely correct. All too typically, Tolkien doesn't seem to have
even considered the possibility that the Valar would send female Istari
as their representatives. The only significant female Maiar I can
recall are Melian (notable for a love affair and the things she did to
maintain it), Arien (notable for leaving all the interesting stuff in
Middle-earth behind and then being 100% stick-in-the-mud reliable, even
when chased by a guy), and Uinen (notable for trying to restrain her
violent husband, with mixed success). (Ilmare doesn't seem significant
at all: she's just a placeholder to balance Eonwe.) Not much range
there. Maybe there were secretly a troop of female Istari as well, but
nobody bothered to keep track of what they did.]

> but surely their spirits were closer to the fëar of Elves than the
> fëar of Men (also their 'magical' powers seems closer in nature to
> Elvish magic than to the few examples we have of Mannish magic).

I suspect substantially different from either Elves or Men, actually
(though to us simple humans all such other beings would surely appear
equally foreign). For one thing, I don't really envision Elvish magic
being the sort of thing that would (in general) be used to launch
burning pine cones or even to seal a door. The Elves specialized in Art
and Enchantment, in visions and the deep fabric of their world. Humans,
in rare circumstances, could enchant a knife (anything else?). The
Istari seem to have been much more adept at /active/ magic, despite the
major limitations on their innate abilities as Maiar.

>> So we can probably conclude that the exceptional health of the
>> Elves was directly tied to their longevity (rather than the two
>> being independent advantages of Elvishness).

> If you mean simply the ability of the body to endure long ages in
> Arda, then it seems pretty straight forward that this would require a
> particularly resilient and healthy body, suggesting that the
> longevity is a direct result of their great health

I was focused on the hroa here, yes.

>> That's in contrast, for example, to the longevity of the Ents,
>> which apparently did not provide the same level of protection
>> against the mischances of the world.

> I'm not sure exactly what you think of here. It seems to me that the
> Ents are also quite well protected against the mischances of the
> world:

> But arrows are no use against Ents.
[snip]

Yes, certainly, but that's because they're /trees/. They can still be
readily burned to death, for example, and I never get the impression
that they're /that/ much more resistant to injury than an ordinary tree.

> The explanation of the Ents implied in Silm QS,2 'Of Aulë and
> Yavanna' is, IIRC, later than LotR and may not be reflected in the
> 'reality' of LotR, but the explanation offered there, of the 'spirits
> from afar' who would dwell in the olvar, to me implies an Ainurin
> origin of the spirits of the (original) Ents.

To me, the whole connected history of the Ents and of the Dwarves seems
to imply pretty strongly that the "spirits" within them are more or less
comparable. Just as Eru sent spirits to give the Dwarves independent
existence and free will, he did the same for the Ents (and perhaps
Eagles). And I'm not remotely willing to concede Ainu-Dwarves. (I'm
pretty hesitant to accept breeding Ainur in any context in post-LotR
forms of the mythology, unless a bona fide Child of Iluvatar was in on
the act.) I see both the Dwarves and the Ents as "Adopted Children of
Iluvatar"; that seems like a perfectly acceptable sort of "spirit from
afar" to me.

> For one thing, these spirits apparently (at least that's how I
> understand it) took up residence in existing trees, wakening them. So
> they couldn't have had the same level of integration from the start
> that did the Incarnates. On the other hand the naturally tough
> 'body' of trees was clearly made stronger and more resistant for an
> Ent.

I'm not so sure of that "in existing trees" bit, or at least, I'm not
sure that those particular trees weren't special from the start.
(Yavanna seemed to discover that the Ents had been in the Music all
along, which could easily imply that their bodies were "sleeping" until
it was time for their souls to awake.)

Steuard Jensen
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

In message <news:OJVij.25557$UX2.5329@trnddc08>
Steuard Jensen <steuard RemoveThis @slimy.com> spoke these staves:
>
> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>>

<snip>

[The spiritual relation of the Istari to Men and Elves]

>> but surely their spirits were closer to the fëar of Elves than
>> the fëar of Men (also their 'magical' powers seems closer in
>> nature to Elvish magic than to the few examples we have of
>> Mannish magic).
>
> I suspect substantially different from either Elves or Men,
> actually

Obviously.

The spirits of the Maiar, even lesser ones (which I don't think the
Istari were), were fundamentally different from the souls of Elves
and Men, which, though different, were each closer to each other than
to the Maiar.

I'm not sure whether the spirits of the Istari were in any way
changed from their Maiarin nature in the process of becoming
incarnated, but in any case I would still say that the Maiarin
spirits were closer to the Elven souls than the Mannish souls in very
many ways (though that difference might be small compared to the
overall difference between Ainur and Eruhíni).

> (though to us simple humans all such other beings would surely
> appear equally foreign).

I'm not entirely sure about that, actually. The Elves are used to
reflect and distill certain very human qualities which makes them
immediately familiar despite their different nature. The Maiar,
however, while also reflecting human qualities, are also reflecting
certain divine aspects, they take on some of the qualities that are,
in the Bible, ascribed to God, and that introduces an element of the
unknown. In many ways they serve, like the gods of the old
mythologies, to project and amplify human qualities, but in Tolkien's
writings this is mixed with divine qualities that brings a distance
that we do not experience with the Elves.

> For one thing, I don't really envision Elvish magic being the sort
> of thing that would (in general) be used to launch burning pine
> cones or even to seal a door.

Sealing doors, surely -- say 'mellon' and enter! Though an example of
Elvish and Dwarvish magic combined, you have only to look at the
song-contest between Felagund and Sauron or Lúthien's exploits to see
the connection. And I wouldn't be so sure about pine-cones either --
incendiary bombs from Fëanor or his sons wouldn't have surprised me
one bit.

> The Elves specialized in Art and Enchantment, in visions and the
> deep fabric of their world.

And in enchanting everyday items, in creating fabulous things such as
the Silmarilli or the Palantíri, and even in active magic to deceive,
or put to sleep, to see what is hidden etc. etc.

Any of the distinctions Tolkien tried to set up ultimately fails even
without resorting to Fëanor or the Mírdain. While their inclinations
certainly favoured Art, then there was nothing in their spiritual
nature that prevented them from using magic for the Machine. In
letter #155, Tolkien said,

Their /magia/ the Elves and Gandalf use (sparingly): a
/magia/, producing real results (like fire in a wet
faggot) for specific beneficent purposes. Their goetic
effects are entirely artistic and not intended to deceive:
they never deceive Elves (but may deceive or bewilder
unaware Men) since the difference is to them as clear as
the difference to us between fiction, painting, and
sculpture, and 'life'.
[Letters #155, to Naomi Mitchison (draft), 1954]

Here Gandalf's and the Elves' use of /magia/ is treated as equivalent
(I think the same is the case with the goetic effects, since I
believe that the 'their' of the second sentence would normally refer
to the subject of the former sentence, 'the Elves and Gandalf').

> Humans, in rare circumstances, could enchant a knife (anything
> else?).

The Mouth of Sauron, as usual, and the Drúedain, I guess (though
theirs seems to have been more restricted -- to do with stones and
animating stones, but not generally usable for whatever they wanted).

> The Istari seem to have been much more adept at /active/ magic,
> despite the major limitations on their innate abilities as Maiar.

One might wonder, of course, if Círdan, while he wore Narya, would
have been able to do the same feats with fire that Gandalf did?

I won't claim that it is all due to Narya -- certainly there are
differences between Istari and Elves -- but it isn't as clear-cut as
that.

Saruman's use of magic becomes twisted and evil -- it approaches
Sauron's use of magic, which is supposedly also the case with the
'great sorcery' the Mouth of Sauron had learned in the service of the
Dark Tower.


But all that is, I think, while extremely interesting, secondary to
the original point about the spirits of the Istari and their relative
removal from Elves and Men respectively *


[Ents]

>> Ents are also quite well protected against the mischances of the
>> world:
[snipped quotation from 'Flotsam and Jetsam']
>
> Yes, certainly, but that's because they're /trees/. They can
> still be readily burned to death, for example, and I never get the
> impression that they're /that/ much more resistant to injury than
> an ordinary tree.

How much is '/that much more'

Their skin is tougher than bark, that much is explicitly stated, and
'It takes a very heavy axe-stroke to wound them seriously.' That,
too, is definitely different than for ordinary trees. How much more
that is, I cannot tell, and I will agree that there doesn't appear to
be any evidence that they are better at surviving once they do get
seriously wounded -- only that they are better at avoiding the
serious wounds.

I don't know if the biology of Ents has ever been discussed at length
-- despite (or perhaps precisely because of) the almost complete lack
of evidence it might be fun

> To me, the whole connected history of the Ents and of the Dwarves
> seems to imply pretty strongly that the "spirits" within them are
> more or less comparable.

I can't agree to that. The Dwarves are, IMO, incarnates just like the
Elves and the Men, while the spirits that came to dwell in the trees
came from outside, 'from afar'. The spirits animating the (original?)
Ents existed prior to their inabitation and thus they are naturally
discarnate.

Don't forget that the two parts of the QS chapter belong to different
source texts, and while the story of Yavanna's plea is tied to Aulë's
creation of the Dwarves, the animation of the Ents are more tightly
tied to the Eagles (through Tolkien titling this part of the text 'Of
the Ents and the Eagles') for which Tolkien explicitly considered a
Maiarin origin (in 'Myths Transformed').

> And I'm not remotely willing to concede Ainu-Dwarves.

No, most certainly not.

> (I'm pretty hesitant to accept breeding Ainur in any context in
> post-LotR forms of the mythology, unless a bona fide Child of
> Iluvatar was in on the act.)

I'd much rather accept breeding Ainur (Ents, Eagles, Orcs or
whereever Tolkien at various times considered that possibility post-
LotR) than postulating additional kinds of spirits. In my 'world-
view' the only spirits are the Ainur, and souls are created with and
for a particular body (or house), and a soul (or /fëa/) cannot exist
prior to the body it is to inhabit, though it is not destroyed when
its body is destroyed. In that picture the spirits from afar that
come to dwell in the trees must necessarily be Ainur, even if their
offspring may be animated by souls (on the other hand, is there any
evidence that there ever were any Entings?)

Tolkien certainly considered the idea of breeding Ainur when he
discussed the nature of Orcs (in the 'Myths Transformed' texts, and
of course it was, prior to LotR, an integral part of the story.

> I see both the Dwarves and the Ents as "Adopted Children of
> Iluvatar"; that seems like a perfectly acceptable sort of
> "spirit from afar" to me.

I'm afraid that I can't accept the idea of /fëar/ being described as
'spirits from afar'. For one thing Tolkien usually made a conscious
distinction between spirits and souls -- the latter being inherently
incarnate and the former being inherently discarnate, though both
could later change state, so that spirits became embodied and souls
became 'unhoused'. This is, IMO, a fundamental difference that makes
it impossible for 'spirits from afar' to refer to the /fëar/ of the
Children (whether adopted or original).

There is, of course, the odd usage in letter #247 from 1963 (in a not
very legible pencilled not at the top of the draft letter)

No one knew whence they (Ents) came or first appeared.
The High Elves said that the Valar did not mention them
in the 'Music'. But some (Galadriel) were [of the]
opinion that when Yavanna discovered the mercy of Eru to
Aulë in the matter of the Dwarves, she besought Eru
(through Manwë) asking him to give life to things made of
living things not stone, and that the Ents were either
souls sent to inhabit trees, or else that slowly took the
likeness of trees owing to their inborn love of trees.

Even if taken at face value (CJRT calls it 'a very rough note' in
WotJ, and the use of 'soul' isn't necessarily considered or
deliberate in this context), this note, however, also suggests a
process that is different than the usual situation for the /fëar/ of
Elves, Men and Dwarves, which are always co-eval (in both time and
space) with the body they inhabit.

> I'm not so sure of that "in existing trees" bit, or at least, I'm
> not sure that those particular trees weren't special from the
> start.

That could very well be. That might actually also account for their
greater resistance to violence -- their tougher bark, so to speak.

> (Yavanna seemed to discover that the Ents had been in the
> Music all along,

Discover or perhaps even 'rediscover' or 'recall'

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

The "paradox" is only a conflict between reality and your
feeling of what reality "ought to be".
- Richard Feynman
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

In message <news:VJTij.200719$S37.174792@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk>
"Christopher Kreuzer" <spamgard.RemoveThis@blueyonder.co.uk> spoke these
staves:
>
> "Troels Forchhammer" <Troels.RemoveThis@ThisIsFake.invalid> wrote:
>> Steuard Jensen <steuard.RemoveThis@slimy.com> spoke these staves:
>>>
>>> But on the other hand, in most ways (except mortality) it seems
>>> that the Istari were more like Men than Elves.
>>
>> The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
>> That flesh is heir to
>>
>>
>
> You like Shakespeare? Do you think it is possible to do a thread
> comparing Tolkien and Shakespeare? It could cover both their
> literary status and popular appeal?

That'll teach me to keep my tongue

I'm afraid that getting more acquainted with Shakespeare is one of
things I keep postponing, though I'd really like to do it.

I have a very superficial knowledge of some of his more well-known
plays, and of course my national pride bids me know more about the
original legend behind Hamlet than about the play itself, though I
know that one better than any of his other texts (I mean, it's a
matter of national duty to know whom to blame for the 'there's
something rotten in the state of Denmark' <GG>), so I think this
would be one of the few passages that could actually have come to
mind for me (I was just fortunate that it fitted the context).

Actually they play it every summer in situ in the castle in Elsinore
-- usually with some quite good groups (and usually in English too),
and I've thought about going some time (before we had our kids, we
couldn't afford it, and it's only now that we can really indulge
ourselves in good conscience <G>).

All this just to say that I can't really answer your questions (that
is, I'm sure such a thread is possible, and I'd be very interested in
reading it, though I probably couldn't contribute very much).

> I haven't read that essay for a long time. Does it explain the way
> some Elves had such 'fiery' fëa that their bodies were consumed
> from within? Such as Fëanor for example

I think Fëanor is unique in this.

> (hey, I've just noticed the fëa- element in Fëanor's name!)?

Fëa-anaro = spirit of fire

Whatever else we may say about Míriel, she did see her son clearly.

>> The explanation of the Ents implied in Silm QS,2 'Of Aulë and
>> Yavanna' is, IIRC, later than LotR and may not be reflected in
>> the 'reality' of LotR, but the explanation offered there, of the
>> 'spirits from afar' who would dwell in the olvar, to me implies
>> an Ainurin origin of the spirits of the (original) Ents.
>
> But what happens to the spirit when an Ent dies? Did Tolkien ever
> address this question.

I don't recall ever seeing such a description -- or seeing a
reference to it -- for neither Ents nor Eagles (or Huan).

Personally I do believe that they are Ainurin in origin (or,
recalling the discussion elsewhere on evidence and strength of
belief, I think the total evidence favours that explanation), in
which case we might get a situation where the spirit probably be too
weak to re-embody itself, in which case it might stay in Middle-earth
as an impotent spirit of nature or start out for Valinor and I-know-
not-which fate that might await them there.

> And it seems that burning works quite well against an Ent. Can Ents
> drown, I wonder?

I think that the fires we hear about would have caused anything
living to burn immediately, including Saruman had they been able to
catch him in one of the blasts.

As I've said already in reply to Steuard, however, it seems that the
Ents had a somewhat greater than ordinary (for trees) protection
against violence, but we don't have any evidence that they'd
actually, like the Elves could, be able to survive very serious
bodily harm -- only that they were good at preventing such harm. So
there might be a significant difference between Ents and Elves in the
ability to recover from violence.

> I also got the impression that Ents were not trees exactly, though
> they could become tree-ish. And trees could become Ent-ish.

In part this fits well enough with the idea of naturally discarnate
spirits inhabiting trees, perhaps changing them slightly in the
process, and perhaps later to leave them again.

What confuses such a simple picture is the gradual nature of the
process -- this isn't a matter of the spirit taking up residence and
the, from one moment to the next, you have an Ent.

Of course one can come up with explanations for all this -- it might
take some time for the spirit to get control over the tree and change
it enough for the inhabitation to work smoothly, and in the reverse,
the spirit may become less and less interested in directing the tree,
leaving more and more of the governing of the body to the original
tree-mechanisms. But such explanations are definitely post-hoc
attempts to justify other ideas, and as such can never reach further
than 'this works for me'. as you also note,

> Quite how this works is, quite rightly, left to the reader's
> imagination,

Exactly

It might also be one of these things, like the nature of Tom
Bombadil, that are better left alone. As Christopher Tolkien notes
in his foreword to /The Silmarillion/, a complete consistency is not
to be looked for.

> though Treebeard has a fair bit to say,

Without actually saying anything about it.

Though of course Treebeard isn't speaking Old Entish to the Hobbits,
so one might forgive him for occasionally slipping in something that
would quite be worth saying in Old Entish ;-D

> including the bit about Elves starting it all:

Which may, but only with some ingenuity, be reconciled with the
account in 'Of the Ents and the Eagles' (essentially the last half of
the 'Of Aulë and Yavanna' in the published Silm).

> I think that you have to consider the Huorns as well. What are
> they in relation to the Ents? Are they inhabited by spirits as
> well? Let's try out a few quotes to see what we know from LotR:

Before I attempt to give an opinion regarding Huorns and other stuff,
I need to ask a more fundamental (but ultimately related) question
about whether they are Free-willed? This concerns both Ents and
Huorns -- do they attach moral responsibility? are they described as
praiseworthy or blameworthy?

My gut reaction is that the Ents are Free-willed, but that the Huorns
possibly aren't, and as such the Huorns may be without spirits or
souls. But I don't know, really.

> Treebeard on Ents: "The trees and the Ents [...] I do not
> understand all that goes on myself, so I cannot explain it to you.

After which he goes on to do just that -- not explain it

The key complexity, as I see it, is the speed of the process: it is
so slow that it cannot in any reasonable way be seen merely as
'spirit enter, spirit leave' -- there is necessarily more to it than
that.

<snip>

> Maybe the Istari bodies were more like those of dwarves?

At least we do know that they came in the shape of Men -- 'clad in
bodies of as of Men, real and not feigned' as it is described in UT.

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

"It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent
whatsoever," he said. "Have you thought of going into
teaching?"
- /Mort/ (Terry Pratchett)
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls.