So does Sauron giving power to the ringwraiths count as divine magic?
What about Sauron, Gandalf, Durin's Bane, Manwë, etc. using their inborn divine powers? Or Galadriel, or dwarven craftsmen, or even Aragorn's healing touch as a true king? Everything everyone does, despite their free will, is ultimately part of Eru's divine providence, and everyone is at least somewhat supernatural; is that divine magic?
Does Eru answering the Valar prayers (the one time he ever seems to have done so) by sundering the flat earth count as a "divine magic prayer", or is it "that's not magic, it's a miracle", or…?
Does it matter that there are no priests and no organized religion (except for the Melkor worship when Sauron had corrupted the Numenorians), and what rituals there are (e.g., Boromir's funeral) aren't expected to (and don't) provide any magical effects?
PaperMaster
Archived TRS topics:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1346100020099025400&page=1
The article misrepresents Christianity when it says "tell a Christian in the US Southeast that people can't resurrect themselves or magically duplicate food and they will look shocked and probably never speak to you again." No one believes Jesus "resurrected Himself", or that the feeding of 5,000+ was "magical": they were miracles, not magic. Miracles have an important distinction in that they are products of divine intervention - they came from God rather than from any source in the observable universe, as "magic" would indicate. It also seems to be a pot shot at Christianity by drawing a distinction between the reasonable Buddhist and the stereotypical Christian of the deep South. There has to be a better way to phrase this.
Hide / Show Replies
...I fail to see the difference between divine miracles and magic. See Deus ex Machina, A Wizard Did It, the fact that Magic A Is Magic A is a trope (one often averted/subverted, at that) and not a given constant, and that trope (can't remember the exact name...Divine Magic, or something?) that's all about magic coming from the gods/deities of the setting.
Oh, and there is also no distinction between magic "coming from God and magic coming from a force in the observable universe". If it comes from a god of any kind, then it comes from a force in the observable universe. If it is not part of the observable universe, then it does not really exist, no matter what your setting. Something being inherently unobservable by anyone/anything has a very hard time creating observable effects, especially on the "random, highly specific miracle in a tiny spot on a planet out of hundreds of trillions spread out over uncountable lightyears".
Edited by SaltyWaffles
I'm having a heard time figuring out what exactly this trope is describing: a.) Religions which give people magic powers, b.) An outsider's conception that a specific religion is using magic (ie. trying to manipulate the elements of the universe through supernatural media) whether it does anything or not, or c.) Something different altogether.
I would suggest if it is (a) removing all examples that don't feature observed supernatural powers, while if it is (b) removing examples that do. Or possibly splitting the trope in two (if there is not one suitable for those examples to be moved to).
Hide / Show Replies
I believe the trope is referring to powers that being an upper member of a religion is supposed to or once believed to give, when refering to real life examples, and when dealing with fiction what powers it actually does give. For example, in the Dragon Quest games preists have healing powers. This isn't a rumour or a superstition, it is a fact of these games. Real life priests are supposedly able to excorcise spirits. This isn't considered fact, just a "magical" attribute assigned to them. The trope applies differently to real life than it does to fiction, so confusion is understandable.
Edited by AwesomeFerret
Do we really need a separate folder for MMO's? To make it more unnecessary, Runescape is in both MMO and VG folders talking about the same thing.
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report