OOTS #1215 - The Discussion Thread

[bunsen_h]

There's also using the Palantir, and there's also summoning and army of the dead, then dismissing it once done. He wasn't necessarily a magical practitioner, but he had a certain magic about him because he's King.

Likewise, while Aragorn uses Athelas, his healing abilities are a callback to Royal touch , the belief that kings had the special, miraculous ability to heal. And if you read closely in "The houses of healing", he doesn't just use herbs. He calls both Faramir and Eowyn back, and they come to him because he's the king. Faramir says as much.

Grey Watcher was asking for examples of Aragorn unambiguously working magic, not merely using a magic item, being a master herbalist, or Being King. The stuff about calling Eowyn and Faramir back could be, basically, a placebo effect. But his chanting over the Nazgûl's dagger hilt was either a pointless ritual at a crucial time -- highly unlikely -- or some kind of magic working.

EDIT: The stuff about the army of the dead was clearly magical. But was it Aragorn working magic? Was it a property of the ghosts, that a non-magical king could invoke? Or a use of the "artifact", the Stone of Erech?