I’ve written about magic and its function before, most notably in my Merely Magical and Mix and Match Magic articles. I’m a scientific fellow by nature, but magic is so useful for fiction that I’d be remiss in ignoring it. Beside that, it’s fun to think of the intersection between magic and science. Cue Arthur C. Clarke’s quote:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
So lately, I’ve been wondering… how do magic spells with conditions work?
I work with computers all day long, as an artist, true, but I understand a little bit of programming. There are programs that are constantly looking for input that is then acted on. The computer has to constantly run routines that ask “is anything happening now?” and “how about now?” or “maybe now?”… it’s always paying attention, ready to spring into action. This takes processing power.
How about magic?
I’ve been watching the Pirates of the Caribbean movies again lately, so I’ll use those as an example (here there be spoilers!). In the first one, the Aztec curse is lifted when the gold is returned and the blood debt repaid. Is there an ancient Aztec spirit checking DNA? Maybe it’s just checking with its fellow spirits in a vast Aztec post-mortal spy network. They are always watching, dun dun dun… The gold would be a bit easier to explain as it’s a simple count… but how to know if they are the right coins? Again… Aztec ghost spy network, or maybe just a ghostly assayer working with the DNA specialist.
What about the whole Davy Jones myth (in the movies)? He was cursed because he wasn’t faithful to his ladyfriend… but how did she know? Maybe that one is easy to explain with a bit of mindreading and/or scuttlebutt, but what of the apocryphal Will Turner variant? According to what I’ve read online (yes, I was curious, hush), Will isn’t stuck on the Flying Dutchman at the end of the third movie because Elizabeth was faithful to him, and he to her. Who checks on these things? Who or what is watching, and how does one get privacy in such a world?
Perhaps magic itself has a level of sentience? At least enough to run simple “pass/fail” monitoring checks at a low level all the time? If so, how much does magic think? How smart is it? Can it be fooled? How much power does it take to run these checks? Are there limits to its perception, whether temporal, spatial or something else? Can it be blinded or deafened?
And what if the rules change? Is magic capricious? In The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, why could Balthazar and Dave drive through their own reflection to escape a magical mirror trap, but Horvath needed external help to escape the same sort of trap? Does one need a certain velocity to just blow out of the trap (shades of Back to the Future, where the tech may as well be magic), or some other quirky condition?
The Looking for Group webcomic is one I’ve wondered about lately in that regard as well. The first minor arc in that comic has our central hero incinerated (into ashes!) and then revived by a local priestess, whole and healthy. Later, that same priestess can’t revive her adopted father, merely because he had suffered some sword slashes to vital arteries. Similarly, she couldn’t fix her uncle’s lost arm (though an artificer managed to make a perfectly functional magical metal one). Did she lose power? Are ashes easier to revive than a whole corpse (albeit minus some blood)? Did magic’s function change? Is this just the Power of Plot changing the rules in the name of Pointless Drama?
I know, this is overthinking things, but I believe there’s merit in having consistent rules that magic function by. That sort of logical underpinning can make a world more interesting. It need not be boiled down to a quantifiable science (though that might be interesting), but a bit of logic and consistency can go a long way in selling something as fantastic as magic, something that inherently goes against our intuition. Even if the end player/reader/viewer doesn’t get these rules explained explicitly, just the fact that they are there and that the creators use them is a boon to the presentation.
On the other hand, capricious, chaotic, unpredictable magic has its place, too. I just think that authors, game designers and worldbuilders should put a bit of thought into how and why magic does what it does instead of just making random stuff up and changing the rules as they go. Maybe that’s a level of Batman-crazy preparation that we typically only see in someone like Tolkien and his linguistic and historic backgrounds of Middle Earth… but I think it’s worth it. It seems to me that having that sort of underlying superstructure makes a magical world cleaner and more interesting, if only because it’s easier to be immersed (you’re not always asking “wait, what?” as you play along) and easier to expand (known rulesets are easier to follow, or break as occasion demands).
If nothing else, looking at how things work can provide story hooks and opportunities to delve into a fictional world and issue exposition in new and interesting ways. It’s a good thing to have readers/players/viewers wondering “how” and “why” if the answers exist and help build up the world… and it’s a bad thing if those questions just lead to plot holes and lazy craftsmanship.
I’m the same way. I want to be able to know why a system of magic works the way it does, even if it’s a cursory explanation. I love Brandon Sanderson for that–he has hard rules to his magic in Misborn and Elantris. The worlds feel alive for it, too.
In my series, I base my magic off of nanotechnology either worn on the skin like a body suit or contained in the body as a replacement for blood. This gives me a way to limit the scope of the magic in the world and put, however thin, limits on what it can do. (Think if the Force had a baby with a Green Lantern ring.) I have the machines respond to emotional state more than thought so there is a level of chaos in the system. I have it set up where they can be self-replicating as long as they’re still able to find fuel and maintain an electrical bond with the others in the swarm.
It may not be original or perfect, but it really saves me from having moments of God-like power from a novice (or even a master Technomage), barring exceptional circumstances.
I still haven’t read the Mistborn books, but I’ve heard a bit about his glyph system (a couple of my friends/coworkers do art for Sanderson), and it really did sound like a smart system. I should read those.
I like your approach too. *wanders off to read more of Beej’s writing*
I need to read more of Beej’s writing too. Definitely check out Sanderson if you get some free time. The Mistborn series is an interesting read, even if the second book suffers from some pacing issues.
Awesome post Tesh. Now I’m thinking about all kinds of magic systems and questioning them.
Well, magic is a tricky thing. To my mind, “magic” is basically that which can’t be described by science. If magic is perfectly consistent to the point where you can run repeatable experiments with predictable results, then that becomes a branch of science rather than magic.
Looking at history rather than fantasy novels, humanity tended to come up with “magic” explanations for things we didn’t understand. The shaman might have noticed things related to a low pressure system moving in and thus said “the omens favor rain”. The shaman might not have understood atmospheric pressure, but he or she noticed enough to spot some “magical omens”. As we developed the scientific tools and techniques, we discovered atmospheric pressures and noticed how that affected weather. It’s basically the same observations on different scales, one is more thoroughly measured and verified by the scientific method, and the other is eyeballed and based on things like non-repeatable observations, folklore, rules of thumb, etc.
In fantasy worlds I like magic to be consistent, but not too consistent. There’s a fine line between magic doing crazy things and “The Power of PLOT” interfering just to help the story along for whatever reason. To take a common computer RPG trope, it’s like when you have common resurrection spells and items, but then some important NPC is “killed” and somehow can’t be resurrected with those spells or items. On the other hand, sometimes these strange exceptions can add spice to a story; in George RR Martin’s books, (mild spoiler) I thought the one character seemingly coming back from the dead was a fascinating twist I really wanted to know more about, despite that not seemingly common at all. It’s usually one of those “I know it when I see it” things, though. It’s a fine line to dance, though.
My thoughts.
There’s a fantasy book where everything is based on the relationship between watcher and watched. Some sorcerers build magic gate ways out of automata – souls embeded simply so as to watch and thus hold the construct together. Link.
That LFG inconsistancy is pretty jarring. If they said only certain people are easy to res because they have a special sort of spirit or summit (and the hero’s, predictably enough, are those certain people), it’d be easy to deal with.
On Batman, I think they had fun with that awhile ago in a comic where he actually says it’d be crazy for someone to train themselves to have extra blood cells so they could hold their breath a long time (after swimming up from deep under the sea (exploding underwater base). In the same comic he fought a killer whale – I think they were even touching on the whole shark repellent thing, but, like, it’s a whale, not a shark!
Tesh, I think you have too much time on your hands
*chuckle* I don’t know about that, but I do have a mind that doesn’t stop asking questions.
On the other hand… Midi-chlorians.
I saw a TV show not too long ago (late last year, can’t think of the name) where the “bad guys of week” (parkour/free runners) drew their own blood and stored it then gave themselves a transfusion right before pulling a job. The extra red blood cells were supposed to allow them to free run for longer-than-normal periods of time thus escaping their pursuers. Simple medical science when you know what they’re doing; almost supernatural powers if you don’t.
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