mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is going to get real abstract, real fast, and if that's not your thing, then this isn't the thread for you.
I have spent the past few weeks reading over everything I can, about the nature of the fantastic - of its intersection with fantasy writing, of what we commonly refer to as magic- and of 'magic systems'. I have a lot of thoughts about these, and I've tortured @EricD, @100thlurker, @aeqnai and too many others for me to reasonably tag, in beating those into shape over the past few weeks. I was going to wait to post this thread but since my free time for the immediate future consists of 'study, and more study' I don't really have the time to prepare things, and since the Exalted thread is getting onto this track I figure I might as well jump the gun a little bit and begin this discussion and post what I have later, and begin with a prompt for SV, since if there's one thing I cannot deny this site has, it's an interest and willingness to discuss this topic at length.
Let me state that in all the reading I have done on this topic--and it is a lot--not once have I seen people actually define this term. Nobody explains what 'magic' is; and nobody explains what they mean by, ultimately, 'magic' system.
So, with this in mind - I toss you two questions, and they're not easy ones.
What is a magic system?
And just what is magical about it; why should it be called as such?
I have spent the past few weeks reading over everything I can, about the nature of the fantastic - of its intersection with fantasy writing, of what we commonly refer to as magic- and of 'magic systems'. I have a lot of thoughts about these, and I've tortured @EricD, @100thlurker, @aeqnai and too many others for me to reasonably tag, in beating those into shape over the past few weeks. I was going to wait to post this thread but since my free time for the immediate future consists of 'study, and more study' I don't really have the time to prepare things, and since the Exalted thread is getting onto this track I figure I might as well jump the gun a little bit and begin this discussion and post what I have later, and begin with a prompt for SV, since if there's one thing I cannot deny this site has, it's an interest and willingness to discuss this topic at length.
Let me state that in all the reading I have done on this topic--and it is a lot--not once have I seen people actually define this term. Nobody explains what 'magic' is; and nobody explains what they mean by, ultimately, 'magic' system.
So, with this in mind - I toss you two questions, and they're not easy ones.
What is a magic system?
And just what is magical about it; why should it be called as such?