Sure, maybe unlocking a door isn't the best example. What about hacking someone's cyber-implants to take control of their actions? What about optical camouflage (the kind where you just flat out disappear from sight)? And so on, and so forth?
Magic systems - What Are They And What The Fuck Do Those Words Mean
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FlatlineAskari
*feline scrutiny*
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Hmm. Is it fair to say that the 'magic' can lie in any combination of the cause, the mechanism, and the effect?
Yes, and no, because I contend that a "magic system" is literally anything that fits inside that black box of "I need X effect to tell my story". The specifics don't matter.
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The problem about the metanarrative, high abstract approach of "magic is the plot device" is that while it's ultimately true, it also shuts down discussion of the specifics. Yes, "hacking" as it is depicted in many modern thrillers is essentially a form of magic, and so is technobabble. However, that doesn't very much help us discuss how to design and use magic in individual stories; in fact I would argue such a high-minded stance is fundamentally antithetical with getting down to discussing the comparative merits of Sandersonian codified magic to Tolkienesque more epic, metaphorical magic to whatever the fuck is up in Harry Potter.
So at some point I think you have to decide what kind of discussion you want to have.
So at some point I think you have to decide what kind of discussion you want to have.
Revlid
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Uh, no. This is nonsense, largely drawn from post-Enlightenment retrospective, with a dollop of bullshit from the kind of people who spell "magic" with a K.
Sure, some systems of understanding the universe cited its sapient, sentient, or otherwise responsive nature, or established that certain aspects of it behaved in this way. If the cosmos was not sapient, then the North Wind might be, and if it was not, perhaps there was a spirit you could have manipulate it for you. A lot of prayers worked in this way, more or less – gods might respond favourably to your entreaties and sacrifices. Other systems, however, had no such principles in place, or did not base their expectations on them, or treated their magic entirely differently.
John Dee conflated mathematical formulae with "magic" in his pursuit of angelic insight. The ancient Chinese Daoists performed all manner of alchemical experiments that we today deem "magic", a tradition that continued up to Sir Isaac Newton. The astrological principles on which the Aztecs built their most famous cities were a matter of precise and careful analysis of the stars and our existence between them.
This wasn't some feel-good community exercise, or a matter of blind faith – it was a process that, if properly followed, would produce the results you wanted, because that was the way the laws of the world worked. If it didn't work, it was because you'd done it wrong, so you needed to record your results and try something different the next time. Insofar as this wasn't science, it was just bad science, involving a lot of traditional assumptions and poor experimental methodology.
The strict divide between "science" and "magic" as "supernatural" and "natural" is largely rooted in the Enlightenment, as others have said. It's not a coincidence that the divide between matters of "faith" and matters of "reason" comes only a little earlier, relatively speaking, and from the same basic region of the world, with the Catholic Church. Not long ago, thinkers across Greece and Rome had applied hard logic and rigorous thought to the metaphysics of the Bible, but unreason and proud ignorance turned out to be excellent foundations on which to build unquestioned authority in the Vatican.
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Aaron Peori
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Actually it helps immensely because the kind of story you are telling will dictate the kind of magic you are using.
First there is genre to consider. Genre is really nothing more than a set of aesthetic elements, but those aesthetics are incredibly important. By understanding the aesthetics of your genre and how they work you can greatly narrow down the type of 'magic' your setting will have. A 'generic high fantasy' will have magic which looks, well, like generic high fantasy magic. Urban fantasy will have different forms of magic, a more hidden and rare magic than you would get in high fantasy. Hard sci-fi will have a very vigorous and defined 'magic' while space opera may have wonky psychic powers and physics defying technology as par for the course.
Second, there is your plot to consider. If your plot requires a 'magic' to push it along then you will make your magic able to do that thing. If it need to not be able to do a thing to avoid derailing the story, then the magic will not be able to do that thing. This is how you can get pretty detailed magic system because these will often be in contradiction. "I need magic to allow the heroes to locate the MacGuffin in this chapter but not be able to locate it in this chapter. I better come up with a system that allows its use in situation X but not Y, For Reasons."
Best of all, you only have to develop enough of your magic to tell your story. If your story requires only a very few magical effects you can get away with a lot looser use of magic. If your magic, and the interactions of its rules, are going to be a significant part of your story you're going to need a more complex and detailed magical system. If your story is about children having exciting adventures than magic is going to be the kind of thing that allows and encourages exciting adventures.
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This is the second time you've said this and I find myself confused. Do you not know what genre is, or are you just using a very broad definition of "aesthetics" that also encompasses themes and abstract concepts?
Golden Lark
The First Fiction User
I was explicitly using them as examples of 'magic' without 'system.' They hit hard on the 'wonder' note, but become much less entertaining for me as an adult than they were as when I was young. You cite backstory justification for Gandalf's behavior: congratulations, you made my argument for me. The Silmarillion and other background books for Middle earth serve to turn Gandlaf's mysterious magic into the known capabilities of the Maiar. It defines his limits and the costs of actually invoking his power. That background material systematizes him, however vaguely. It's not much, but it helps put him in perspective, and answers something that had always bugged me about him since I was a kid.
Likewise the Star Wars expanded universe materials delineate what usually can and can't be done with the Force, and the prequel films even give a hard metric for raw force potential detection (which really shouldn't have been too shocking, as the original trilogy more or less showed us that Force potential was genetic already).
My main point was that, in their original works, neither of those examples were systematized. The characters in question were mysteries to the reader, walking plot devices that had an unknown amount of potential to affect the world that the viewer/reader had no frame of reference for. As I get older, such literary devices bore me, as I have zero ground on which to try to anticipate, predict, or otherwise match the author's line of thought. I'm not saying that they are bad, as they can be used well in general, but I mostly only see them done well in youth literature. Gandalf is a rare example of a character everyone in-story considers mighty that never actually flexes that might in an obvious way; he is a legendary example of a non-systematic magic character done well. Most non-systematic magic characters aren't Gandalf.
I think most people in this thread are arguing past each other because half of us are talking in watsonian terms and half of us are talking in doylist. Many people are arguing one perspective past the other, which is non-applicable.
Systematizing magic (as a literary device) allows for a static increase to one's suspension of disbelief.
Revlid
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I never thought I'd see someone argue that the expanded universe and the prequels improved The Force as a setting idea and narrative conceit, but...
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I'm not sure entirely what you mean?
Let me give you a couple of examples. Star Trek is definitely 'science fiction' by this measure: while Star Trek does a bad job of integrating its new technology with the existing physical order, there's no doubt that it's supposed to do so. All of that technobabble is supposed to exist with, as an extension of, physics.
Harry Potter, on the other hand, is definitely magic. You can do scientific experiments on magic (i.e., reproduction, what have you) but there's absolutely no doubt in-universe, it seems to me, that magic conflicts with physics, sometimes to the point where the former actually displaces the latter (such as apparently how technology seems to work only some of the time around Hogwarts).
Now, let me give you another example from a series I personally really love. It's called The Warlock In Spite of Himself, by Christopher Stasheff, and it does an amazing job of mixing and melding magic and physics and exploring the distinction between themselves. In this series, something that was originally described as magic is slowly exposed as a set of physical principles that interact with the world in a way the main character does not expect but that he comes to understand.
Golden Lark
The First Fiction User
I don't think I used any superlatives up there, though . . .I never thought I'd see someone argue that the expanded universe and the prequels improved The Force as a setting idea and narrative conceit, but...
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I would say that magic is defined by not existing in reality. Specifically an atheist view that the universe is pretty much mechanical. Magic is the set of metaphysical alterations made when creating a fictional universe different from the real universe. Magic includes both alternate laws of physics and alternate biology. E.g. a magical universe might have physics such that all planets want to be cube-shaped rather than spherical, and might have life forms which do not have DNA and reproduce using some alternate biomagical method. The magical system is simply the alternate laws of physics &etc that operate in the setting, keeping magic usage consistent from on part of the story or game to another and allowing the audience to anticipate how magic can be used within the story. This magical system is mainly meta to the setting, it's for writers/GMs/DMs/QMs/players/readers/whatever. Within the setting they may have some "rules of magic" taught in schools or through religion, but these are optional and don't even have to be correct when compared to the real magic system.
I know you were using them as examples: my point was your examples weren't supporting your argument. Similarly, while I mention the Silmarillion I'm not making your argument for you, despite your blatant lie: I said that the Silmilarion's explanation is only really relevant if you go into the Silmilarion and find out the true extent of his power(which then reveals the limitations on that full extent). Otherwise, he doesn't really show that much power. Hell, even what power he does show doesn't really act as a problem solver, not in the sense that it makes you wonder why he doesn't do it more often. In the Hobbit his biggest display is a flash of light that shocks and drives away the goblins, though surprise as much as anything else. Lord of the Rings has more instances of magic, but most of those don't solve major issues, or only do so incidentally. If you assume no limits unless otherwise stated then yes it's silly that he doesn't use his phenomenal cosmic power, but why assume that?
Same generally applies to Star Wars: Obi Wan introduces the mind trick and talking to Luke after death, but why assume he has significantly greater direct powers? Especially since like Gandalf most uses of force powers aren't during critical scene to get them out of trouble.
Basically, your argument is that the moment magic is brought up, unless limitations are clearly stated then there are no limits that anyone can ever infer. I think that's ridiculous. You can infer things by the actions taken or not taken. Not everything needs to be spelled out in a powerpoint.
That there are settings in which magic or science is sufficiently advanced that either the science is coming into exploring principles that works parallel to physics or the magic is explained as further extension of science.
There are also settings in which seems like fantasical settings with magic but then revealed was actually a sci-fi universe and all the magic was just sci-fi technobabble which works by extension of real world physics instead of some separate principles.
But this is a pretty... well, it's a pointless dichotomy, really. No offense.
Historically, "magic" was considered a science -- it was thought to have its own distinct set of rules, and scholars explored it, experimented in the attempt of figuring out how processes worked to get desired results, and tried to replicate successful experiments. A lot of what was known as "magic" or "alchemy" laid the foundation for modern chemistry, for example, which is now unambiguously considered a science.
"Science" is not really an object, it's a method. Stories may explain that magic is a manipulation of the natural world that seems to exist alongside, defy, or contradict reality, but magic in a story is "scientific" more because of the approach the characters take to learning, studying, and using it. Sure, you can write "magic" as a natural extension of existing physics concepts and natural laws (Mass Effect comes to mind, with its attempt to justify what is more or less wizardry and magitech as gravity manipulation), but that is in my opinion quite silly, as "magic" can, was, and is studied in a scientific manner in the past and present.
Really, the distinction should not be between "magic" and "sci-fi", but between whether the "magic" (i.e. the ability to manipulate and change the world) is controllable or uncontrollable.
Controllable magic can be predicted and used by characters in a setting -- do thing X, and result Y happens. This is very much the standard of modern fantasy and I don't think I need to elaborate by naming examples.
Uncontrollable magic is a bit different -- this is where magic has some sort of factor that result in people being unable to predict and control it, perhaps having a mind of its own, meaning it cannot be controlled in expected ways by the characters.
The Tortall universe comes to mind, where some magical abilities are favours from gods and can just as easily be taken away from or granted to pretty much anyone; another is Discworld, where magic is basically such an unpredictable and dangerous mess that the wizards have stopped trying to do any and have just resigned themselves to academic hedonism, with witches being more social experts than magic users; and I also think Dragon Age can fall into this category, as magic comes from another spiritual plane that is inhabited by actively malicious beings that prey on humanity, with implications that it has spawned the eternal plague that threatens to wipe out humanity and where wizards need to rely on emotional control to produce magic and are treated as ticking time bombs because of the danger of demonic possession. Warhammer 40k and Star Wars have similar approaches, as the magic can be studied and used by humans, but seem to really be beyond human control and its true understanding eludes human knowledge.
Another example are the works of magical realism, like The House Of Ghosts by Isabel Allende. It's clear that there's something magical or otherworldly going on in the background, with ghosts and the like, but the characters are left in the dark as to what it exactly it is and they have no control over it, being left at its mercy. In a more directly horror story way, the Cthulhu Mythos by Lovecraft and its derivative comes to mind.
Many setting mix and match these two approaches in order to give the setting predictability and unpredictability in different doses. Dungeons and Dragons has in its lore an approach of magic as predictable, understood science and also as ritualistic favours granted by gods (that players systematically minmax anyway lol); Harry Dresden has a system of magic based on understood scientific principles that can be studied and applied, but also makes it clear that a lot of magic is undiscovered, dangerous, and manipulated by forces that humans cannot control and that may be actively hostile to humanity's existence; Harry Potter has a mostly academic system of magic where some core principles are nonetheless beyond direct human control or influence (the Department of Mysteries demonstrates this, and "Love" being considered the greatest and most terrible power of all).
...Really, come to think of it, most fantasy stories (and others with magic-like systems) seem to mix both approaches, with differences being a matter of degree.
Honestly, the oh-so-common science/fantasy dichotomy is rather banal and not especially useful for this discussion. What's more relevant when thinking about magic "systems" in terms of writing and worldbuilding fiction is whether they are actually controllable and thus to what degree it can be manipulated by the characters.
In many ways, "sci-fi magic" can be controllable and uncontrollable as well -- Mass Effect comes to mind, with biotics being extensively studied and used, but a lot of the basic principles of eezo manipulation are beyond the sentient races' control. Star Wars has mostly controllable "magic" that seems to exist independently of human influence, but where focus and study allows a degree of manipulation. Star Trek has a high degree of controllable "magic" based on allegedly scientific principles, but there are still beings with the power to manipulate reality in ways that defy human understanding and elude human control.
In many ways, modern science may well appear to be magic: we understand a lot of the physical laws of this universe and can manipulate it to a certain degree with input X getting us output Y, but we nonetheless are at its mercy in many, many ways. Hence why many sci-fi concepts are very analogous to "magic" systems, and as you can probably tell by now, I find the distinction rather immaterial.
Hence the degree of control the characters have over the ability to manipulate their world seems like a more useful distinction. At least when talking about fiction.
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Err,
I get what you mean, before even that wall of text, but I'm trying to engage from Squishy's perspective here, who argues that there is a dichotomy and couch it in such terms ('magic' & 'science') and the point I'm trying to made across, is that even if there's such dichotomy, there are setting (framing? narrative?) where that disctinction blurs. That Is, I was arguing against the dichotomy, if differently than you.
I'm not so much offended that you think it is pointless and more perplexed why you were directing the above to me instead Squishy?
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Golden Lark
The First Fiction User
Just to humor you here for a second, despite your tone: what exactly do you think my argument is again? You're railing against . . something, and I think you think it's something I said, but I'm kind of confused about what you're trying to claim as correct or incorrect.
I think Lark's comment above was really pointed on.
This thread is really seems to be full of communication failures...
Well, let's look at what I said.
I would think this part is pretty self explanatory: the first line directly states the premise of the two paragraphs. Specifically, your argument was that no one could expect what power these characters was going to bring out in order to save the day. My point is that in the stories they don't actually pull powers out in order to solve large problems. Therefore, why would one expect them to? Just because magic exists doesn't mean that the magic can do anything. This relates to both your first post and your second(and was the basis of my first response in it's entirety), so I'm rather confused that you're lost here.
This goes more towards the overall point you're making, that without an explicit system anything and everything goes, so there can be no tension. My point is that's not true. One doesn't need to start by assuming that there are no limits just because magic has been brought up.
Incidentally, when criticizing someone for tone it's probably best to not then do similar things in the same sentence. Just like how if you want someone to think that you're honest it's best not to misrepresent what they said.
Golden Lark
The First Fiction User
The thread was asking an open question and everyone was tossing in their answers. I did so. You were the one that engaged me, quite rudely. "What are you even talking about?" isn't precisely the most politic of opening lines, and then you proceeded to go one for a bit about how I was wrong - without clearly stating in your initial post what exactly I said was wrong.
Since, you know, I was providing an opinion based on my tastes to support my personal definition of a magic system. You didn't argue against my interpretation of 'magic system,' and you seemed to be arguing against my . . opinion . . which doesn't make sense because I wasn't really trying to press it onto anyone, I was just sharing my own experience with becoming disillusioned with a particular type of literary device.
I guess it's, to speak at the level of tropes (ugh), subverting Chekov's gun. Except that instead of Chekov's gun, it's Chekov's mysterious black box that might have a deus ex machina in it, and might not. Chekov's Wand of Indeterminate Utility. I dunno. You mention this obvious factor that could change things, and they might do so, or might not.
Anyways I am not really seeing anything to disagree with you about, so I will answer the question you posed.
Why wouldn't one expect them to? Remember, you have to take these works in from the perspective of never seeing them before. Someone is presented as a magical character. In LOTR, Gandalf is upsold as wise and powerful. He's wily enough to never really need raw power, and virtually everyone who's anyone is perfectly happy to never put him in a position that requires him to go all out.
In Star Wars: A New Hope, Obi-Wan is dismissed as a crackpot hermit by Han (as he was already acquainted with Luke a bit as a neighbor, so Luke's opinion wasn't neutral). The Jedi themselves apparently aren't seen as hot shit by those of Han's general type (well traveled, young enough to not have seen them in action firsthand). At this stage Chewie's age isn't established, but he does seem to act respectfully to Obi-Wan. The only really sense of Obi-Wan's potential we see is when he's doing his first training with Luke: as in, we see the lightsaber eyes-closed deflection stuff, and realize for the first time that this is the very tip of the iceberg for this "Force" business. If Luke is just a baby Jedi trainee, what is Obi-Wan capable of? We see Vader force choke the one Moff guy during the meeting, but this early we don't really have the context to appreciate if that's a trick any force-user can do, or dark/light dichotomies. It's kind of assumed that he couldn't do that to Obi-Wan or he would have done so in the past.
So at the end of the day, Obi-Wan is an ostensibly mighty character who was a general (I forget if his exact rank was stated) in the "Clone Wars" per Leia's recording, and is totally bad-ass enough that this Princess Leia is tossing him the key to the fate of the galaxy to safekeep. He's apparently Kind of a Big Deal. He starts teaching Luke wacky magic powers. We see what Vader does to people that annoy him and Obi-Wan apparently earned a solid grudge from him and is still alive. He is upsold so hard across the entirety of A New Hope, and then Vader rushes to engage him, they exchange some blows, and then he -allows- himself to get slashed and disappears in a puff of smoke.
The one, singular cinematic justification for that scene being amazing is: Darth Vader is just as fucking gobsmacked as we are about what just happened.
He expected to win, but not like that.
I brought out the two strongest examples I could that show non-systemic magic being used well, and expressed that as I grow older I find less and less entertainment in this kind of thing. It also helps that after Obi-Wan and Gandalf, it's really really hard to live up to this kind of literary example without cribbing from them (yes I know Star Wars was built on a zillion appropriated cultural tropes like a fucking paint by numbers book, thank you very much, my point still stands). "Wise old man that offers advice and helps the hero along a bit" is one thing, but "Wise old man who's a power in his own right, but winds up doing exactly the same thing as the non-powerful example" just feels like a waste. That Obi-Wan literally was willingly transformed into a powerless advice-dispensing machine was . . . eh.
So yeah, I guess I've sampled enough fantasy over my time that I do have a tendency to not shoehorn characters into tired old roles, and I hope that certain predictable patterns in storytelling are broken or refreshed in some ways. I like being surprised.
So, as a clear answer to your question: Why would one expect them to?
Because one might hold hope that a story can break free from tired conventions every once in a while, that their initial projection on 'how this story is probably going to go' is wrong, and that they might be presented with something new or novel under the sun. Call me an idealist, I guess.
I hope this ends our discussion.
Oh?
I think I pretty clearly laid out my two complaints with your post here. Especially the section of your post that I quoted. How exactly is this unclear? I'm saying that I disagree with your presentation of events(and then go into why I disagree). The last paragraph make this more broad, that it's not simply the specific examples that I think are the problem, but your approach that I disagree with. And yes, I am arguing with your idea: I'm giving my opinion on it. Yes, I realize this might be a shock for you, but you're not the only person who can give an opinion, and other people can give opinions on what you state. This is a discussion thread: people make posts and people respond to them. Just because you bring up a point as part of your premises for your argument, and ground those premises in opinion, does not shield it from response.
I find this response especially baffling because despite replying to that post normally you apparently didn't understand it at all? Despite the sentences not being particularly obtuse or anything. And your reply wasn't particularly off topic. What did you find confusing about this?
I find it interesting that, rather than addressing the more broad point, you go for the one talking about specific examples, which harms your overall point. Yes, Gandalf and Obi-Wan character roles are overused, but that really has little to do with the magic system. Old Mentors being killed to save the young hero is overused. They don't have to be magical, and many aren't. In fantasy with magic many are, but that's because the same traits that make them an old mentor make it easy to see them with magic (plus if the main character has magic he needs a mentor). There's plenty of the same thing happening in ones with explicit magic systems, and a decent amount of that sort of thing not happening without strong explicit systems.
I generally disagree with your descriptions of the two characters as well. It's not that Gandalf is wily and so doesn't need to use his great power. It's that fundamentally his power is largely his intelligence and knowledge. Also, for Obi-Wan, Leia wasn't doing it because he was necessarily particularly bad-ass. She was doing it because "Obi-Wan, you're my only hope". They also make the point a few times that Obi-Wan is old, while Darth Vader appears to still be at the top of his game.
Look at the broader point I was making(which is the one that's more applicable to your entire argument, but you have studiously ignored for 3 posts now for unspecified reasons): just because something has magic doesn't mean that it's unlimited, even without explicit systems. If I'm introduced to a setting with magic, my first through isn't "why can't magical character throw a fireball to escape the orcs". My thought is "a fireball could kill the orcs, they're still threatened, obviously they can't just throw a fireball". Same with other things. I don't feel the need to be told an explicit system to back this up.
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A system is needed if you want your characters to solver their porblems with magic. Because otherwise, it will look like a massive cop out.
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Yes, we all know that Star Wars is famous for ending in a massive cop out.
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No? All the things that happen at the end are based in capabilities than the characters shown before.
By the examples given, Star Wars doesn't include a system in the original trilogy. Yet, they use force to solve problems, and it's not a cop out. They introduce ideas, and they play off the ideas later on. Luke is first shown learning how to block lasers without looking at them, and in the end makes a shot without the computer's assistance. We know Gandalf is magical, so when he tries to seal a door using magic we can accept it (even though it fails and winds him in the process), and when he shatters the bridge it's acceptable(especially because while we never saw something like that before it took a sacrifice and wouldn't have been too useful before hand).
The person I was quoting explicitly brought up star wars(especially the original trilogy) as something without a system. If you want to use a different definition that is fine, but you probably should make that explicit.