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Magic systems - What Are They And What The Fuck Do Those Words Mean

Ok. I will be more explicit and directly quote Sanderson:

Sanderson's First Law of Magics: An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.
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Sure, Gandalf solves quite a few problems Including a rather major one (Ie, the Balrog). But ultimately, he doesn't uses magic to resolve the main problem (Ie, getting rid of the ring). The only problem solved by magic towards the end of the jorney itself is killing Shelob with the vial.

And note, both those problems are magical in nature as well, and presented shortly before being defeated. Not a long-standing obstacle.

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Pulling a Jedi trick, not previously shown, to bypass some random mook mid movie is fine! But a complete new trick to solve the main issue it's just not.
 
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I think part of the problem is that as Havocfett noted a lot of our magic is actually really mundane. What is "magical", as referred to drawing from say, Jewish texts, tends to be very particular stuff. But there's nothing magical about Og the Giant, and there's not much magical about the idea that when you eat an animal you gain its characteristics (eg, eat a dove and you become more like a dove, and doves were seen as noble). Quite frankly, magic in fiction is kind of...mundane. It is punk with a different aesthetic. But Kabbalah, for a random example of "Jewish magic", is something far deeper and encompasses a kind of realm of study into the divine that is not only seen as mystical and transcendent but innately dangerous, tied up as it is in the holiness of God.

Simurgh in Shahnameh was not very magical. Rostam's strength was extremely notable, he was the Hercules of the time, but he was not "magical". The problem is that we are talking about a very deeply different view of magic not just historically but between different regions. Pre-Christian Slavic conceptions of magic were quite different from Christian ones (and Christians had many conceptions of magic).

And honestly all the enlightenment bouts of scientific magical ideas, like animal magnetism or phrenology, tell me that the divide protrayed didn't really exist that much. A lot of scientists were wacky mystic kooks as well, they were just wacky in a different direction.
 
Cosar said:
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.
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A New Hope is not the original trilogy. It is the first movie. I wasn't referring to Empire or RotJ. The Force is systemized pretty well by the end of RotJ. (I'm not countering your point, just clarifying)
 
For me the best magic is always the kind of magic that encompasses something that's clearly beyond the materiel world and represents some deeper metaphysical truth. It's something that even if it can effect the world in "predictable" ways, nobody really understands how or why and the magic wizards use is just that something leaking it's way into reality. If a character is learning magic, a big part of it should be them opening themselves up to the arcane truth, having their mind blown by the implications, and the experience radically changing how they view the world. Or if the magic is of a darker variety, the character is terrified, and/or starts going crazy. Anything that rips the character out of their cushy certainty about the mundane world.

Star Wars is about a thousand times more interesting than any RPG mechanics Brandon Sanderson implanted into his novels, because it's something that shows that there's something beyond just the mundane physical world. The problem with magic 'systems' like that is that a lot of the time it's nothing more than set dressing to get the characters doing cool shit and 'exploit' shit. Magic becomes less like this force of nature, and more like this artificial thing that exists for no other reason than for people to use it to do anime attacks and stunts and shit. At that point you might as well just frame it as being comic book superpowers in a fantasy setting or straight up just have the characters casting 'spells' with dice rolls and splatbooks and arguing with the Dark Lord over how their spells work. Which is fine, but this king of 'magic' would say nothing about the metaphysical or philosophical underpinnings of the setting.

And I'm sure some people will compare that to science and 'Discovery!' But the difference is that the way modern people think about science comes with the assumption that whatever it is, one day we'll be able to extract it and put it to use in the form of cheap products in Southeast Asian sweatshops. That's not to say the concept can't exist in a more sci-fi context, you can totally take a more cerebral and mystical approach to sci-fi concepts, but most people don't because we're too used to science being a thing that you see in the form of cool gadgets in youtube videos.

In this sense I think that superhero comic books actually do it a lot better than many straight up fantasy novels. Stuff like Hellblazer and Doctor Strange aren't exactly super consistent about their magic, but they clearly treat it with the metaphysical weight it deserves. Sure, the fact that the writer can pull anything out of their ass can harm SoD and narrative cohesion, but SoD and narrative cohesion are just means to an end to creating an interesting story, not the point of the story on their own.
 
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Reveen said:
Which is fine, but this king of 'magic' would say nothing about the metaphysical or philosophical underpinnings of the setting.
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It's at least partially a fair cop. All his systems are extensions of one underlying theory, and he's gone with a cosmic jigsaw puzzle metaverse. So the magic is tied into Cosmere metaphysics, but if you've only read say... the first three Mistborn books without doing any research, you wouldn't have any idea about that.

He's also said he isn't that concerned about philosophy in his writing: Reddit AMA 2013: Wheel of Time Interview Search: Theoryland of the Wheel of Time (Robert Jordan)
Also that one of the inspirations for his magic is his fascination with the laws of physics(with all the moral neutrality they possess):Reddit AMA 2011: Wheel of Time Interview Search: Theoryland of the Wheel of Time (Robert Jordan)

So yeah. It's mostly accurate.
 
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Sanderson's first law is ultimately a misdiagnosis. If something feels unearned in a story, it's a problem of drama - not because "we didn't know the magic could do this".
 
Rook said:
Sanderson's first law is ultimately a misdiagnosis. If something feels unearned in a story, it's a problem of drama - not because "we didn't know the magic could do this".
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Eh, I'd disagree there, but as a fan of Sandersons works I'd say it isn't and shouldn't be universally applicable.

Sandersons first law works well for a certain 'subset' of fiction, which has immaculately designed and detailed works where both the magic itself and learning what you can do with it, is a major part of the story. Stories where Sandersons first law are applicable tend towards the 'harder' subset of fantasy (if that would make sense) where a lot of it is very person driven where the magic is almost a character in its own right, a bit like how 'hard science fiction' is usually almost strictly within the bounds of phyics, or only has one or two 'elephants' that otherwise work within the laws of physics. Its almost an 'agreement' between author and reader, where everything is logical and even if he reveals a strange or unsual fact, you'll get a perfectly reasonable explantion later on and you discover it works perfectly within what you already knew.

Basically Sandersons first law is 'Magic written like laws of physics', and almost appeals to the same sort of 'niche' that science nerds love. Its the type of magic system where 'SB competence' could actually be possible in setting, because chances are the Author will have at least one character doing the same (See Compounding).

What it doesn't work in things like Harry Potter, where magic pretty much works as the Author needs it to, be it because its meant to be more 'mysterious' and inexplicable in its working, or merely just because the author doesn't care to put as much work or detail into it. It doesn't always seem co-herent or logical, but thats becasue its never meant to be and shouldn't be judged in the same way, (which is why SB competence for harry potter pisses me off because they claim the author is an idiot for not doing abuse X or Y with every main character). They fill different narrative niches and should never be directly compared.
 
"Magic system" means, to me at least, someone's idea of physics with the serial numbers filed off.

It's an appeal to the idea of there being a comprehensible framework which allows it's users to do wacky shit within common constraints and on demand. More wordily, it's the apparent systemising tendency of physics applied to the wondrous and otherwise impossible so as to allow it to occur, when desired within a story, without destroying the disbelief of readership trained to prize a particular kind of systematic way of viewing and controlling the world, one that's very "rah rah scientific method all up in this motherfucker!". That is to say, it's a particularly modern (arguably 'western'?*) conceit. No one point out stuff like "The Irregular At Magic Highschool" because then I've got to explain why and how Japanese people might find the same ideas acceptable and that's a lot of work :V

Magic is a considerably broader idea (which seems to have multiple competing definitions across academic disciplines in the Anglophone world, never mind in popular usage) that can be used to encompass everything from "I prayed really hard to God and he gave me this bitchin' chariot of invincibility" to the sympathetic** means by which the rains might be compelled to fall really well this year because we set lots of children on fire after making them cry. Common themes across cultures seem to include the belief that the truly wondrous or divine comes from without, but as has been touched on in this thread that's pretty contestable depending on time and place.

basically nothing new in this post move along blah blah the modern is mundane and the ancient was truly wondrous etc Nasu Was Right blah blah blah

*that's another debate can of worms in and of itself :V

** the anthropological definition regarding magical processes rather than 'inspires sympathy'; I generally don't approve of immolating children
 
Sucal said:
Eh, I'd disagree there, but as a fan of Sandersons works I'd say it isn't and shouldn't be universally applicable.

Sandersons first law works well for a certain 'subset' of fiction, which has immaculately designed and detailed works where both the magic itself and learning what you can do with it, is a major part of the story. Stories where Sandersons first law are applicable tend towards the 'harder' subset of fantasy (if that would make sense) where a lot of it is very person driven where the magic is almost a character in its own right, a bit like how 'hard science fiction' is usually almost strictly within the bounds of phyics, or only has one or two 'elephants' that otherwise work within the laws of physics. Its almost an 'agreement' between author and reader, where everything is logical and even if he reveals a strange or unsual fact, you'll get a perfectly reasonable explantion later on and you discover it works perfectly within what you already knew.

Basically Sandersons first law is 'Magic written like laws of physics', and almost appeals to the same sort of 'niche' that science nerds love. Its the type of magic system where 'SB competence' could actually be possible in setting, because chances are the Author will have at least one character doing the same (See Compounding).

What it doesn't work in things like Harry Potter, where magic pretty much works as the Author needs it to, be it because its meant to be more 'mysterious' and inexplicable in its working, or merely just because the author doesn't care to put as much work or detail into it. It doesn't always seem co-herent or logical, but thats becasue its never meant to be and shouldn't be judged in the same way, (which is why SB competence for harry potter pisses me off because they claim the author is an idiot for not doing abuse X or Y with every main character). They fill different narrative niches and should never be directly compared.
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While I disagree somewhat with your last paragraph, your first two are well put.

Sanderson's First Law is an outgrowth of the logic Knox proposed for writing good mystery novels. It is a necessary extension for any writer interested in a fair supernatural mystery. An assurance that thinking is possible, that the logic can be solved if you try, so that you will think.
 
Actually thinking about it some more, the difference between the ideas encapsulated by the word "magic" and the phrase "magic system" finds it's most concise explanation in a rather obvious but surprisingly unexpected place.

The fiction of Kinoko Nasu.

A running idea in the works of Nasu is that there's Magecraft, and then there's Magic. Magecraft is the impossible made possible by the arcane researches of people; there are rules you follow, processes you can exploit, to make crazy shit happen. Shit like fireballs and homonculi, summoning the ghosts of great heroes, transfering one's mind between bodies: all decidedly supernatural at present, but all doable if you have the tools and the understanding and the big brass ones. It's all the stuff that humanity might one day be able to do with entirely mundane means like science, so it's a bit like opening one's presents early. You get what you were going to get down the line, but you get it early by cheating in a big way. It's the conventional achieved by unconventional means.

Then there's Magic. Magic is the truly impossible stuff: crossing between worlds, preserving one's soul beyond death eternally and without harm, all that really trippy jazz. The only way you make that happen, as a mortal in Nasu-world, is by sneaking past the very protective embodiment of human consciousness and stealing from the font of reality.

It's the complete opposite of Magecraft. This is stuff that can't happen conventionally even if you throw all of your energies at it. It's not rayguns and energy fields- sorry, death spells and wards- it's the stuff of gods. It's unpredictable, unknowable, reliant upon the character and fortune of the person who attempts it rather than how good they are at mentally integrating Baphomet's Lesser Constant whilst being attacked by 12th Level Soul-reavers or whatever.

Magecraft=Magic Systems ie systemising All The Things to appeal to theorycrafting nerds, and Magic=err, magic ie stuff that isn't just the mundane with extra pyrotechnics

basically i think "magic systems" are kind of overexposed right now because they're frequently written about for their own sake and need a 50 year break or something

Also there's probably some good stuff in here about the lineage of magic systems (arguably starting with a very misunderstood Jack Vance and D&D), and how they've created a subgenre of work that is so insular and all-consuming that people within it can't really concieve of magic as working any other way but honestly that's not what @Rook asked and also this run-on sentence needs to stop

Edit: yes I am aware that this is not entirely (or even actually!) how Nasu-verse magic works but the dichotomy seemed like a useful one to grab in my attempt to explain my ideas and also move this shitshow away from Sanderson

sorry for making it worse shinaobi :<

also also also credit to @100thlurker and @shinaobi and @Cetashwayo and @EricD for all the ideas I've probably stolen off of all of you in the process edit of writing this shitshow of a post :V
 
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Conjured Blade said:
While I disagree somewhat with your last paragraph, your first two are well put.

Sanderson's First Law is an outgrowth of the logic Knox proposed for writing good mystery novels. It is a necessary extension for any writer interested in a fair supernatural mystery. An assurance that thinking is possible, that the logic can be solved if you try, so that you will think.
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Eh, we can agree to disagree.

People who treat Harry Potter style magic systems like Sanderson ones annoy me
 
Sanderson talks a big game but the first Mistborn book's big reveal hinges on a character using a combination of magic never seen or explained before and the latter two books have magic actively being discovered to do new shit people didn't know it could do before, so the man is a case study in the limitations of the very rules he made up.
 
Omicron said:
Sanderson talks a big game but the first Mistborn book's big reveal hinges on a character using a combination of magic never seen or explained before and the latter two books have magic actively being discovered to do new shit people didn't know it could do before, so the man is a case study in the limitations of the very rules he made up.
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Fair point on the first one assuming you're talking about

Vin Using the Mists to fuel her allomancy against the Lord Ruler. People could wonder about what happens if an allomancer attempted to burn a metalmind though.

Edit: GAH. Just realized that compounding wasn't foreshadowed either.

But my memory is somewhat fuzzy on whether or not any of the innovations from the later two books are used to solve problems without prior introduction.
 
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Conjured Blade said:
Fair point on the first one assuming you're talking about

Vin Using the Mists to fuel her allomancy against the Lord Ruler. People could wonder about what happens if an allomancer attempted to burn a metalmind though.

But my memory is somewhat fuzzy on whether or not any of the innovations from later two books are used to solve problems without prior introduction.
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He might be talking about the latest two Wax and Wane books
 
my attempt was in vain

sanderson remains in the ascendant

woe

@Rook to be less facetious for a moment, has this thread been at least somewhat useful so far? Have you managed to triangulate the position of something useful in the morass of genre fiction stuff which constitutes the bulk of edit: recent systematic-magic-orientated fiction?

Edit: also have you considered looking into archaeological/anthropological/historical definitions of the word 'magic' (ie definitions used in those fields) because that might provide some useful context or not idk
 
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Claudette Savagely said:
Edit: also have you considered looking into archaeological/anthropological/historical definitions of the word 'magic' (ie definitions used in those fields) because that might provide some useful context or not idk
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That brings to mind an episode of a podcast that goes into the subject.

232. Charles Burnett on Magic | History of Philosophy without any gaps

Edit: More through link here: Astrology and magic | History of Philosophy without any gaps
 
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It has, yes. As for the second part, I have also, mostly from talking with @EricD, @100thlurker and @shinaobi with a side of research I have been doing on the side.

As for Sanderson, I think it's rather indicative as to the state of discourse on this matter that at no point does he even make the slightest of mention to what "magic" is with his essays, yet people still point to them has the height of scholarship on the matter.
 
Rook said:
It has, yes. As for the second part, I have also, mostly from talking with @EricD, @100thlurker and @shinaobi with a side of research I have been doing on the side.

As for Sanderson, I think it's rather indicative as to the state of discourse on this matter that at no point does he even make the slightest of mention to what "magic" is with his essays, yet people still point to them has the height of scholarship on the matter.
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nice nice nice

what cool stuff have you uncovered in your researches
 
Rook said:
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.
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Can I try at the first bit? I think I can make a relatively simple explanation of the first, whereas my explanation of magical system beyond "the creators intention," gets long, rambling, and pedantic.

Put simply, magic is the "application of intangibles", with application being defined by how the magic works, in context. To explain how magic works, you must know how people seem to feel like magic should work. Intangibles I'll get to in a second.

The most common concept of how people think of magic is that "from A, to B, to anything but C," or perhaps "1+2≠3." So application is that, but in context.

Now back to intangibles. This is particularly important with the comparison of sci-fi. The intangible would be "the qualities that you can't quantify and interact, in context."

Originally I left it at that, but a few days after the original version was written, I rewrote it, and noticed an unclear but important detail. When I say context, I mean context of both the audience and the story itself. So if the author's describing chemistry, if it's obviously chemistry to the audience it probably isn't magic, while if it's not obvious, then it might be. Being more precise gets long and complicated and needs specific examples, so I'll leave it there.

Don't know how well I did, and I can see a few potential issues with the explanation. I think I wrote it to explain the existence of magic+tech, and the explanation on why things like Hollywood hacking, comic book engineering, future tech, and things relying on "the quantum," are not magic. For the most part, alchemy in Fullmetal Alchemist also isn't magic. On the other hand I'm not sure where that leaves Star Wars, and that's a big example people seem to be using.
 
Sucal said:
Eh, we can agree to disagree.

People who treat Harry Potter style magic systems like Sanderson ones annoy me
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It's funny because, as I said on IRC, Harry Potter magic often passes Sanderson's first law. Well, in letter, maybe not spirit.

First, the series sets off to explain that spells (usually) require verbal incantation and physical wand movement (it's Levio-sa not Levio-SAH). This means students have to learn spells. By extension, so do readers.

You might not understand the exact mechanics behind why or how Wingardium Leviosa works or how it came to exist, but the books take the time to teach you 1) what it does and 2) how to do it. You say the word and use it to life something with spooky action at a distance. Expelliarmus disarm a wizard of their wand. So later on when Harry is in a duel with [INSERT CHARACTER HERE] and uses it you're like, 'oh yeah, that spell! It did the thing! This is satisfying and I will buy the next book at my local Chapters for $22.99.' And then it's 01:00am and you have The Cursed Child 2: Cursed Harder in your hands while dressed in Ravenclaw blue asking yourself how you got there There's a similar process behind setting up Expecto Patronum and almost all the other spells in the genre [to be fair though, she does break the rules occasionally -- see the inconsistency on Portkeys]. No, she doesn't lay out every possible spell and how it interacts with others, but I think that's a strength because it keeps things mysterious and means the readers, like the young wizards, learn as they go along.

I was actually kinda impressed on a re-read of Book 3 in how she sets up stuff in the first half that's going to be used in the latter half, from animagi, to werewolves, to Expecto Patronum. And this stuff just builds! By the end of the books you know when they're walking around in the dark with their wands lit they're using Lumos because that was introduced way back and reinforced.

anyways

More relevant to the point, I think the lasting appeal of Sanderson's laws is it's an easy framework for new writers to follow. Sanderson plonks it down like This Will Make Your Writing Good and that instantly attracts new writers who Want To Make Their Writing Good-er, while also appealing to fans who are bothered by 'critical inconsistencies' in their fiction. With the rise of Hard science fiction, where critical darling Blindsight comes with a fucking annotated bibliography, it is not surprising to me that Sanderson's framework is gaining steam.

I also don't think it's inherently wrong. I also don't think it's the be-all-end-all. Rather than a magical system I would propose something like a magical framework -- give yourself a few ground rules (can you bring people back from the dead?) and then make it exactly as nonlinear and opaque or as rationalized and logical as you need.
 
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