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I agree, the fetishization of magic systems has weird ideological undertones. More importantly, though, Sanderson’s rules of magic are so often applied broadly to the whole genre, that all fantasy must follow his rules. If he (or other authors) want to use those rules, cool, go for it, but not following them is a frequent criticism of books in the genre that have a different philosophy.
And I love your point about how magic can be an end in itself.
As brando fan, he explicitly says that’s what he likes to write, not that it be all end all, or that he doesn’t like softer magic system in other people’s books. I feel his way is sort of extension of old sci-fi thingy (you change 1 thing in physical laws, and then write about humans existing in this world) into fantasy
I’m also a pretty big Brando fan. I’m not coming at him here, but the legions of people who take his personal set of rules and think they are universal truths of fantasy writing.
I think this still falls into some of the same problems Sando’s magic rules does. You’re positing that there is a single correct framework through which to view “well written fantasy magic”. But there’s not. There’s no hard rules in writing, much less in writing how magic operates in your fantasy setting. While what you’re describing is personally more appealing to me, there’s also a lot of interesting stuff you can write with a tighter, more constrained, ‘scientific’ approach to magic. The different approaches lend themselves to different stories and themes.
Well, that’s kind of my point. You’re talking about what’s appealing to you, but your phrasing comes off as the only real way to do it. When you say
Magic that operates based on logical rules and scientific inquiry is literally not magic to me
you’re basically applying a set of logical rules to writing that shouldn’t be there. Since magic isn’t real, whatever an author determines is magic is. It’s the same kind of communication that leads to the thing happening with Sando’s magic rules.
I can’t agree. My favorite magic systems tend to be ones that are hard, fundamental rules of the universe they’re in, for two reasons. 1, if magic existed in the real world, with real, measurable, physical effects on the world, I would expect it to be examined like any science.
2, I like the idea that if you’re just good enough at studying, good enough at math and linguistics and history and you just read enough you can alter the fabric of reality. The concept that if you just understand the laws of physics well enough you get to break them is :chefs-kiss: to me.
But that’s all 100% personal preference, and I think my preference for those has to do with my being in academia most of my life.
Probably my favorite representation of magic is the show The Magicians. You want to be good at magic? Hope you enjoy grad school, better start learning Arabic and Ancient Greek.
Another magic system I absolutely love is Full Metal Alchemist, where the magic is explicitly a kind of science.
The Vampire Diaries and it’s spin-offs also do a method I like.
The worst kind of magic imo is like Harry Potter, where magic has hard set rules except when it doesn’t and it never explains those rules and no one seems to know why anything works the way it does, and there don’t seem to be any limits on the magic except that you can be “more powerful” (whatever that means)
Have you heard of the TTRPG series Mage, by White Wolf? I don’t have much experience with the series but it sounds almost exactly like what you’re describing. Mages kind of ‘awaken’ to the fact that reality is just whatever is agreed upon, and if you’re aware of that fact, you can just change it.
Yeah I agree here. Although that might just be because I like scifi. I am fine with mysterious unknowable magic if and only if the protagonist isn’t the one who can do it. Lord of the rings has no rules on magic, but frodo isn’t the one doing any magic.
Yes! 100% agree. Or if the protagonist does have it, they’re basically the only one who does and just got it.
The more people that know how to do it, the better I need to know how it works. If hundreds or thousands of people are using magic every day and spent years studying how to do it, people will figure out how it works
I love that I can find conversations like this here. I’m writing up my thoughts now and I’m interested in having a discussion :quokka-smile:
