Magic- what is it in Fantasy?

[Azul-din]

I know, it's like saying what is petrol to an internal combustion engine. Only I was wondering, what actually qualifies as magic in Fantasy writing? Mankind over the ages has created a whole body of fantastical characters, just begging to be brought to life by the storyteller. Anthropologists have posited all kinds of complicated theories as to the origin of these beings and why they seem to have counterparts in so many diverse cultures. So are all you writers out there are simply adding to what one might call a folk tradition? When you imagine a flying dragon, or a spell that binds a sorcerer into an oak tree, or a fantastical creature made up of thousands of smaller creatures, is there indeed a common thread which ties your work into the grand tradition of imagining things that simply ain't so?Or- and this is the one l like- are there truly worlds or alternate realities out there where whatever mankind has imagined actually exists? Michael Scott Rohan suggested as much in the 'Spiral' series, which if you haven't read I heartily recommend.

 

[pmmg]

Magic is just stuff that happened that cant be explained.

If I am adding to a folk tradition, I am not sure which one it is. I dont feel I am very tuned into to my culture or area, or the folk things that make it up. I would say, I feel I may be another in a long chain of fantasy traditions, which reach past folklore and add to some type of great whole. Maybe you could say, I am one more in a long line that can be traced back to earliest man, and to the degree that their traditions shaped my current reality, then okay.

If I was to write a story about the snallyghaster or the goat man, I might feel more plugged into to my folk tradition.

Imaging things that ain't so seems to be a universal part of the human condition. Everyone has done it, and some wrote it down. I am no different. I am happy to be a part of it, and hopefully, I will be a read part of it.

Alternate Realities? Who knows. I dont know that we can even accurately describe the one reality we are mostly aware of. If there are other realities, I'd not mind shifting over to the one where all my dreams came true.

 

[Finchbearer]

Magic is chaos, and can explain the unexplainable. It can open the story and move it along in unexpected ways. It can be formulaic, and give a story a solid structure too, much like a set of rules. But it is not limited to fantasy. Fantasy doesn’t always need magic either.

Folklore and mythology are not where the idea of magic originated, but of course there is lots of inspiration from those old belief systems, myths, legends and folklore.

Within pre-Christian belief systems, be assured that what people believed in was as believable as any modern tradition, so I think it a respectful act to understand that.

 

[skip.knox]

I fiddle with that question often. Move away from the big stuff. If a village healer gives herbs to an ailing cow and the cow gets better, and the villagers all say it was magic and the healer says it was magic, was it magic? If no one *inside* the story sees it as anything other than magic, then it's magic. It doesn't really matter what people outside the story say because even out here there can be found people who believe in actions and objects as magical while others in this same outside world dismiss as superstition. It doesn't have to be clearly defined.

More importantly, it doesn't need to be consistently defined even *inside* the story. I could easily have some characters inside the story call it magic, while others call it a trick, while still others call it science, and yet others call it inexplicable. Some might call an act magic even though believing it isn't (in order, for example, to get someone condemned for sorcery).

I'm intrigued by the notion a story world could have many different types of magic, with different explanations, varying by time and place and even social position. That feels more interesting that just having "a magic system". It's also devilishly messy.

 

[Finchbearer]

I'm intrigued by the notion a story world could have many different types of magic, with different explanations, varying by time and place and even social position. That feels more interesting that just having "a magic system". It's also devilishly messy.

That, I feel is much like real life.

 

[ThinkerX]

I wrestled with this for quite a while. Initially, I was a big fan of AD&D game style magic, but that translates poorly to storytelling. I also wanted something that could be at least semi-plausible in the real world, and game magic really didn't fit. In the end, after reading a giant pile of books on ancient magic, paranormal events, and psi, I finally decided that 'magic,' at least in my worlds, is psionic ability, mostly rooted in variants of ESP and Telekinesis. I took the accounts of mediumship, remote viewing, telekinesis, levitation, mind control - especially ones that could almost/sort of/maybe stand up to a bit of scrutiny - and made that the base. To that I added a few extras - being a fan of Lovecraft, and knowing just how evil most of the old-line pagan demons and deities were, and the old-time wizard's obsession with the True Names to summon them...that dovetailed together too good to be ignored. I also tacked in some rune stuff and a bit of ritual magic.

To account for the difference in the power of 'wizards' between Earth and elsewhere, I introduced the 'ancient aliens' an utterly inhuman race that came to Earth multiple times in the distant past, abducting hundreds of people each time, took them to distant worlds, and used super-science to imbue genetically select individuals with greatly enhanced psionic ability. The aliens are long gone, but the descendants of those test subjects remain. Hence, 'magical ability' is usually, though not always hereditary.

 

[Queshire]

Well I'll tell you what, if some bearded folks with sticks figured out how to blow people up with just their mind centuries before the invention of gunpowder then they can rightly call it whatever they want.