Scientific concepts in a fantasy world

[Hainted]

To me the biggest problem with Magic versus Technology isn't telling one from the other it's that one evolves over time and the other doesn't. Spellcasters use the same techniques to produce the same results without variation year after year, century after century, usually weaker than their predecessors, and anytime something new is added it's usually from reading some ancient manuscript or finding some "lost" knowledge.(i.e. Conjure Hurricane>Conjure Thunderstorm>Conjure Tornado>Throw Lightning>Shocking Touch> scuffing your feet on the carpet) Technology on the other hand is usually seen as improving and growing in power(sling>slingstaff>bow>longbow>crossbow>flintlock)

I feel that if it was around long enough magic would be another science and we would see it evolve along more sophisticated paths(except the hippies who would insist on doing it the old way "because it's purer" and "more in tune with what magic is really about")

As far as magic being a divine gift, I have problems with that. Divine power should be able to achieve things magic can't and is more in working an extra-dimensional beings will on the world than your own so it would be...? I don't want to say unreliable, but it's more about convincing another person that what you want and they want is the same and they should do all the work. Divine power should extract a cost like magic as well. Something like, "Your cured of the galloping trots, now stand in front of the temple and read this Litany of the Blessed for the next 4 hours. Your business was successful? 20% of your profits for a year go to these charities. That gentleman that survived the ambush? Send him across town to kill the priestess of our god's enemy."

 

[Mindfire]

To me the biggest problem with Magic versus Technology isn't telling one from the other it's that one evolves over time and the other doesn't. Spellcasters use the same techniques to produce the same results without variation year after year, century after century, usually weaker than their predecessors, and anytime something new is added it's usually from reading some ancient manuscript or finding some "lost" knowledge.(i.e. Conjure Hurricane>Conjure Thunderstorm>Conjure Tornado>Throw Lightning>Shocking Touch> scuffing your feet on the carpet) Technology on the other hand is usually seen as improving and growing in power(sling>slingstaff>bow>longbow>crossbow>flintlock)

I feel that if it was around long enough magic would be another science and we would see it evolve along more sophisticated paths(except the hippies who would insist on doing it the old way "because it's purer" and "more in tune with what magic is really about")

I think what you're complaining about has its origins in Tolkien, where magic is fading from the world and much of the old power and lore of both Numenor and the elves has been lost. The elves are diminishing, their era is ending and the era of Man is beginning. But this has roots in Tolkien's own worldview. It was a reflection of how he felt after witnessing the horrors of mechanized warfare in WWI. After seeing your buddies die in poison gas and machine gun fire, you'd probably think the magic and innocence of the world was dying too. And what's happened is perhaps that a lot of writers came after him and did the same thing without realizing why he did it. You could also say the idea is an echo of the Fall narrative in Christianity and other religions: that we used to be greater but screwed it up and our race has declined in some ways while advancing in others. Another thing to consider is that humans have a natural curiosity about the past. We're fascinated by the empires and civilizations that came before us. We really do discover "lost knowledge from the ancients" all the time through archaeology. In some cases the ancient world had knowledge that wasn't rediscovered until the renaissance. We marvel at the things they built without the aid of modern machines and we start to wonder if maybe they really were greater than us in some way for not having the conveniences we have. If living without such things made them stronger or wiser. It's sort of nostalgia on a grander scale. This even shows up in the Iliad where (IIRC) an old man remarks that Agamemnon and his warriors are like children compared to the grand old days of Jason and the Argonauts. But sometimes the past serves as a cautionary tale instead. Another popular trope is that of the ancient civilization that discovers great power, but then makes a blunder and destroys itself. The message there is clear: learn from their mistakes. Do better.

As far as magic being a divine gift, I have problems with that. Divine power should be able to achieve things magic can't and is more in working an extra-dimensional beings will on the world than your own so it would be...? I don't want to say unreliable, but it's more about convincing another person that what you want and they want is the same and they should do all the work. Divine power should extract a cost like magic as well. Something like, "Your cured of the galloping trots, now stand in front of the temple and read this Litany of the Blessed for the next 4 hours. Your business was successful? 20% of your profits for a year go to these charities. That gentleman that survived the ambush? Send him across town to kill the priestess of our god's enemy."

I think you misunderstood what I meant by divine gift. It's closer to what we might call talent: a person is born with a head for math, or artistic ability, or natural athleticism, and then practices over the course of their life to improve that skill. Likewise with magic, though in my universe a person will inherit different magic skills depending on what magic is bound to their ancestral and cultural heritage. (Though there are special instances where entirely new magic skills are given to someone because the situation requires it or as a sign of favor.) The "divine" part is in reference to the talent's origin, an echo of the biblical concept that people are given their abilities for a reason, to fulfill a purpose, even though they have free will with regard to their use. Now, whether a divine gift necessitates a quid-pro-quo agreement depends on the god, I'd say. If you're dealing with a god in the old pagan sense, where you have to fulfill X requirements to keep the god happy or else thunderbolts, then that sort of agreement makes sense. Likewise for Faustian pacts. But if your god is more the loving, father-like type who wants obedience out of love rather than contractual obligation, then that sort of arrangement doesn't fit.

 

[Hainted]

I think you misunderstood what I meant by divine gift. It's closer to what we might call talent: a person is born with a head for math, or artistic ability, or natural athleticism, and then practices over the course of their life to improve that skill. Likewise with magic, though in my universe a person will inherit different magic skills depending on what magic is bound to their ancestral and cultural heritage. (Though there are special instances where entirely new magic skills are given to someone because the situation requires it or as a sign of favor.) The "divine" part is in reference to the talent's origin, an echo of the biblical concept that people are given their abilities for a reason, to fulfill a purpose, even though they have free will with regard to their use. Now, whether a divine gift necessitates a quid-pro-quo agreement depends on the god, I'd say. If you're dealing with a god in the old pagan sense, where you have to fulfill X requirements to keep the god happy or else thunderbolts, then that sort of agreement makes sense. Likewise for Faustian pacts. But if your god is more the loving, father-like type who wants obedience out of love rather than contractual obligation, then that sort of arrangement doesn't fit.

Ahhh, got it. I'm similar in mindset but with some key differences. Magic in my world is a skill, any differences in magic casting are do to cultural differences and bias. Using real world examples a wizard from America, India, and China can all throw a gout of fire but the look, the motions, and words of each spell are completely different even if they are mechanically identical. It's loosely based on martial arts and the many different styles of fighting. How many different ways can you really throw a punch?

It also sets up the idea that ANYONE could be a wizard as the idea that it's only certain families or individuals who gain magic ability smacks of elitism to me. It's like the old saying "Everyone can PLAY basketball, but there's only one Michael Jordan." A person is limited in magic only by the amount of time and effort they put into it. (Though some may have a more natural aptitude then others.)

And my gods are more the wheeling dealing type, though they are a little free with granting miracles. I mean they have to be, could you imagine the difficulty churches in our world would have gaining members if magic existed? "Jesus turned water into wine two thousand years ago,my son." "Nice but my neighbor turned my mailbox into Lucy Liu for me last week, so...."

 

[Mindfire]

The idea that it's only certain families or individuals who gain magic ability smacks of elitism to me.

Hmmm... not necessarily. Or at least not in my setting I think. I say magic is tied to ancestry and cultural background, but that perhaps implies more than it really means. A detailed explanation would require a recitation of my world's entire history, but to sum up: the only people who don't have access to magic are those who either come from a culture that rejected magic long ago and have since forgotten everything they used to know about it or those who come from a culture where the use of magic is restricted to a certain class, children with recognizable talent are whisked away to join that class (like the Jedi), and the average man doesn't stop to consider whether he could learn magic or not because it's considered to be a thing that only the special class can do. There used to be a time when everyone had access to magic, but then everyone lost it thanks to a massive catastrophe. Some people left magic behind for good while others regained it through divine favor, though their new skills differ from the old ones and are typically more limited: one nation's magic is entirely fire-based, while another's is nature-based, etc. There is one nation that managed to hold onto a shred of the old magic from before the great calamity, but I haven't decided precisely what their powers are and how they're limited yet. Fortunately they're a pretty isolationist nation and haven't shown up in my plot so far.

EDIT: The whole " magic children are taken away like Jedi" has been invalidated by a change I made to my world-building like 2 minutes ago, so ignore that part. My world has a habit of evolving even as I write about it.

 

[Hainted]

Maybe not elitist. I'm just not a fan of "chosen one" or "you're special" type characters in general. If it's done well I'll ignore it but I don't use it.

 

[Mythopoet]

It also sets up the idea that ANYONE could be a wizard as the idea that it's only certain families or individuals who gain magic ability smacks of elitism to me.

This is one of the key areas, however, where "magic" and "technology" can differ. Technology pretty much requires that, at least in theory, anyone can use it. I believe it is fundamental to the conception of fantasy that, at least, not all humans are capable of "magic". If magic becomes something that anyone can learn to do naturally, then it is pretty much just science fiction set in an imaginary world or imaginary version of our world.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

Mytho,

I think Jim Butcher would disagree with you on this. The Codex Alera series has just about every human in Alera using magic and it really cannot be classified as sci-fi.

 

[Jabrosky]

I always understood magic and the supernatural to mean anything that doesn't comply with the laws of nature as we understand them. And that's why the whole concept of a magic system confuses me. It's all about organizing the definitively unnatural into a naturalistic order. But on the other hand, without that order, you're left with this limitless force that could potentially intervene at any point to erase the conflict and ruin the dramatic tension. Why, for example, wouldn't a wizard like Gandalf prevent his own premature death unless his wizardry had inherent limitations, therefore giving it a naturalistic character that makes it not really magic at all? It's almost like a paradox.

Of course, I should point out that our current concept of magic and the supernatural is ironically a product of scientific modernity. What we call magic and the fanciful today were perfectly plausible to pre-industrial peoples, or even as real as gravity and oxygen are to us. Even when storytellers obviously made stuff up, no one could verify their reality with Google; as far as your average ancient Greek would have been concerned, there could very well have existed Nemean lions and gorgons, and there could very well be a subterranean abode of the dead or a sunken empire under the ocean. And back when Tolkien and Robert E. Howard were writing, few archaeologists or geologists had enough data to show that Middle Earth and the Hyborian Age were never real periods in our planet's history. The question of magic systems is what happens when humanity comes to know too much.

 

[Mindfire]

Mytho,

I think Jim Butcher would disagree with you on this. The Codex Alera series has just about every human in Alera using magic and it really cannot be classified as sci-fi.

Ah, but even there the magic is restricted. Only the humans can use it. Or, at least, only humans can use furycrafting. The Canim and the Marat can't furycraft at all (with one exception, though that's a very special case), though they do have their own forms of magic.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

True enough Mindfire, but just about every Marat has a magic of some kind. And for the Canim they can simply use magic if they are part of the mage caste. But, I think that is a choice more than an inherent ability.

 

[Mythopoet]

Mytho,

I think Jim Butcher would disagree with you on this. The Codex Alera series has just about every human in Alera using magic and it really cannot be classified as sci-fi.

And that highlights why I think a lot of recent "fantasy" novels are really something different. At the risk of falling into the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, I don't think they follow in the footsteps of the fantasy genre nor do they give me the kind of experience I want from a fantasy novel. There should be a different name for them. Or maybe there should be a more specific name for what I think of as fundamentally fantasy. Speculative fiction has expanded so much in recent decades that I have a really hard time finding books that give me the experience I'm looking for among all the books that claim to be "fantasy" but, in my opinion, don't measure up.

Perhaps we should embrace the term "science fantasy". I've seen it used in the past to describe books by science fiction authors who stray too much into fantasy. But it seems to me it could also easily describe fantasy with more of a sciency feel.

 

[Jabrosky]

And that highlights why I think a lot of recent "fantasy" novels are really something different. At the risk of falling into the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, I don't think they follow in the footsteps of the fantasy genre nor do they give me the kind of experience I want from a fantasy novel. There should be a different name for them. Or maybe there should be a more specific name for what I think of as fundamentally fantasy. Speculative fiction has expanded so much in recent decades that I have a really hard time finding books that give me the experience I'm looking for among all the books that claim to be "fantasy" but, in my opinion, don't measure up.

Or alternatively we could merge sci-fi and fantasy into one larger genre, since they already overlap with one another to the point of people sorting them together on the same Barnes & Noble shelves. Sometimes I wonder if the big difference between sci-fi and fantasy is simply the setting, with one having a futuristic aesthetic and the other historical (though both can be modern-day).

Besides, we already have the concept of subgenres. Maybe whatever brand of fantasy you're looking for could be classified as its own subgenre?

 

[Svrtnsse]

Almost everything changes. It's not something you have to like or accept, but regardless of whether you do or, you'll have to deal with it in some way.

 

[Mindfire]

True enough Mindfire, but just about every Marat has a magic of some kind. And for the Canim they can simply use magic if they are part of the mage caste. But, I think that is a choice more than an inherent ability.

Yes, but what I was getting at is that only humans can furycraft, only Canim can use blood magic, and only Marat have sympathetic magic. While each magic type is fairly common within each culture, it's impossible for them to learn the magical skills from outside their culture. With the exception of that one special case I mentioned.

 

[Mythopoet]

Or alternatively we could merge sci-fi and fantasy into one larger genre, since they already overlap with one another to the point of people sorting them together on the same Barnes & Noble shelves. Sometimes I wonder if the big difference between sci-fi and fantasy is simply the setting, with one having a futuristic aesthetic and the other historical (though both can be modern-day).

Besides, we already have the concept of subgenres. Maybe whatever brand of fantasy you're looking for could be classified as its own subgenre?

Merge them and make the haystack even larger? No thanks. When I want to read a fantasy book, I want to read something very distinct from science fiction. Genres exist to help readers find the books they want to buy. Making it more difficult is NOT the answer.

Fantasy subgenres help to eliminate some "fantasy" books from my searches. I know I don't want to read urban fantasy or dark fantasy for instance. But alas, what remains after you divide up the fantasy books into the subgenres that make sense still tends to be rather goopy. Everything tends to be thrown into "epic fantasy" if it doesn't fit elsewhere. Somehow epic fantasy became the catch all subgenre. I really do wish there was a better way to categorize newer fantasy books because what you have to sift through if you browse epic fantasy on Amazon is just a mess.

 

[Mythopoet]

Almost everything changes. It's not something you have to like or accept, but regardless of whether you do or, you'll have to deal with it in some way.

I don't think it's a good idea to tell readers to just deal with the mess of fantasy. I think the genre would be much healthier if books could be more effectively marketed.

 

[Mindfire]

And that highlights why I think a lot of recent "fantasy" novels are really something different. At the risk of falling into the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, I don't think they follow in the footsteps of the fantasy genre nor do they give me the kind of experience I want from a fantasy novel. There should be a different name for them. Or maybe there should be a more specific name for what I think of as fundamentally fantasy. Speculative fiction has expanded so much in recent decades that I have a really hard time finding books that give me the experience I'm looking for among all the books that claim to be "fantasy" but, in my opinion, don't measure up.

Perhaps we should embrace the term "science fantasy". I've seen it used in the past to describe books by science fiction authors who stray too much into fantasy. But it seems to me it could also easily describe fantasy with more of a sciency feel.

Can you describe that fundamental essence you're looking for and how it relates the commonality of magic in the setting? I'm just wondering where my WIP would fall on your axis of fantasy<--->not fantasy.

EDIT: Examples would also be helpful.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I don't think it's a good idea to tell readers to just deal with the mess of fantasy. I think the genre would be much healthier if books could be more effectively marketed.

Isn't that a way of dealing with it though? The changes will happen regardless of whether we want them to or not and it's something we will have to live with.

Also note that I say "deal with it" I don't mean "sit quietly and accept it without doing anything about it"

 

[Mythopoet]

Isn't that a way of dealing with it though? The changes will happen regardless of whether we want them to or not and it's something we will have to live with.

Also note that I say "deal with it" I don't mean "sit quietly and accept it without doing anything about it"

In my experience, when people use the phrase "deal with it" it usually means "just accept that things are the way they are and your opinion doesn't matter". But perhaps that's just in the US.

 

[Svrtnsse]

In my experience, when people use the phrase "deal with it" it usually means "just accept that things are the way they are and your opinion doesn't matter". But perhaps that's just in the US.

That's fair enough, I won't argue semantics, but like I stated, that wasn't what I meant.