The cost of magic

[Greybeard]

Should magic always have a cost?

Whether it's known as mana, energy, or some other term, should the cost of magic be defined?

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

In one of my favourite series, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, magic definitely has a cost, and the books are all the better for it. Covenant possesses great power, but lacks the strength to control it effectively. This takes a great toll on his psyche (and possibly the reader's too) as he finds himself unable to help friends and allies lest he loose something which could ultimately destroy the world. Were Covenant able to do what he wanted, when he wanted, the books would be much poorer for it. Even Superman had kryptonite to keep him from being a boring all-conquering hero. So yes, I think magic should always exact a price on the magician, be it physical or spiritual.

 

[Donny Bruso]

I don't have any references to cite, but it's my belief that Yes, magic should always have a cost. Otherwise your wizards/mages/witches, whatever you choose to call them are more or less unlimited in their power. Whether its reagents needed for the spell, or just simple weariness of the caster, something has to prevent them from simply casting fireballs until they are left as the last person alive.

 

[Ravana]

Whoa. "Systems" of magic can be difficult—and excruciating to detail as a writer, or to wade through as a reader. The short answer is that there must be some limit on what magic can do, whatever that limit might be. If you're check out Steven Brust's Taltos series, you can see a world where nearly everybody can use magic to at least some extent, limited in general only by their education and dedication to developing their skills. The main "limit" there is, well, that everybody can use magic to at least some extent: no matter what you can do, someone else out there can do it too, or counter it, or both. In other words, it's so common that it's no different from being able to use a sword: anybody can do it, but not everybody learns how to do it well.

The Superman example is a good example of what not to do: don't construct a situation where the only way to counter something is so narrow it shouldn't be available to anyone. Ignoring the physical absurdity that any piece of a destroyed planet would make its way to Earth, consider how much more absurd it would be to have enough such pieces that a credible threat could be posed to him on a regular basis. You end up with endless contrived situations, each less plausible than the one before. (Interestingly, Superman has two "vulnerabilities," the other one being… magic.)

More important than limiting how much "power" a spellcaster can draw upon might be limiting what magic can do at all. Many things you might simply declare to be outright impossible: say, teleportation. (In Brust's novels, by way of contrast, teleportation is one of the things that a majority of the characters do learn. Saves him the trouble of travel time between locations. In turn, this is limited in a variety of ways: it requires concentration to actually arrive where you intended to go, which takes at least a brief time; it can be blocked; it can be traced.) On the other hand, one of the fascinating things about Tolkien's work is how little magic actually appears, for all that it's talked about extensively. We hear a lot about how great a wizard Gandalf is… but what do we actually see him do? Much of his "magic" is implied, rather than overt: does he really break an enchantment on Theoden, or does he just talk sense into him? Is there anything "magical" at all about his fireworks, or are they just clever rockets, perhaps enhanced by a bit of illusion? Or Aragorn: does he really have a healing touch, or is he just savvy about medicinal herbs and a natural leader who boosts the morale of his patients, encouraging them to struggle against injuries they might otherwise give in to? Certainly, there is magic present in many events: scrying devices work, if with a strong degree of unreliability; Saruman, Sauron and the Nazgul (and possibly some others) all display some ability to influence others mentally; magical doors have passwords; several people and things can create light; a few can talk to animals (or, at any rate, understand what they're saying; anyone can talk to them… ). The blizzard over the Misty Mountains may have been sent magically… or it may have been bad luck. The overcast that flows out from Gondor may have been triggered magically… or it may have merely been smoke from an erupting volcano: it does, after all, dissipate when the wind shifts, and nowhere is it suggested that the southerly wind is magical, merely fortuitous. But the closest thing you see to fireballs being flung about a battlefield is when the Fellowship has been treed by a wolfpack: here, Gandalf causes some flammable things to ignite, and that as a last resort. Nothing like that at the sieges of Isengard or Minas Tirith; and the Nazgul, whatever powers they do have, still get down and fight with swords—and die to them. Sauron, the baddest of the bad, does not come out and play no matter how grim things get for him; after all, last time he did that, he had a finger hacked off. Whatever magic "is" here, it clearly has limits, even if these are never defined; the only "cost" we ever see is that occasionally Gandalf is tired, and even that doesn't happen after his rebirth. So I don't think you need to worry about a precisely-defined system, much less what name, if any, you put to the energy used. Define parameters of what you want it to be able to do instead—this is far more important in terms of the story you want to tell—and worry about "cost" only if you feel a need to explicity limit magical activity further.

One interesting way to limit both absolute power and versatility, if you want to contemplate a possible example, is to employ a version of the (physical) Laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy: that is, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only changed in form—so anything the caster uses must come from somewhere. If this is his own personal reserves, even simple operations would leave him exhausted and ravenously hungry; anything beyond that would actually start to eat away his body. So instead, the caster "channels" or "shapes" the energy… from some outside source or sources. You can get a lot of energy out of a pebble if you annihilate it completely, converting all its mass; eventually, though, you'll start running out of pebbles. There is also an implied limit here, which is that you must know how to get the energy you want from the available sources—and the ability to start a fire by drawing heat from the surrounding environment might require a completely different path of study than the ability to start a fire by causing wood to oxidize rapidly. Even this form of magic will still draw some energy from the caster (something has to be causing and controlling the change, after all); so either the caster has to spend part of the energy he's drawing to replace what he's using to make that change (the net effect is then less than the total amount of energy drawn upon: some gets bled off in the controlling process), or else, again, the caster must use his own reserves to do so (and how much of your own person would be consumed in "pushing" heat from the surrounding air into a log, or causing every molecule on its surface to vibrate more rapidly?). This is not to say that the caster actually knows about the laws of physics: all he needs to know is that he does X and gets Y, or maybe Z if he has to improvise, but never gets A, B, or C. But you know—at least in general terms: you don't need to have exact tables for converting mass to energy—so you'll be able to predict what magic can and cannot do in your world.

 

[Ravana]

This takes a great toll on his psyche (and possibly the reader's too)

Definitely the reader's. The parts I enjoyed most were the parts of The Illearth War that followed a parallel branch of the story, in which Covenant is not present. The series isn't a bad read, necessarily: just don't expect to sympathize with the main character. Or to enjoy it if that's something you require for your enjoyment. (The Mists of Avalon is the same way: everybody in it is a jerk–to put it politely. The most sympathetic character you get is Accolon… and who remembers him?)

 

[At Dusk I Reign]

The series isn't a bad read, necessarily: just don't expect to sympathize with the main character.

I did. What that says about me as an individual I'd rather not be told.

 

[Legerdemain]

Honestly, when done with skill the cost of magic does not have to be present. For example, does magic have to have a moral cost, if morality is non-universal? As far as "power sources", why can magic not be like running, sure it uses energy, but if I could create worlds as easily as reaching for the TV guide, is that a cost? (actually, I have never reached for a TV guide, that's a bad example... magic would be impossible, as it has never been done under that set of boundaries).

Ravana bring up a good point. There are ways to create limitations on things by making them obey scientific laws. I always found it funny when Marvel comics explain Hulk's growth by saying it was "extra-dimensional mass gain" which meant basically he was growing due to another universe shrinking (and I can hear that universe's occupants: "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY WHAT IS HAPPENING?!? MY TOASTER JUST DISAPPEARED, AND MARTHA IS NO LONGER PREGNANT! WHERE DID THEY GO?").

If the limit or cost of magic is simply "choice to use or not" I still think it's viable, though it changes the perspective and power of the ability to choose.

 

[Meg the Healer]

I've read books both ways. That when magic was used it did something to the caster as well. Usually, it aged them - depending on the type of spell they were using. Spells that didn't require a lot of effort like lighting a torch maybe aged you a few minutes, but healing a person that was badly injured aged you a year. I think that if in your world, there are a lot of magic users then I don't really think it's plausible to have a cost especially if you rules are also going to apply to your gods (if your gods are active magic users). If having a magic weilder is rare in your world, then it would be understandable that it costs a great deal to the caster which is why they are so rare. But I think it depends on the world you're creating.

I agree with Legs - why can magic not be like running - after some rest you get your energy back (or eating certain foods/drinking certain things). So I can see using that as a cost to using magic. Unless you are really wanting to use a "consequences" for using magic whether for good or for ill.

 

[JGSTYLE]

Yeah, as long as it's not a contrived plot device then I have no problem with their being a definable cost to magic within a world.

I just hate it when theoretically the character(s) should be able to overcome a situation/adversary but then there's some "gotcha" that curiously never showed up before, otherwise the story would be over before it even really got going.

 

[Ophiucha]

It just depends on the story, in my opinion. If you want to limit how often magic is used, then having a cost come with the use of magic may be a good way to do it. If not, there should be some limits, but it doesn't need to be a cost. I wrote a short story, maybe four years ago, where magic was effectively limitless, but practically very limited. It merely worked off the will of the people. If everyone desires a river going through the desert, a river appears. If there is a city that profits from selling water to these people, then the river may not flow, it may be dirty, it may be a mere stream, or they might just get a well. It's a sliding scale. This basically means that, while anything could happen, magic is nearly useless. You can't use it at war unless you outnumber your enemy 5:1, and at that point you may as well just fight them properly.

There are many ways to ensure that magic is limited, and having a 'cost' is just one of them.

 

[Philip Overby]

I agree with what others have said. Magic should always have some sort of "cost" in order for it to not make the story just full of obliterating tough guys. Steve Erikson kind of lets magic go a bit crazy in his world, as it seems every time the reader is introduced to the newest magic hurling baddie, another one even BETTER comes along. It almost never ends. It becomes a bit wearisome, but I still like the series.

In any case, magic becomes rather boring when people suffer no consequences for doing it. It would be the same as if a character had a big gun that he carried around and just blew people up and never ran out of ammunition. Sure, if you're into that sort of thing it works, but if the guy just uses his weapon without any kind of draw back, it makes him invincible.

To me invincible=sleepy time.

 

[Dragonsooth]

I believe that the use of magick completely depends on the context of the story...the author decides the boundaries, and the reader uses suspension of reality to allow that magick to exist. What seems to be the greatest obstacle to that type of thinking is, as JGSTYLE said, when there was no "cost" before in the story and then suddenly one appears...that's bad planning, and the author is at fault for halting the reader's belief. In simpler terms , don't let magick become cheap for the reader...regardless of it's cost to the characters within the story!

 

[DavidJae]

All power has a cost, being mental or physical, and makes for a more interesting story. If the heroes are all powerful, then there is no drama. The cost should be defined, because it provides an insight into your characters, and shows their personalities.

 

[Saigonnus]

I one of my WIPs wizards are more open ended, using energies from things around them and what energy is available is depending on what they have close by. Wizards can't really be specialists in one particular thing unless they are sedentary with access to the same energies all the time. The cost though is definitely physical, a wizard/druid can only handle so much energy flowing through thier body before they get tired. They can even push themselves too hard and kill themselves if they aren't careful by how much energy they handle.

I think it definitely helps and adds something to the humanity of the characters if they aren't able to do whatever they want without consequence.

 

[Ireth]

This is something I struggle with a fair bit, with one of my characters especially. He's a mage whose power manifests through a combination of his singing voice and willpower, so basically, if he can put something into words and has the breath, focus and energy to sing, he can do pretty much anything. That makes it kinda hard to put limits on the extent of his power when he's in good condition and physically able to sing. Using too much magic at a time tends to physically exhaust him. His enemies have often left him bound and gagged or otherwise impeded his voice so he can't fight back against them.

One weakness I've come up with is that since his magic is very similar to Fae Glamour, the two interact weirdly and have unintended consequences (kinda like Harry Potter's wand with Voldemort's wand). This becomes very important when he finds an injured Fae and must use magic to try and save its life, but the resulting clash of magic and Glamour ends up turning the Fae into a mortal, which neither of them expected or wanted.