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An issue of Magic items that cause Glamour effects and consent

Sharad9

Scribe
In my worldbuilding setting, it is possible to enchant items to cause an effect on others. These items can take the form of love potions, charms, etc. Although the unsuspecting person is not forced or compelled to do anything, and technically has freedom of choice, the item does have an affect on the mind. It is meant to enhance the wearer in the eyes or perspective of the individual.

A person at the bar can go from unassuming and plain to charming and irresistible. On a bigger scale, Leaders or salesmen can suddenly become magnetic and charismatic. In most media I have seen, such as tv shows, it tends to glance over the ramifications of this, and it tends to be treated with humor, with people acting out of character and doing things they would never normally do. How would you as the reader view the usage of these items? Would you treat it as a joke? Would they raise issues of consent in your eyes? Would you label them as being similar to liquid x (rufies)?
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
You could approach it from a comical standpoint, certainly. My view is that issues of consent are definitely raised, and those could be treated in a more serious story. Whether you analogize to something like a modern drug would depend, to me, on the extent to which the enchantment acts in a similar manner.
 

elemtilas

Inkling
However it gets treated, I'd just view it as part of the magic.

I'm reading The Rose and the Ring now, and this is basically the premise. One character has a magic rose and the other a magic ring. They both cause the exact reactions you speak of: the ring wearer becomes the gorgeous object of all male attentions; the rose causes women to lose all sense and fall for the rose bearer.

Whether or not a writer chooses to tell the story as comic per se, I think it would be hard to keep some amount of low-brow humour out of such a story!
 
Depends on the tone of the story. If it's a serious story, then yes, for sure it raises questions about consent and lots of other questions deserving exploration.
 

Queshire

Auror
Personally unless matters of consent are brought up in the story I don't think it would occur to most readers. It's the readers who look deeper into the story that it will occur to. You know, the type of people who write fan fiction.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Elves in my worlds radiate an invisible magical aura that some humans, especially those of the opposite sex, find irresistible. Manifests itself as instant, near complete infatuation, followed by dependency issues that can result in insanity. And yes, some elves do take advantage of this. (Half elves).

I did this to make elves stand out from the current versions a bit more - and make them more in line with the elves of mythology.

This aura, combined with other elven enchantments is why the primary elf realms are separated from human nations by a wide buffer region ('the March').
 
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