@@colorpg152 But than it is not magic. It is just a technology nobody really understands. Like a cell phone. I mean most users don't understand it. This is the problem, what our robot friend tries to explain.
@@shardator and i utterly disagree with him, its terrible a anthropocentric worldview and i hate it, only ignorant people love to not understand how things work, only emotional people prefer emotion over reason,
Reminder that we live in a world with rocks that emit energy that can power cities or used to create weapons that can briefly summon a star in atmosphere, leaving the area inhospitable to humans for generations afterwards from a residual curse. But we just call it all "radiation"
Yeh radiation itslef dangerous even know process but fascinate how this rock produce the power for city even form boom that energy not only destroy but also destroy land environment
We also shape sand into crystals, inscribe it with glyphs using focused light so that it can do complex math for us. And we trap it in the glass rectangle that I just typed this comment on.
This is sort of the reason why I like it when a setting doesn't call magic "Magic." In that world, magic is just a fact of life that can be studied and understood no different from things like chemistry or physics. Like you say, we tend to stop calling things magical when we understand how and why they work. The classic example of this is the first episode of Avatar The Last Airbender. Sokka calls Waterbending "Magic" but only does so more to make fun of it more than anything else. And he's swiftly correcting that "it's not magic, it's waterbending" which is an ironic statement to us, where waterbending is in fact magical. But to them it's just a normal part of life so it makes perfect sense that they would think about it that way. And as a result of how the setting is written that way, where bending is so normalized that it is a key part of many city's infrastructure and the daily life of countless people, it starts to feel normal. It no longer feels like magic, and whenever someone does a breakdown of magic systems, it almost always feels weird to talk about Avatar's bending like it's a magic system because by the time you finish the series, it stops feeling like magic.
Yeah, magic is a description that is dependent on common perception. Every group's level of established reality is different. As the group and their experiences grow, their threshold changes. If magic was common, it would have a different name. That's why magic isn't a mechanical term in any of my RPG.
It really does. A big part of my brain wants to say "bending isn't magic", even though a guy shooting fire out of his hands, in any other medium, would be the definition of magical
One of Tolkien's posthumously-published writings mentions that the Elves don't have any concept of "magic" and are confused by the way other peoples of their world use that word, because for them, the enchantments and illusions they (and others) create are just a natural part of life that makes perfect sense.
Similar to that in Starcraft Protoss have all sorts of advanced technology, but Terrans just think of them as magic because they cannot understand it even when a Protoss engineer explains the details. Even in real life there is a thing called cargo-cult, where tribal people literally worshiped planes and pilots as their gods.
@schwarzerritter5724 Psionic power is not magic, according to the official lore. For us it is a form of magic system, but for Terran it is just a new field of science.
@@Sesuaki19 Yes, but what does it matter? Back in the day, they were baffled by the unexplainable mistery of magicians, nowadays, we watch Vsauce videos, and are impressed by his clever explaination, and the clever design of the universe. I love magic systems for that fact.
Sufficiently❌ Explained a lot✅ Sufficient is literally not even calling it magic. If you have magic scholars, then it’s a separate form of science, but that’s a choice you make. What you mean by “sufficiently explained” is that you want it to be studied and explained to you, the reader, as you are incapable of using your imagination. Now, while I understand we have the same point, that magic should NOT be thoroughly explained, that would mean that there’s a line that WOULD be sufficient explanation. That line would definitely be at no explanation, but still.
@@nexus_keeperthat might be the case, but when people talk and write about “magic” systems, then they’re still calling it magic even if it’s explained so much or in a way so it isn’t actually magic. It’s just called magic because people know what to expect. But in Fullmetal alchemist the alchemy is talked about as science and as being as natural as anything that also exists in our world.
The etymology of "science" goes back to the Latin "scio", "sciens", and "scire", which simply mean "know", "knowing" and "to know". Science is simply knowledge. True magic can be taken as a power that can what is known and objective and change something into what you want it to be. But even then, you need knowledge of "how" it can be done through magic. That is perhaps the true difference between "hard" and "soft" magic - soft magic can simply will whatever the user wants to happen, no prior knowledge required; hard magic requires understanding of how magic works to make it change the world in the way you want.
99% of people treat how your phone works, food showing up at the grocery store, your organs working, etc like the ring turning you invisible. Part of why the only real difference between different types of fictions in terms of realism is how familiar it is.
Its like the idea of someone going back in time and saying "I have a device that allows me to access an infinitely large library of information that I can fit in my pocket" but when someone asks you how it works, you reply "I have no idea."
@@lucas23453 Depends on how far back in time. The first "computers" were programmed using punch-cards. Can also create basic gates with water, and all the way back to the Greeks could understand that. Gears and weights could use as well to explain it to them. After use that to explain binary logic, is just a matter of knowing how each character of each "book" is produced from that. Anything can be explained one step at a time, if can find a starting point.
@@Vaeldarg that's the trick the majority of people can't explain how to make this. So, "how do we make it traveler?" "I don't know I can't teach you all, but the wizards/sages of future know and we have it" "well, traveler you like us in the end of the day"
When you staryed discussing how many fantasy stories these days try to explain everything to make the world more "believable" it reminded me of, of all things, a tumblr post that put it into words best for me. "I dont want my fantasy to be realistic. I want it to be *convincing*." And i feel like that's a very important distinction to make.
this also assumes that the author necessarily chooses to write for the reader, and not from personal creativity, the enforcement of the reader's wants and needs is not a requirement.
@guymanhumanperson my point is, yes, that is correct but if you just stop there then why would any discussion or essay ever exist, such as this channel. Both are valid
Love the discussion in the video. Just want to point out that "Magic as a Narrative" is almost entirely informed by "What do Fantasy Genre readers want to read." Brandon Sanderson makes it really clear the "rules" he has for magic systems are based off of the biases that readers have towards the narratives that they enjoy. In many ways, Brandon Sanderson's magic systems are just another evolution to Chekov's Gun. The vast majority of people that read fantasy books want setup and delivery. They want the story to feel cohesive, not just because they're unwilling to suspend disbelief, but because fundamentally they believe in causality. Effect without cause doesn't feel good because it's just not how the world works. Magic must become systematized in part because human brains crave causality, and the easiest way to prevent a break in a causality chain is to create rules that can't be broken. Very few people enjoy stories with Deus Ex Machina, and magic is particularly prone to that sort of mistake.
I am wondering if that really is the case. Or are we just socialized to do so? I wonder if Tolkiens fantasy feels different (it does at least to me) than most contemporary stuff, because he grew up in a time where you couldn't simply google the answer. Also, he was a Christian and I guess had a different relation to faith and believe than even a Christian alive today. 🤔 I wonder if he had therefore a different disposition to wonder and magic (and science) then we have today.
I think there's something to this, not sure it's as grand as "causality chains" etc. though. More prosaically, people want _drama_ in their fiction, in the sense that we want _stakes_ and maybe even _peril_ and those in turn arise from _limits_ - most fiction is about overcoming or otherwise coming to terms with some limitation whether it's transcending personal flaws or defeating an adversary, we have to believe at least on some level that the characters _might_ NOT succeed or else why care ? The glaringly obvious storytelling problem with magic is, it has no natural limits (on one level that's kind of the _definition_ of magic) so a deus ex machina is an ever present threat. Hence magic systems, which are essentially a way of _formalising_ limits, of the author entering into an _explicit_ agreement with the reader (even "soft magic" had them - Gandalf got tired, Harry Potter has to go to lessons and study etc., there was always a _cost_ to doing magic - but "hard magic" lays them all out so there's no cheating). (have to say, for me they still often seem arbitrary, like "pretend limits", but I think all i'm doing there is effectively saying "I'm more of a sci-fi fan" in different words :)
Causality... is something I've rarely thought necessary to belief in, after all it's unscientific and worst of all things, Time-dependent. Whose saying that the vase was going to fall and therefore it made me trip over it, and only because we experience time in a linear fashion, do we view it the other way. Cause and Effect is not real.
@@Yarradras Tolkien's magic still had rules (more like logic). Evil can't create, only bend what's already there, and using your (spiritual) powers on the (material) world diminishes your strenght, like a sort of entropy. It's the core identity of his worldbuilding, starting from a magical land made out of song, going through a gradual decline in magic (i.e. the world going from being flat to a globe), and finally arriving at the present day. Even still, Tolkien couldn't iron all the kinks out of his lore; orcs never got a definite origin because he couldn't manage to conciliate the world's inherent philosophy with an entirely evil race.
@@YarradrasIt could be partially socialisation but it's definitely also nature, people at times crave randomness, chaos, lack of causality and the freedom it brings, more often than not when you are a child. However as your brain matures you feel a greater need for the opposite, you want to interact with what you understand and safety that brings and chaos becomes more an obstacle. That isn't to say that you can't still let go and dream but I'd say that you want most of your day to be interacting with the known.
What's very interesting is I find the exact opposite. I PREFER the laws and definitions for magic, because they allow me to immerse myself deeper, and better appreciate the clever tricks that characters do to use those laws or their loopholes to their advantage. I think a great example is the Inheritance Cycle, where magic is quite literally just a language. Or Babel, where magic is the discrepancy in words between languages. These systems create opportunities for the reader to think "how could I, me create a use for magic in this world, how could I use magic to MY personal advantage in the situation the protagonist is in," and I LOVE that concept. Softer magic systems always felt...wrong, like the author was just making things up with invisible rules I'm not allowed to comprehend, the force is one of the worst offenders of this, in my personal opinion, and its partly why I could never get into star wars. I don't know, this is my personal opinion, but I LOVE IT when magic is treated like a science, like one of the pillars of our world that's just...there. Like chemistry or physics, its another part of the world that's natural, and study able. I'm not looking for people to criticise my views, and I'm not personally criticising the opinions presented in this video, I'm just intrigued by how other people perceive magic, and magic systems. Nobody gains anything by calling others "wrong" for a non-hurtful opinion.
@jazzerdazzle5958 Thank you for sharing your views about this, you have given me a lot to think over. Your personal opinion is valid, valuable and interesting!! And appreciated gratefully, Have a wonderful week and a magical month!! Andrea and Critters. ...XxX...
Personally, the Force doesn't bother me _because_ I essentially write it off as "magic" (i'm predominantly a sci-fi fan so once I categorise something as fantasy - and agreed, Star Wars is "science fantasy", however much it might _look_ like sci-fi - I don't worry about rules as much). Well, now anyway - at age 5, when I first saw "Star Wars", I obviously didn't have an opinion about genre boundaries, I just saw cool spaceships, lightsabers etc. I wonder if that's partly an age thing ? Hard magic systems didn't _really_ exist (certainly not to the same extent) when my tastes in fiction were forming - * cough * 70s and 80s * cough * :) - so fantasy has _always_ had that arbitrary "soft magic" element for me (frankly, that's one reason i'm predominantly a sci-fi fan so in that sense we agree :).
@anonymes2884 that’s actually a really interesting perspective. I can see how the differences in generation create differences in taste and perception regarding fantasy, thank you for the input!
This is why I enjoy the books in The Cosmere by Brandon Sanderson. There are rules for each magic system on each world that each book is set in and yet there is a universal constant in how the magic can be used. Really makes for an immersive story to me.
I also absolutely love it when magic is treated like a science. I think because I'm a scientist IRL, it just makes sense to me that there would be characters who take a scientific approach to studying magic. When a setting states that no one has ever tried make the unknown known, I find myself struggling to belief the people in that setting. No academic has ever wondered "does it do that every time?" No city planner has ever said, "how can I improve the infrastructure with this?" No king has said, "how can I defeat my enemies with this?" If the setting tells me that they've tried and failed because the unknown is unknowable, that feels like more of a personal insult from the author. As though they are trying to imply that real-life science is a waste of time because certain things aren't just unknown, but unknowable. It gives the entire book a feeling of anti-intellectualism, which is ironic because I read in part to expand my knowledge. So, if I start feeling like a book is going "fuck you, stay dumb," I have far less of an urge to read that book.
Oooh, what I love is when the system is more integrated, commonly used not just by people but by the environment and everything in it. Ofc this isn’t necessary but I like when it changes everything, technology, economy, etc. you don’t even need to build it all, just don’t take non-magical world for granted and you can make an illusion of effects.
Mass effect fields are that. It’s used every day by ordinary people, without them ever needing to interact with it directly; it enables faster-than-light travel, microfacturing techniques, even contemporary medicine, communication, entertainment. Almost all technology in the Mass Effect universe is derived directly from, or is enabled by, mass effect fields. And at the end of the day it’s “this special rock can make things lighter or heavier”.
Please please please please please, go read the Cradle Saga (or Abidan Saga it's sometimes called) by Will Wight, if you haven't already. It is the definition of from-the-ground-to-the-heavens in terms of everything in the universe using and relying on the magic system, from weather patterns, to animals' evolutionary patterns, to the way the people migrated around the world and set up their civilizations, to how those civilizations run, and how different each civ is from one another depending on what energies were regionally more available to them and therefore which magics were more practically/efficiently useful to them. It's SO good. It's like Avatar the Last Airbender and Naruto had a brain baby, and got the Arcane team to do the imagery.
That's just "alternate science" though IMO. If it's a consistent system that governs everything in the world, that's not really magic, that's science in a reality with different rules. It becomes sci-fi that's just got the same "furniture" as fantasy (in the same sense that Star Wars - with the Force, space wizards etc. - is fantasy with the same "furniture" as sci-fi). Not necessarily a criticism BTW, I like Star Wars plenty and i've liked "sci-fi that looks like fantasy" too (Roger Zelazny's "Lord of Light" springs to mind).
@@anonymes2884 Magic, historically, has also just been an alternate science. Witchcraft became Alchemy became Chemistry over time, and people who still practice Witchcraft can either be referred to as using Magic, or sometimes "alternative medicine" or "alternative science".
This… this video helped me a lot. I’m writing a short novel wherein the main characters engage directly with magic, and I’ve spent more time trying to explain and expand the use of magic than anything else. It never felt right. “Not knowing” makes much more sense for the story.
I'm trying to strike a middle ground with my own in-progress novel, in that some of the characters in my world actively try to make sense of the magic around them by studying it and pushing it beyond its (perceived) limitations, whereas others simply accept it for what it is, utilizing it to enhance their lives or the lives of their peers. I'm unsure how good or effective something such as this is, but I think it strikes a fine balance between magic being a science that is studied and evolves, and magic being an everyday part of the world.
I will admit as a fellow writer too, magic is a difficult thing to bring about. As in if you leave too much out then it gets kind of deus ex machina, and if explained too much then it loses some of its wonder. Trying the middle ground is difficult. Personally, went with its rare, and only those of particular bloodlines can use it, and depending on the culture determines what it's called. Also why it doesn't hinder technological development.
As you should. Magic should be a tool, not your plot itself. As such, “select” the magic tool that works best for your story. It’s the whole reason Sanderson talks about soft magic vs hard magic. He just doesn’t go into explaining soft magic as deeply as hard magic because that would literally defeat the purpose of soft magic by definition
It's perfectly fine to use a soft magic system. It's just important to remember not to have that magic solve the big problems. It can solve little problems or give clues. The only exception is a gag story similar to one punch man or Mob psycho 100. It's given there'll be flashy powers that save the day and don't need to bw explained
Yeah, I feel like I have to know the whole theory and practice and reality of my magic system, just so it doesn't feel like my sorceror character gains new capabilites as the plot demands.
I try to remind myself periodically that trees are wonderous collections of tiny organic "machines" that collectively build themselves out of air, water, and dirt and that this is amazing and wondrous and "magical."
Also, remind yourself that we, ourselves, are magical! Got a cut on your hand? Boom, it ain't even there after a little while! Because we can regrow our skin out of nothing! Snapped your bones? Boom, healed after a little while? We have a beating magic in our body that pumps liquid wherever it needs, and it doesn't even require a thought! Our muscles in it of themselves remember things that the brain has forgotten! The brain captures over 11 million things at a time, yet only shows you 40, because somehow, someway, it knows it will overwhelm itself if it gives to much information. Our brain powers down itself, and then shows us tiny images that can include several senses, even when you are fast asleep!! It's all so amazing when you start to think about it!
this reminds me of a quote(I dont remember the one who coined it sadly) that simply says: "Just because we understand how it works, doesn't be it stops being magic". it was paired with the example of a motherboard, thats its a series of crystals and metals that we fire lightning through to control other various bits of metals and lights
ITo me that quote is just conflating "magic" with a "sense of wonder" or worse, "ignorance". Magic _doesn't_ have a consistent naturalistic explanation, we _don't_ know how it works, if we did it'd be science. Lightning, crystals, metals (insofar as they're not crystals - most metallic elements are, in fact crystalline structure is one of _the_ defining characteristics of a metal), semiconductors and how they interact etc. _do_ have a consistent naturalistic explanation (now at least - if your contention is that motherboards would _at one time_ have been categorised as magic then fair enough). Sometimes when we label something differently it's just a new name but _sometimes_ it means we actually understand that thing differently, that it's now in a genuinely different category. Magic and science aren't the same category in any meaningful sense.
@@anonymes2884i diagree with that. Tie'ing magic to be something without rules, is just as shallow as tie'ing it to be a sense of wonder. Atleast to me.
My favorite "magic systems" are ones which aren't the author's Word Of God explanation to the reader, but exist within the setting itself as its' inhabitants attempt to explain and categorize supernatural forces, even ones they interact with regularly, but they're still ultimately dealing with something that is, by definition, inexplicable. Settings whose inhabitants try to turn magic into a science, like we would, but results may be mixed.
Yes it feels like hard magic should cover what can be understood and used by man, but magic as a whole is about tapping into something much much deeper, and the further you go the softer the magic becomes. Imagine a school of wizards who study magic but have whole categories of forbidden and dark powers they refuse to study for the dangers involved, they only really know the surface level of magic, but to them it seems like they understand how it works.
@@dumbguy1007 I mean, we have the same thing with science in reality too. Where much of the body of science has been rendered hard science, but go deep enough and you'll still hit soft science/soft magic. We've categorized gravity, and yet can't quite explain it. Two different models of the universe, for really big things and really small things (but we don't know how to model both at the same time). We know black holes break all our models, and can't really study them, but theoretical scientists bash their heads against it anyways. Just because the "system" is plausible and internally consistent, doesn't mean the people in that world should inexplicably have solved the system entirely after all.
This might be a bit of a weird one to mention, but I feel like SCP is a good example of this? Despite extensive attempts to categorize things, in the end what remains is magic and there's always something new that can happen. A big part of that is SCP's decentralized nature. It helps capture the magic this video means, because different writers see the world in different ways.
I don't personally tie magic to that unknown factor Maybe it's cause I've always had that hunger to understand things, but magic, I think, is all around us, known and unknown. I'm a carbon based, meat crafted, electronically controlled, sentient creature, using a little black box to listen to someone on the other side of the world, whos voice is locked in time for me to repeat as often as I want. I can keep going, but theres so much magic in that to me. Being understandable and theoretically knowable, doesnt take any magic away from the world for me
Same, honestly I'm always baffled by magic systems where practitioners actively have no idea how their magic works, like even if the magic is actively fueled by belief or wonder or whatever and thus the rules are whatever the user thinks they are, it seems kind of unbelievable to me that *nobody* tries to study that mechanism and figure out what makes it tick or how to exploit it or whatever. It especially bothers me when there are somehow schools where people get degrees in magic but somehow nobody knows how it works or is even trying to figure it out. Like, obviously at minimum there should be some system of pedagogy that reliably results in people learning to wield magic, and obviously if years of formal education is required at all there MUST be more to it than simply "if you believe it will work then it will". It just seems inherently contradictory to me that there there can be no hard and fast rules, reliant purely on belief, and yet practitioners aren't simply omnipotent, because a belief fueled magic that can do *anything* should quickly devolve into "I can do anything and therefore am now a god". If there are limitations, then there are rules, if there are rules , then they can be studied, if they can be studied then somebody will study them, and if somebody has studied the rules, then somebody should have some idea of how things work. If a thing exists it should not be unknowable or undefinable. Maybe the characters the story focuses on don't know how it works, maybe nobody has figured it out YET, but the idea that nobody CAN figure it out, that nobody CAN know it is frankly ridiculous to me.
Theres horses with 20 foot long necks and massive beasts in the sea that can sing. The rocks are eaten by a being that does not even register as being "alive" to most people. Trees whisper to each other, mushrooms live in bloodstreams, and theres tiny natural assassins that have such fast reaction times youd be forgiven for thinking they could see the future. We have giant metal beasts that can navigate land, sea, and sky. We have created buildings so tall their own weight crushes the very ground below them, and cities slowly sinking and being reclaimed by the seas. Ancient ruins litter the earth from past empires, some of which have goods so rare, precious, and sought after that treasure hunters and ruling bodies alike kill for them. We have rocks that give false life to other rocks that we have tricked into thinking and have started to think at such speeds and quantities our society is anxious about its very survival against these golems. We have harnessed the power of the sun and stars to completely vaporize cities, and liquids you can breathe. Magic is all around us. Though i know that the lichen on the concrete wall is slowly destroying said wall, it does not change the fact that it is amazing that such a thing exists and would sound impossible to the uninitiated.
That's what you think you know. That was brought up in the video. You only think you understand what you are when you don't but accept that knowledge and never want to update it.
the thing for me, is that I feel wonders and awe in things i've come to understand. a bunny shows up from the hat? it's cool, but knowing the the precise sleight of hands, and misdirection of the magician, to allow the public to believe, is for me enthralling than just the trick itself. in a metaphor: I cannot truly appreciate the fancy exterior of a machine, if I do not know the intricate system inside. the known can be far more "magical" than the unknown, who can feel... very shallow. which I've come to understand is a strange view, since this video, and many peoples i've heard so far, tend to feel the opposite.
This is exactly my view, so we're at least not alone. The stars in the sky are, to me, more magical knowing that the night sky is filled with the lights of a trillion trillion suns and that someone else may be staring out at the stars on the far side of the universe at the same time, and in that moment, we are connected in a way that is far more wondrous than any old story or what not.
The more I understand the complexity of something the more I love it. I'm amazed how someone actually came up with this system in the first place and how it actually works.
Just because we aren't given an explanation for the magic in Lord of the Rings doesn't mean there isn't one. Presumably Gandalf knows how Gandalf's magic works, but he isn't a viewpoint character so all we get is 'he's a wizard, wizards can do stuff like that.'
This. I think the point of the video was that a lot of authors get caught up in over-explaining their magic systems, and losing the actual "magic" of it, but it kinda came across differently. There are many ways to portray magic in a way that can feel "magical" without necessarily having no rules... you have to step into your characters' shoes. How magical is it to them? What do they know about how it works? Are they a master alchemist as well, or are they a peasant whose knowledge of alchemists is some vague rumors that they can turn lead into gold? Is the master alchemist they meet going to spend time exposing all of the secrets of alchemy (assuming the peasant is even capable of understanding it in one sitting), or are they too busy with the plot? All of these questions and more help to identify its place in the story and how "magical" vs how "scientific" it will feel
10:40 you're talking about faith here more than magic. Which i guess goes into magic as a metaphor. If we explain the magic, we find we've lost something, the same way we feel once we stop believing in our gods.
Personally I love magic systems with one or two simple rules that allow for variations in how it's used. Alchemy in Fullmetal alchemist for example, the basic law of equivalent exchange dominates how alchemy works yet each individual alchemist uses it in a different, unique way.
Two thoughts I had while watching this video: 1. I think that you can expand Sanderson's laws a little bit if you think of it being about establishing what magic systems can do rather than explaining how they work (it doesn't cover what you talk about in this video, but I think it overcomes some of the frustrations a lot of people have with Sanderson's laws). The One Ring is a great example of this, we don't know how or why it makes you invisible, just that it does, and that is then sufficient for it to be used as a problem-solving tool later in the story (if you are following Sanderson's laws). 2. More pertinently to the video itself, I think that how magic works (or doesn't work) heavily effects the theme of a story. Where more systematised magic allows for a variety of themes (especially if magic is being used as an allegory for science or power), the more mysterious wondrous magic that is spoken of in the video fundamentally makes the theme much more about the power of faith or belief (notably less popular themes in modern stories). A deus ex machina, whether magical or not, is fine in a story about faith. But if you don't want to tell a story about faith or belief then magic of this kind can be detrimental. I think the core of this is just that most authors / writers nowadays don't want to tell stories of faith or belief. And while personally that fits with my taste, I can see that it is disappointing to those that need that kind of story in their lives.
The old Canon of starwars dealt with an interesting distinction between "paranormal powers" and "Magic". Luke would often make the distinction between The Force and Magic all the time, and it would come up a lot when dealing with the Dathomiri. The Witches of Dathomir would use the Force with extra bits, and call it magic, but Luke would explain that you can do those exact things through use of the force without incantation of spells or strange rituals. The Sorcerers of Tund also knowingly wrapped themselves with the trappings of magic and wizardry as a front to disguise their practice of the force, and to keep superstitious people away from them. Magic also got thrown around when something happened or someone did something that didn't seem to be natural or from the Force, and there was a little bit of debate on whether some people were just using the force or if it was something different. Some people Trained by the Aang-tii could make things appear from nowhere even when they were not force sensitive, and a lot of Jedi just admitted "we don't know what that is." Magic can exist in all its mysteries even when there is a magic system.
Thank you for bringing us along for your curious engagement with this topic. It was beautiful and profound. I'm going to be sending this to many friends. It's been such a joy to watch this channel and community grow from when I joined when you were at 30k-ish subscribers. You deserve the success you're experiencing. You've put in the hard work you get here. And, thanks to you, I always find some inspiration to keep making stuff up.
Just want to say, despite of what you see at 13:00, don't look at the sun with a telescope... unless you want to wear a cool eyepatch for tor the rest of your life;)
Magic systems, in my opinion, make more sense than unexplained magic, for the simple reason that it is in human nature to find the order and structure in the world around us. In medieval Japan, they actually had full-on magic academies with state-sanctioned wizards whose whole job was to study what they perceived to be magic and do a bunch of jobs relating to sorcery and spirits and blessing the lands. Magic systems can still be wondrous, especially when the emphasis is on discovery and learning. Brandon Sanderson does this really well with his magic systems, especially in Stormlight Archive and Mistborn, because those stories often put a big emphasis on discovering how the magic works and learning what new things can be done with their magic.
I like the approach of magic being fundamentally so incomprehensible that it's really hard to FIND any structure beyond "this thing seems to result in Fireball, but I have no idea how or why" or "this works like X because [contrived philosophical BS explanation that is probably wrong]" It's enough poking around and explaining stuff to satiate human nature but at the same time unexplained enough to feel like magic.
@@blazeswordpaladin9357 I love astronomy precisely because of those parts in physics where the scientists go "we have no clue how or why this works". It's real life magic.
Norse has a magic system from different magic from rune, speaks, sight, magic items users, and shape-shifting magic and the study of them in the ancient pasts. Charm magic, ingredients casting, and burning magic in the west in Wiccan magic The whole mystery and unknown magic are pretty modern
another name for suspending disbelief is to hold a thought in abeyance, which means to evaluate the idea without immediately rushing to decide its truth value. it applies more to real life than fiction, but it's essentially equivalent. i've learned to do this, because, frankly, i don't like to be wrong, but i had to recognize first i felt this pressure to decide. well, it doesn't best aid understanding to give in to the urge without adequate consideration
Hmm, not convinced they're equivalent. Suspension of disbelief _mostly_ isn't conscious IMO, we're not _refraining_ from "immediately rushing to decide its truth value", instead we're more assuming fiction _is_ "true" in a particular limited sense _unless_ given a reason not to - suspension of disbelief is more broken than built. I've never, for instance, met anyone that had to _learn_ to suspend disbelief in fiction in the way that you describe learning to not rush to judgement (what some might call an aspect of "wisdom"), which I agree BTW, _isn't_ a first impulse for most of us and _does_ take conscious awareness (not saying you therefore can't experience fiction that way incidentally, if you do you do, you'd just be the first i've come across :). (I mean, any of us _can_ of course experience fiction while constantly reminding ourselves it's not true - people do this when overwhelmed with some emotion for instance, literally remind themselves out loud that "It's just a movie", or we might do the same for our kids if they get scared etc. - but _mostly_ that's _not_ how we experience fiction by default IMO, quite the reverse if anything, that's _why_ we sometimes have to remind ourselves)
"i don't like to be wrong" Then you do not learn. You are shielding your ego to be comfortable instead of realising having an ego is pointless. If you are never wrong, then you are never growing. Failure is the path to success.
@@WaterZer0 excellent point. that is something i've ;earned over the years, eventually, but it's not productive to lie either. i can resolve to not let my feelings get in the way, but repressing them doesn't adequately address the underlying tendency. i don't like being wrong. do you? but i believe what's worse, is as you point out, letting your ego trick you into staying wrong instead of learning. thanks for your comment
The way that I love listening to them talk, it does not matter if I am actually hearing or if it's just in the background. I am in love with just listening.
Working on the rough draft for my first book. I’ve read a few grimoires and have been trying to incorporate some of the ritualism along with fantasy magic. This channel along with other content creators has really inspired me.
When it comes to actual magic, a good rule of thumb is "if there's not a reason or explanation to why you're doing something, it's not magic". Pretty much 100% of the things done in the occult surrounding magic and other topics are done for very specific reasons. Rituals are one of those things.
I like Jim Butcher's take on magic. There is an explanation on how things generally work, but no deep detail. In the end magic simply is. The explanation of how things work is a way to keep readers from asking, "Why doesn't he just 'magic' away the problem?". By having a generalized 'system' it shows that magic has it's limits, even if just within the skills of the user.
Hard magic systems and soft magic are just different tools for the author and their enjoyment just comes from the taste of a reader and their use. It's like debating whether horror movies are better or worse than comedy movies.
On a related note: There's a whole wing of comedy movies that would be classed as horror or thriller if the folks in the movie reacted like normal humans. Most rom-coms, for example, are stalker movies.
the big thing to understand in the divide between soft and hard magic is that the difference isn't magic systems with rigid rules and those that don't, it's a difference in whether the rules are narrative or in-universe, because if you just say "it happens" with no narrative reason, that's not gonna keep people's attention, there's gotta be a reason, some justification, it's just a question of did it feel like the moment had the right energy, or did the right circumstances align to make it happen in the scene
The first mistake you made was bringing up "hard and soft" magic. This dictinomy doesn't exists outside of Sanderson's writing. You can't cathegorise magic in literature like that.
I think this view of magic is similar too how many people view horror. There are different types of horror, but an effective form of horror is the unknown. By not knowing what is out there the mind conjures up something scary on it's own, and tends to be more effective on it's own. By seeing only glimpses of the unknown your mind fills in the blanks, and that tends to be more scary than what it actually is. it's why filmmarkers and autors go out of there keep stuff vague for monsters, since knowing what it is can diminish the impact. Magic is similar, the more magic is shown in a world, the less special it becomes. magic also relies on the mind to fill in blanks, believe and stuff. rituals, sprituality and belief become less special the more it is explained. Granted both of these principles are part taste and personal viewpoint, and seeing the monster doesn't nessesary reduce the impact for some people, in fact that image of the monster can stick with them if made well and knowing a certain fact can increase the horror. many people who affraid of spiders don't feel safer by seeing the spider, for some people it makes the fear worse. i think the same can be said for magic systems. having rules for magic in a world and making something feel magical at the same time is difficult, but I don't think they are completely mutually exclusive. on example is how you described magic as metaphor, you can understand how something works and make it still feel magical. I think that there isn't a "right" way to write a magic system, And you can enjoy different styles of magic systems.
I'd say there are two main types of fear: Fear of the unknown and fear of the known. For some the former hits harder, for others, like myself, the latter will hit closer to home.
Yeah, I mean, the whole time I was watching I was basically like, "you're describing eldritch horror, or Christian fantasy". Like, go read that instead of trying to tell everyone that an extremely popular genre of fiction is "doing it wrong". I'm not into hard or even semi-firm magic systems myself, I couldn't help but feel like this video was dragging the idea pretty condescendingly through the mud. There is no wrong for fantasy. It's whatever the author wants it to be for whatever reason they choose, be it mass appeal or personal creativity. Maybe it's good to try out different kinds of approaches to magic before settling, but maybe you just know what you want and like, and ultimately all that matters is the author's focus, and by trying to say there should only be one kind of focus, or that one kind of magic is lacking in the genre when it's not... it makes the video sound very subjective, poorly thought out, and kind of ill-informed. For one thing, the video completely ignores that world-building, which usually includes a magic-system, is extremely popular in fantasy and a reason why readers are drawn to a work in the first place, so it really seems pretty dismissive or even insulting to say everyone who likes that is just kind of...wrong? Like, the entire book-ended premise of the video is that one hypothetical reader, or the creator of the video themselves, is dissatisfied and continues on in a very egocentric way with the assumption that because they're dissatisfied EVERYONE ELSE must be too. But that isn't true, and thus it's a very flimsy foundation for an argument being presented as objectively true about a subject that is 1000% subjective.
For me that moment of wonder acts as fuel to understand, to learn, if there is no depth to explore behind the mystery, I get bored since my interest isn't fueled by wonder but rather through learning and analyzing, if I don't get to learn about it, or at least get the sense that one *could* learn about it if they spent time in that world, then I will quickly lose interest and the magic will stop feeling wonderful or even believable and it will just become a plot contrivance in my head, stuff only happens because the author says so, not because that's how things work in that world. It makes the world fundamentally less real to me, which causes it to fail as a means of escapism, I can't suspend my disbelief for the same reason I can't put my faith in any organized religions, I need proof to believe, or at least the ability to logic my way to the conclusion that a thing is real. I don't necessarily need the rules of the magic system explained to me, I don't even need the *author* to know the rules, I just need to be able to see that there *are* rules and that it is possible for the people in the story to figure them out, even if they might be generations away from doing so. Anything less is just nonsensical and boring to me.
THIS VIDEO IS JITERALLY JUST WHAT I NEEDED!!! OMG ALWAYS ON POINT!!!!!! I'm working on my own story where I'm creating a 2 type power system. a natural power system similar to the fore from star wars or Avater where user's can control the natural elements around them and another power system that's more un-natural "magic" and allows users reality bending abilities. IDK if IU should keep that power system or just combined them under one umbrella term so hopefully this video will help clear my head a bit. EDIT: Yup, it curtaily did help a lot! THX TF💛
As someone who practices witchcraft and also writes fantasy, I have this opinion: "magic as plot device" *is* "magic as practice." You call vodou Gris Gris "magic" because you don't know or understand the mechanisms behind it. But the Houngan who made it has very specific ideas of what ingredients go in the bag, which Lwa to call upon to give it power, etc. A tarot reading may feel like magic to you because a skilled reader can intuit things they "shouldn't" know. But readers train in their art, they understand their tools, what each card means, by itself, in relation to the spread as a whole, and how all of it relates to their client. To put it bluntly, there are rules. Those rules differ among regions, practices, and a hundred other factors, but rules they are. To say that practitioners of magic(k) don't experiment, don't seek to gain a deeper understanding of the world and the way their practice interacts with it, is incorrect. We call what we do magic, because it can be difficult even for us to understand, harder still to explain. I understand the idea that once you attach rules and systems to a thing it "stops being magic." But I think that's a matter of perspective and education. Chemistry, herbology, these things were the realms of the Magical because only a small group of people had the knowledge to make it work. You go to a blacksmith because he's the wizard who turns those funny rocks into a sword. You go to the village witch because she knows that if you chew on willow bark, your headache goes away. Magic. That famous Arthur C Clarke quote everyone loves, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," does a lot of heavy lifting. But I think that statement doesn't go quite far enough. I extend it into "Any sufficiently misunderstood natural process is indistinguishable from magic." *You* may not understand it, any more than the medieval peasant understood that willow bark contains acetylsalicylic acid, which eases headaches by acting as a vasodilator. Hell, the witch herself probably didn't know that, but guaranteed, she or whoever taught her have experimented, tested, found the compounds that work and those that don't. That's science, but we called it magic because we, the laypeople, didn't understand it. The viking blacksmith will tell you that he burns the bones of his enemies and adds the ash to his iron to give it the strength of the slain warriors. A modern metallurgist will know that the smith is adding carbon to his iron, turning it into steel, which has a stronger crystalline structure. It was magic until enough people understood it that it became common knowledge. I think the hangup is that people associate magic with the Supernatural, things that can't exist. And if you limit your understanding of what is "natural," of course this stuff feels like magic. The supernatural, by definition, can't exist. So once something is understood, it moves from "supernatural" to "natural." The word I prefer to use to define magic isn't supernatural, but esoteric. Knowledge most people don't, can't, or won't understand. You may not understand how GrisGris works, and call it magic. The houngan doesn't think of it that way, doesn't call it that. The witch is an artisan, just like the smith or the woodworker. There's a reason we call it The Craft.
YES!! THIS!!! Every magician and witch knows what they're doing, there's rules, recipes, *rituals*, and every witch worth their salt knows WHY every element in the spell is there. What does each part signify, which energies they're drawing, which deities or spirits they're calling upon It's magick because they're not scientifically repeatable, but there's rules. There's a *system* underneath it all
writer here; thank you for your feedback! the point we were trying to make about magic as practice is that it hinges on belief. even if there are rules and processes behind it, ultimately, whether or not something is magic depends on if the individual perceives it to be.
@@accordingtosophia Then this isn't really consistent throughout the video. It would be impossible to say that this or that world, our real one or any fictitious one, is without magic ... as long as someone in the world believes in magic, which is most certainly true of our real world, and is arguably true of even the most hard-magic-systemed fiction. Even sci-fi stories have their mystics who perceive the tech as magic, so Star Trek defines a magical universe, by this standard. This doesn't seem useful, but just looks like a vaguely anti-science craving for fake mysteries instead of real ones.
Since I am someone who likes both magic systems that are internally logical and consistent (basically hard) and also magic that is more... vague and mysterious and with its own unpredictable soul... it might kinda seem counterintuitive to try and magic build something that incorporates basically both extreme ends of the hard vs soft magic system spectrum, that *also works and is enjoyable* to experience and read about,, but I think, that's kinda what can be done with still to be uncovered or not fully understood magic systems there. Especially also when magic works differently when applied at different levels of understanding, like for example fundamental magic working more internally logical and consistent as opposed to emerging magic that comes to be out of interaction and interpretation. I don't see why magic can't be both a science and an art in stories that feature them. Isn't what we do and build as humans also not both a science and an art by default?
That gave, or more reminded, me of some ideas of thinking about magic I needed to be inspired to get, thanks! I swim loosely between this and my old pattern of "magic is still just cause and effect like science so it's not so magical to me" and comments like yours help me a lot! :D
True! I almost always end up having two “systems” of magic in my stories: one as (to use the terms listed in the video) phenomenon/metaphor and one as practice. Phenomenon/metaphor is unexplainable and “wild”, and those who try to explain it or control it soon find themselves in over their heads and changed in irreversible ways. Practice is “scientific” magic, replicable by multiple people getting the same results, and following general rules- though often there are multiple forms of practiced magic, all with their own ways of interpreting and working the thing (kind of like different coding languages or stringed instruments). For me this scratches the itch of wanting something unexplainable and uncontrollable, but also allows main characters/etc to use something fantastical! The wild and the tamed, both connected yet opposing forces, replicating where I find magic in the real world; in those caught-in-between places where the old growth forest fades to tended gardens.
@Ravenhill171 no problem. if I may add a response or rather a view/lense to your cold and hard science line there? Discoveries and explanations in science don't happen in spite of wonder, but rather, they grow out of wonder for these things in the first place and, most importantly, that wonder doesn't end or necessarily lessen with the explanation and knowledge acquired around it. The knowledge of how a rose came to be or how it is built up on a fundamental level doesn't erase the beauty it holds after all.
@@cloudGremlin i like when if we follow the setting way into the future, those previously wild and unpredictable things, have been touched by the scientific method, we have come to understand how to replicate some of that, but not all of it yet, and new things we hadn't even considered have started to pop up by accident in our attempts, like in golarion (the pathfinder rpg's default setting), divine magic vs occult magic vs arcane magic, a line of outsourcing it to the gods specifically to do something we can't figure out, just doing it and believing, and it seems to work, which strengthens to belief, or when we understand it, and we've got a school of magic centered around a man who began to tap into the powers of the divine through the methods of the arcane, just not entirely, and not as consistently, because someone would study the efforts of those who went insane trying, and eventually, something would hit, heck, they may even be insane when they come out the other end, but if they glimpsed anything, they may be able to pass that insanity on, and this is the stubborn resolve that got us where we are in the real world
@@Ravenhill171 and to me, that "magic is still just cause and effect like science" is exactly what makes it so enthralling, how can someone not be enthralled by the infinitely complex web that leads to any action in our world? we've barely touched the surface of it in our own world, imagine the possibilities that changing the rules could lead to, and how infinitely more complex it could get, or heck, how much more accessible and open to human creativity it can get once the rules are simplified like they often actually are in hard magic systems, how many more possibilities are opened up that we didn't even consider until the rules were laid bare and then pushed to their limits, that is beautiful, and beyond that, when the rules aren't like physics, and they exist entirely in the narrative, they still exist, heck, the magick practices of real witches oftentimes almost sound more like narrative writing thematics for this very reason, they're essentially assuming we exist in a setting where a soft magic system exists, tied more to thematic resonance and the narrative weight of self growth and discovery, or connection with others, that's all stuff we'd explore in narrative, and that's the rules a soft magic system abides by, the rules of the narrative, "will this make a good story?"
3:59 Dr Stone (anime) did the “science as magic until it’s understood as scientific” idea very well. I found the portrayal of the island characters who had never experienced modern science suddenly experiencing and benefiting from it so fascinating!
I love nothing more in life than seeing magicians perform a magic trick and having absolutely no clue how they managed to do it. And while it can be interesting seeing people dissect a magic trick and reveal its secret, that could never match the pure joy I feel from being thoroughly tricked. I'm writing a book where the world believes there is a hard magic system and it's very mundane, but a character comes along who understands magic as something fantastical and works to reveal to everyone that there aren't any rules and that they actually live in a world of wonder. I really like the idea of presenting magic as simply anything that escapes your understanding of it. I had a teacher in high school walk into class with a blast shield one time, and dropped something into a beaker of water to make a big explosion. And while the explanation afterwards was cool, it was eclipsed by the excitement of getting to watch and hear something so extreme as that little science experiment was.
Cool idea! For me the magic tricks of magicians hold nothing special anymore because I KNOW it's not "magic" but "just" mundane skill... which in itself is awesome to have those skills and being able to do such things, don't get me wrong! But I automatically bring it into the context of my understanding of "magic" and... well, it doesn't seem that magical to me anymore. Although I always enjoy watching others be bamboozled by it! :D
I can't stand not knowing how the trick was done. It just annoys me. Probably, I'm just too cynical to enjoy a magic trick... Although, I like to perform them. It is fun to see the baffled reactions.
I think learning the trick is equally fun. It's like you have fun twice, first you are wowed by the magic trick, the best you are wowed by how they pulled it off. Imo the loss of the magic feeling isn't in whether it's explained, but in how "normalized" it is in a setting. If you can go to a big school about it, it's not really magic at that point it's just this world's science that you're calling magic (perfectly mine to do so btw, you don't have to force it to have a weird name if it doesn't fit), but say a witch living in a hut in the woods asking you to collect frog split and firefly wings to make you an invincibility potion, that's still magical imo despite knowing that the recipe contains frog spit and firefly wings, because it's not systematized or normal, it's just a random witch in the middle of the woods being shady. And there's obviously some nuance there with how much each individual thing in a story is or isn't explained that might make different parts more or less magical, another comment mention avatar, in that setting by my criteria I wouldn't call bending magic but I would call spirits magic, for example.
@@mayorathfoglaltvolt I agree with you on performing magic tricks yourself. I do a ridiculously simple card trick where I take 2 cards from the top of a deck, but make it look like just 1 by grabbing them together. Show the audience, and place them back on top. Then I move the top card to the bottom, which leaves the card they saw still sitting on top. Make up some hogwash about moving their card up through the deck, and voila, their card is revealed to be back on top. Super simple, but I still get to see a lot of different funny looks from people. It's always a joy, but I usually tell people how to perform the trick if they ask me to spoil it for them because I know for some people, there is no magic in not knowing, just frustration.
@@spyro2002 I think it's exciting to learn the how of a trick when I know it's within the realm of possibility for me to perform later on myself. Because then I can have fun using it on others. When the level of skill required to perform the trick is completely outside of what I can reasonably expect to do, then I prefer to leave the magic trick a mystery so I can dwell on trying to figure it out myself. Problem is that I won't know what category a trick fits into until I've had it spoiled, so generally I only ever seek out instructions on card tricks since I can actually perform a fair bit of those.
I know the point of the video isn't really about the comparison between hard and soft magic system, but I do appreciate you pointing out that the more well-defined a magic system is, the less magical it feels. It's something I've felt for a long time. So many people seem to be of the opinion that hard magic systems are inherently better, and that soft magic systems are sloppy writing. But once a magic system gets too hard it just... stops feeling like magic for me. Magic needs to be at least a little undefined, a little surprising. The Otherverse, the setting of Pact and Pale by Wildbow, probably has my favorite magic. As he himself described it once: it isn't one a magic system, it's a hundred of magic systems interacting with each other. Yes, there are some general rules, but they're mostly vague and flexible. Subjectivity is an important part of it, there are literal entities that can make the call on how any given magic works, and those entities can have biases, blindspots, be susceptible to bribery, or be vulnerable enough to be supplanted. You can argue about the rules, make your case about how things should work. There are ways to cheat the systems. There is the possibility of changing the rules of those systems entirely. It paints such a fascinating picture that makes it clear that in theory anything is possible, but almost nothing is easy, and anything can get more complex the more you dive into it.
I agree with the sentiment that the greater the explanation and stricter the rule sets to magic, the less interesting it is to me. It begins to resemble mathematics, mechanics, or chemistry. Similarly, I get annoyed with ingredient-based systems for spells. Can you imagine a battle wizard needing to carry vials, herbs, and powders into a fight? They'd be lugging more bags and carts than a mother of triplets. 😅
I like the topics you bring up. Magic for me is something that encourages you to feel wonder and awe. Charms captivate, spells command, potions affect, so on and so forth. It’s something that you make for yourself. It’s almost emergent in a way
I have had an almost inverse issue with science fiction for about a decade. I realized that some of what we call science fiction is blatantly impossible because it's been disproven (like radiation creating the Hulk or Godzilla or being able to use a slingshot, cannon, or hot air balloon to reach the moon). That stuff very much seems like pure fantasy to me now, whereas Sherlock Holmes was science fiction for forensics that has almost entirely been shown correct and adopted the world over. So when we write speculative fiction, can we really know what our genre truly is/will be in later years? How much scifi later is shown to be fantastical, and how much fantasy might later prove to be literally possible and even common?
"Usurpation is the essence of sorcery" To me this is the main appeal of a magic system. The idea through learning, practice and pure will power you can reshape the world as you wish.
So a "secondary world" could have "secondary magic", things that are actually magic to the fictional characters. I think that's common in cyberpunk fiction. Voodoo is often mentioned, rumours of gods living in cyberspace... In Shadowrun, where "magic" is basically a science, the Matrix (internet) is a place of magic.
"People don't practice magic in the real word to explain the unknown" in the same video about alchemy. People use magic to explain the unknown, it is just a different explanation from naturalist science.
Except that as alchemy was used to explain the unknown it became the naturalistic science of chemistry. Any belief that actually tries to understand the unknown arrives at naturalistic science. Sure, magic is used to "explain" the unknown, but the explanation is "a wizard did it", it doesn't in any way engage with the phenomena, if it did it would no longer be magic.
@@kamota8523 The problem with using magic to explain the unknown, is it's often wrong. Because it often started with someone just making up an explanation as a way to fake wisdom, as just a story/prank for fun, or as a scam. No matter how much magic you perform, that mercury is never going to make someone immortal if they drink it. That jar put into a horse won't produce a homunculus. Anyone can write/say that it did, doesn't mean it actually did.
@@kamota8523 I am just point the fact that in the real world exist or at least existed magic system with complex rules. Just because the crestor doesn't feel like magical this kind of stories it doesn't mean it is not magical for others, and the argument of real life use of magic that the creator puts are not really based on real life but in creator expectations. I like a lot the channel, I just disagree with the message of this video.
@@kamota8523 Do not know if this part if talking about fiction or not, "Sure, magic is used to "explain" the unknown, but the explanation is "a wizard did it", it doesn't in any way engage with the phenomena", but IRL that is just not the case, explanation is not always the focus but engaging with the phenomenon effectively is(and in cases where there is an explanation, it is bigger than that), i agree with the point that it arrives at naturalistic thinking, but not science, science is a pretty specific methodology, with many different philosophical assumptions, one of the main differences is that very few of the movements that have tried to understand the unknown have arrived at positivism, which is the belief that reality can somehow be understood and interpreted by the human mind and logic, and that is why many esoteric movements do not take the possibility of full understanding for granted.
@@nebula_Mage "...and that is why many esoteric movements do not take the possibility of full understanding for granted." Neither does science though, it just acts _as if_ full understanding is possible _until_ we know otherwise. Which makes sense I think, given the alternative is to just stop _trying_ to achieve full understanding. Obviously we're aware it may be beyond us though (either because _we_ aren't up to it, with our 1.5 ish kg of stone-age mush, _or_ because there genuinely _is_ more to reality than the material and it's beyond the reach of the scientific method). On one level it'll actually be more surprising if it isn't. (it sometimes seems to me like people on the outside believe no one in science is aware of philosophical considerations, underlying metaphysical assumptions etc. but that's not true - we just acknowledge that we've made those assumptions and then get on with it because otherwise, you're doing philosophy, not science)
When you were talking about stuff "getting out of the realm of magic and entering the realm of science" as mystical things get studied, i thought of something while all the magic in a fantasy world is a wonderous thing to most of the people in the land, the "Wizard" looks to me like someone who understands the Magic System, givin him the ability to use it, just like a scientist knows the rules of nature and can manipulate them in certain ocasions with that in mind, i think that while it is important to not lose the mystical and wonder of magic, it's also important for the writer to know the rules and his own Magic System, so that he can write about it, and to me it's just a matter of presentation, on how the writer presents the magic to the writer a Wizard or magic user of any kind is someone in the world who understands the Magic, at least a part of it, and to me it means he's someone who know about the system, just as the writer does, and i think that's wonderous!
In one of my favorite webcomics, Freefall, an engineer named Florence gave her own reply to Clarke's statement on technology and magic. "Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who don't understand it."
That's similar to a joke about UFOs had seen in a livestream a couple times: "Anything is an Unidentified Flying Object if you're bad enough at identifying things."
Dude, I’ve been spending the last three days and nights muddling over what a possible magic system using runes’ could be. Falling into the exact trap of trying to make everything logically work. What I really wanna do with my magic system is created a sense of mystery and awe. Here I am struggling to reconcile logic and belief. And then this video drops right when I’m about to go to bed. Now that’s magical 😊.
Calling it by a different name doesn't change it. Either way it's a force within the story that has a strict set of defined rules and is from our perspective supernatural.
@@ScadrianGhostblood supernatural by our standards. This whole video just explained that if a world considers considers something like the one ring as fact, then it's not magic, just a power. Thus 'power system' is a valid classification. If anything, what's called a soft magic system is, in a way, a true magic system since at least it remains mysterious, therefore it remains 'magical.'
@@Dan-neil thanks that you pointed that out and I could edit my comment. We experience the story from our perspective so the word "magic" should be valid to describe a part of a written work since to us it is supernatural.
My favorite stories often use the dichotomy of hard and soft magic in the same story to set up major reveals and paradigm shifts. Best example in my mind is Avatar. The show goes out of its way to set up the rule that earth benders can't bend metal only so that Toph can break the rule in a pivotal moment. I love when soft magic invades a hard magic system (if it's well executed). The hard magic convinces the audience they can anticipate the outcome, so you set the villains up to win by the rules. Then the eucatastrophe: the rules suddenly change.
“Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch it to be sure. “
To be fair, touching paint to test the claim that paint is wet is far easier than doing calculus to test the claim about stars 😅 almost anyone can touch a wall, almost no one knows how to do calculus. So we're just forced to take their word for it 🤷
@@dyegoeduardosantossilva3659 the point is that people will believe extraordinary claims, but won't believe simple ones. My comment addresses the reasons for this behavior, not the point. Nice try tho...you get an A for effort 👏🏻
@@ramondejesus65 Which is more magical: the quote, or the explanation? When one explains magic, it loses it. (This is a perfect example of the video’s explanation.)
There's an addendum to Clarke's rule: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science. A strong magic system turns magic into a science, which is what any society will eventually do to magic if possible.
The only difference between strong and soft magic systems is point of view. Take Lord of the Rings for example: From Frodo's point of view, the magic system is soft. He and Sam collect a series of "magic items that help him on his quest. A dagger that is incredibly sharp and glows blue near orcs, cloaks that make them hard to see and a rope that unties itself on command. But from Legolas' point of view, those are just masterfully crafted tools. He probably can't make them himself, but he has a good idea of how they are made. Since Frodo and the other Hobbits are the point of view characters for most of the book, Lord of the Rings has a soft magic system.
My two personal favorite magic systems are the ones from Owl House and Avatar. Just the right amount of complexity while still simple enough to figure out and get a hang of
the owl house’s magic system is delightful in that it feels like something *you* as the viewer could figure out if you set your mind to it. the concept of a limited alphabet of glyphs which display highly complex interactions when arranged and grouped in an inherently *creative* process is just so appealing. love the show, love the characters, and love the magic system!
This video offers a contrast between magic irl and magic in books that I had never considered and appreciated hearing about. Reflecting on my own draw to fantasy books and "magic systems", the appeal for me is the ability presented to achieve more than humans can irl - the fantasy of breaking past the limitations of our *own* reality. If i were to explore the presented cases for magic and science in our own world, I am inclined to posit that magic irl plays a very similar role. The scenarios portrayed (the supernatural, the practice, and the wonder) all refer to subjective, emotional or intuitive experiences, or actions taken grounded in the nonrational (hope, faith, belief, despair). The point of science is to turn such phenomena into shared, objective, replicable, rationally understood events. If i were to engage with a magic trick in a "rational mode", I'd be focusing on rationally trying to understand the mechanism behind the trick; if i were to engage with the same kagic trick in an "emotional mode", I'd walk away with a sense of awe and wonder (the two are of course not exclusive of each other). I guess, considering all this, i would then define "magic" as "outside the rational for the individual in question." Where does that leave books? I think it depends on our frame or reference. In the example of Lord of the Rings, perhaps one reason it is not questioned that Frodo can turn invisible is because the Rings of Power are known to exist and to have great effects. The mechanism by which such effects manifest, however, are not explored and thus not understood either by Frodo or the viewer. While it is not a wondrous thing, it is nontheless outside the realm of the rational - it is magic. Something similar i think can be said about the mistborn series: yes, causality and rules are established, but these rules are still not commonplace, they are not applicable to everyone, nor is the mechanism explained. While i have not finished the trilogy, the first two books definitely left me with the feeling of supernatural wonder. I would agree that it's a less magical form of magic than in LotR, I would still consider it magical. In the case of something like Avatar the Last Airbender, however, where bending is common place and quite pervasive, I cannot think of the bending as "magic". This is further contributed to by the fact that the bending styles are grounded in martial arts and, while not explained, it is not difficult to imagine how the mechanism behind bending might work: each person has Qi energy and this is extended past the body and used to manipulate the external world based on additional factors like personality. While this world still has the same appeal to me in the sense of creating a fantasy for beyond human capability, i cannot describe it as outside the rational and thus refuse to think of it as a magic system (hearing it called that way sounds very wrong to me, and this video has finally given me the language to understand why). All in all, i really appreciate this video, offering a counter perspective to the common discourse. Thought provoking, and well made. Thank you! Edit: Thinking about this a little more, I was realizing this is also why it really bugs me when fantasy gets bundled together with scifi with the argument that both using "magic systems" just skinned differently. In the sense that for me scifi is about engaging with the system through the rational and fantasy through the mystical. For example, most super hero movies offer a science-y explanation for the origin of the power. Though I concede it's a spectrum, not a dichotomy, with some titles occupying the murky middle ground (for example, star wars doesn't really attempt to explain the Force, it's just a power ppl wield, making not only a soft system but also one more akin to fantasy magic; conversely, hard magic systems might offer an explanation for the origin of the magic, like Fullmetal Alchemist)
I agree with this so much. Hard magic is, what I like to call, fantastical physics. Still an amazing thing, still can be used in our storytelling, but is fundamentally different from soft magic (or as I call it, just Magic).
I find this oddly... comforting. It helped me click together everything I needed to cement my magic system in my own world that I'm worldbuilding. But on a much deeper level, I feel comforted with my own very scientific view of the world, and how it can coexist peacefully with the pseudoscientific side of my world, instead of being in conflict. I've been trying to reconcile this conflict since I started being aware of cause-and-effect. Thank you
An interesting middle ground between hard and soft magic I've been noticing lately is when an author creates a hard magic system in their head but never explains it in the story. So it feels magical to the reader but it can also gives you this underlying feeling of "there's some form of logic here, I just don't know what it is". And a lot of the time those authors might eventually release supplemental material that simply details their hard magic system and that can create this really cool "aha" moment, or you can choose to ignore it to preserve the magical feeling.
or with Hunter X Hunter, with the NEN power system, it has some conceptual base we're given early on, but it's ultimately pretty vague to start with, the rules are simple, but as time went on, stuff we sort of just assumed, or were saying in a less literal sense when we assumed things worked just as described. they were later revealed to be the case, we could intuit what the rules were well before they were ever put into words personally, i recommend all writers do this to some extent, define some rules for your magic system, but those rules don't need to be in universe, they can be narrative, like just how often do you want it to be an active moving piece in the story
Also this shows me your not just a creator, your an artistic. It's not about what the society grasps best, it's about what you can discover. I respect that a ton
Yeah magic should be used as a vehicle to tell a story. A series with fighting magic users benefits from explaining how the "magic" works. But for any other narrative, I find that magic is best left unexplained.
DND has the best of both worlds because I’ve recently fallen in love with Wild Magic. People infused with such deeply powerful magic that they can’t hope to control it. Theirs a small chance to do what they wanted to do but theirs a greater chance to do something wildly unexpected. From turning yourself Blue to creating a field of ravenous vines, or summoning an imp that does a funny little dance, or opening a portal to another world. You have no idea what is going to happen when you try to do even the most basic spell
@@willamschultz2169but that's less because of the magical battles and rather because of the overall feeling of whimsy. Harry Potter is more a slice of life that invites you into a realm in which you are special than anything else.
I had always enjoyed astronomy as a child, watching complex documentaries on TV that mostly went over my head. It felt magical - and honestly, it still does. There's so much we don't understand about the universe, things that are just facts of life but have no real explanation yet, and may never will. Reality is full of magic.
I've always wanted a fantasy setting where "magic systems" are different by culture. One culture might have one magic system, but a different culture might have an entirely different magic system. Some people have trouble with engaging with a different culture's system, some people have a more easy time, with no obvious determining factor. Sometimes stuff just happens for seemingly no reason. There are a lot of unknowns, even among the specific magic systems, which would, in any other fantasy setting, be pretty rigid. Give the feeling that the magic isn't bending to our will, but rather it is humouring us for motives that can never be fully understood.
Malazan has an amazing soft magic setting. There are a myriad of types of magic, yet most users still don’t know why it works, they just shape it to how they believe they can use it
@@hessijames5446 I consider the Esslemont novels part of the main series. Return of the Crimson Guard has picked up multiple plot points that Erikson introduced
Every empirical investigation into the nature of the stars began with a child looking up at the night sky with wonder in their eyes. There is no science without magic.
I've always liked this type of magic, probably because of my fondness fpr science, math, and programing. I've always felt like any magic was like nature, something beautiful and complex, but can be understood, and magic systems felt to me like a window, through which i could understand that forein world, to feel closer to it, like i'm one of the wizards trying to descipher the arcana, the rules of the magic, to see how and why it works, be one with it.
This is why I like the magic system in Mage: the Awakening. It's high magic, but it's not understood by the majority of secret orders that have been practicing it and categorizing it for thousands of years. Every order has its own theories on how magic works, conflicts within those theories, and exceptions for every rule. And to make matters worse, in that system, sometimes magic just backlashes for seemingly no reason. The more arcane knowledge a mage accrues, the more unpredictable and unstable there magic becomes.
I think a lot on creating a magic system for a table top rpg based on programming languages where each magic word costs mana and each one can be used to "program" your spell, but in order to not lose the magic factor you simply don't tell the player that this system exists or how it works and if he's interested in magic he needs to research and find out himself through gameplay, and you can change the syntax slightly for each campaign so even if he was a strong and experienced mage on the last one, everything is new again
A magic system I love is the one in the 7th Prince, it is very well established it's something that is practiced and studied, but aside from the very general ideas, it really is never explained or delved on, and with each passing chapter and arc, it is expanded in very interesting ways, all mechanics connected in subtle and direct ways. But what gets me the most about it is the core of the system and how it's used as a metaphor, the main character loves magic and to study it, but more than that, he is fascinated by the process, from the conception of a new spell to the execution, because as he puts it, magic is how humans achieve their dreams, and thus, each spell and mechanism tells a story about someone with a dream, something at the core of humanity and curiosity. There's also a vast array of unexplained magical things, from magical beasts, to demons, a whole netherworld yet to be explored, heavenly realms just visited briefly, unexplained phenomena and a deceivingly simple, but complex and living world, not to mention most characters are just amazingly constructed, it doesn't pull many punches and the fights are just amazingly jaw-dropping. I know it falls into many of the pitfalls that make some stories uninteresting and cliché, but at its core, it's a very honest story full of wonder.
The definition I use probably leans closest to magic as metaphor. Magic is that which enables characters to bend the conventional mechanics of reality. In most cases, that is the conversion of willpower to matter/energy, breaking the closed loop of the world. But it also covers the unknown if conventional understanding is unable to view the phenomena as part of a closed loop. But it can also take the form of the power of plot. The roles we play in story, the tropes and tragedies and destinies that entrench themselves in any tale. The magic is the message being told, the entire point of telling it in the first place. The magic happens because the message is true, and the message is true because the teller believes in it. And when the listener believes, the magic is passed on.
The past few years I’ve realised something for myself that generally helps me in regular life. I‘ve felt exhausted by our modern world for the longest of times, but nowadays, every now and then i just look at some piece of technology and tell myself that in another world with different physics these things could be impossible. It‘s then that i realise for myself that that is our magic system. To me practitioners of magic or alchemists, etc. in the past were that, but they were also scientists. Nowadays i feel like magic is often used as another tool to distinguish ourselves from our predecessors. Many of them might not have known about the things we know today, but a lot of them still researched into understanding it more and using it. Seeing magic that way makes the term science almost meaningless, since in that regard both means the same just differently applied. In future stories and worlds i want to build i want to take that into regard, for example in realistic modern stories that i still want to make feel magical.
I think that even if explained, it is difficult for many people to understand that magic is not the unexplained, and even if understood, explained and mapped, it continues to be magic, something still ends up beyond what can be understood or mapped, there is always a way to go deeper down the rabbit hole.
For me, magic is something that exists from a subjective perspective: A seamstress will think that what a mechanic does with a car is magic, and a mechanic will think that what a seamstress does to create a suit is magic.
7:14 I wrote a paper on this topic, specifically on Tolkien's belief in the "Secondary world." His belief is in total internal consistency of the secondary world matched my beliefs perfectly before I heard about the concept of "suspending disbelief." I believed anything that is out of place in one's model fantasy world would cause viewers of it to no longer see it as a distinct world from our real world. Like viewing a model train with a disproportionate wheel. “[The author] makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed."
this is actually pretty important. in my D&D world there is a fundamental divide between types of magic. there is "old magic" which is made up of the magic that comes from nature and raw human expression (druids and bards) and then we have "new magic" which is learned magic like the spellbooks of wizards and the machines of artificers. these class examples arent the whole story but theyre the ones that examplify my ideas
I had to write down this quote from your video twice just to work through the energy it gave me, so here it is again just to appreciate it one more time.
This applies to monsters as well. There are no monsters in real life, because the instant they are discovered, they become animals. They become so analyzed that the fear of the unknown that is a monster, becomes lost in the comfort of an animal
@@Aerinndis No semantics, just wanting to know your opinion. Mine is that those are animals so no need to fear those things when you must hunt or the price is to much to pay if you do not do it.
I find magic that feels like a science within the universe way more interesting, It makes it feel like it's actually part of the world instead of like a "because magic" blanket thrown on top of everything. The appeal to me, has absolutely nothing to do with wanting it to be more believable, it just makes it more interesting. I feel uninterested in the magic of a world if I'm not provided with a system it's rooted in to mentally engage with. It's like "oh cool the 9000000th fireball spell" vs having a conceptual framework to explore.
This is one of the reasons I love Terry Prattchett so much. Discworld is full of magic, and some forms are explained, but others, hey, it's just magic. I still get lots of wonder, but don't feel things just happen randomly. Magic normally follows patterns, not rules.
Personally for my own worlds I like trying to have as much explanation as possible for myself, I need to fully understand how every mechanism, every being works. However, I don’t include all of this in writing or lore for DnD, as I know for other people if I described exactly how and why everything works it would no longer feel so magic, so ‘beyond’.
I loved hearing this put into words. When the Marvel Thor movies came out, they traded the magic of the stories for alien technology. Though I could see the reasoning, it rely bothered me. It's a trend I see more and more.
People often misinterpret the definition of soft and hard magic systems. Is not that hard magic systems have by definition more rules, it is about how much the audience knows about the rules and inner workings of a magic system. The author may have a limitless number of rules and conditions of their magic system, but is how much the audience knows what determines if is soft or hard magic system. The use is also a main factor, hard magic systems are more like tools the characters are going to use to solve problems and move the plot, so that is why the audience needs to know the rules. But you're right, for hard magic systems I prefer called them something else. Magic has a meaning to it that is kind of loss when it's giving reasoning and logic
i'd argue the difference is in how the rules function, one exists as rules in the setting, where as the other exists as rules in the narrative, "will this make for a good story?" is still a rule, and a rule all these systems abide by, but soft magic systems use those rules as the system, that's how the magic system works, where as the hard magic systems are designed and while they may be part of the narrative, it could exist outside of this narrative, and would work just the same
One of the fascinating things about RWBY is that they can do apparently magical things within the magic system of the story (dust, aura and semblance), but they explicitly don't see it as magic. The wonder appears when the main characters learn that there's another older magic system outside their familiar magic system, that they actually call "magic." Of course, even the second magic system has its rules created by the gods, until yet another level of pure mystery is added with the Ever After!
I feel like the primary issue also lays in all of the main characters of these stories being magic users. You can have the hardest most logical magic system in the world and if the main character doesn't know and doesn't care it can still feel otherworldly.
I think the magic of Hard Magic Systems is that you can play the game of reality bending too, you can be the wixard creating spells and using the already existing ones in creative ways.
"If you understand the difference between THE world and MY world, you understand the difference between Logos and Mythos. THE world is objective, logical, universal, factual, scientific. MY world is subjective. It's emotional. It's personal. It's perceptions, thoughts, feelings, dreams. . . THE world tells us HOW the world functions: how the sun rises, how we are born. MY world tells us WHY the sun rises. Why were we born?" - Devdutt Pattanaik
Magic for the layman versus magic for the wizard seems like an important distinction here: in real life magical practice the actual practitioners often have a complex system of semi-hard magic they believe in.
4:46 "you can read a book and learn all about electricity" oh how I wish that were true :') after spending 5 years in college to understand electricity, I think I can give you a few books to get you started, but after Griffiths and Jackson, you'll have a good foundation to really start poking at electricity. Maybe,with a few more years of study, you could join the ongoing studies of those lightning storms, cuz I don't think anyone has fully explained that lightning yet. Electricity is just magic we learned to manipulate and gave a new name to.
I have a small writing project about a world with a magic "system" that's only explained when the plot demands it. It makes the magic feels interesting and allows me to make things up on the fly
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Did i am bannished from commentary ?
sanderson is completely right, hard magic is the way to go
@@colorpg152 But than it is not magic. It is just a technology nobody really understands. Like a cell phone. I mean most users don't understand it. This is the problem, what our robot friend tries to explain.
@@shardator and i utterly disagree with him, its terrible a anthropocentric worldview and i hate it, only ignorant people love to not understand how things work, only emotional people prefer emotion over reason,
@@colorpg152 Now read your comment back slowly in its own context.
Reminder that we live in a world with rocks that emit energy that can power cities or used to create weapons that can briefly summon a star in atmosphere, leaving the area inhospitable to humans for generations afterwards from a residual curse. But we just call it all "radiation"
Yeh radiation itslef dangerous even know process but fascinate how this rock produce the power for city even form boom that energy not only destroy but also destroy land environment
And we stole the power of the sky and earth to power our electrical devices and vehicles
We also shape sand into crystals, inscribe it with glyphs using focused light so that it can do complex math for us. And we trap it in the glass rectangle that I just typed this comment on.
We also have rocks that make other rocks float and live on a planet with a massive magic rock that gives us a force field from space lasers
We grabbed rocks and metal, and made them do math.
This is sort of the reason why I like it when a setting doesn't call magic "Magic." In that world, magic is just a fact of life that can be studied and understood no different from things like chemistry or physics. Like you say, we tend to stop calling things magical when we understand how and why they work.
The classic example of this is the first episode of Avatar The Last Airbender. Sokka calls Waterbending "Magic" but only does so more to make fun of it more than anything else. And he's swiftly correcting that "it's not magic, it's waterbending" which is an ironic statement to us, where waterbending is in fact magical. But to them it's just a normal part of life so it makes perfect sense that they would think about it that way.
And as a result of how the setting is written that way, where bending is so normalized that it is a key part of many city's infrastructure and the daily life of countless people, it starts to feel normal. It no longer feels like magic, and whenever someone does a breakdown of magic systems, it almost always feels weird to talk about Avatar's bending like it's a magic system because by the time you finish the series, it stops feeling like magic.
Bending is more like a martial arts and tool for sure.
Yeah, magic is a description that is dependent on common perception. Every group's level of established reality is different. As the group and their experiences grow, their threshold changes. If magic was common, it would have a different name. That's why magic isn't a mechanical term in any of my RPG.
On that topic I can recommend the amusing MLPFiM episode "Feeling Pinkie Keen". (S1E15)
Any Magic, sufficiently understood, is indistinguishable from Science.
It really does. A big part of my brain wants to say "bending isn't magic", even though a guy shooting fire out of his hands, in any other medium, would be the definition of magical
One of Tolkien's posthumously-published writings mentions that the Elves don't have any concept of "magic" and are confused by the way other peoples of their world use that word, because for them, the enchantments and illusions they (and others) create are just a natural part of life that makes perfect sense.
It was in Lord of the Rings as well when the Hobbits visit Lothlorien.
@@schwarzerritter5724oh yeah I remember reading that
Similar to that in Starcraft Protoss have all sorts of advanced technology, but Terrans just think of them as magic because they cannot understand it even when a Protoss engineer explains the details. Even in real life there is a thing called cargo-cult, where tribal people literally worshiped planes and pilots as their gods.
@@엘제-k9u A big chunk of Protoss technology is powered by psionic abilities, so they really are magic.
@schwarzerritter5724 Psionic power is not magic, according to the official lore. For us it is a form of magic system, but for Terran it is just a new field of science.
"It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works" - Sir Terry Pratchett
It does tho??? Differently coloured flames used to be called magic, now they are just the result of excited electrons and chemical reactions
@@Sesuaki19 Yes, but what does it matter? Back in the day, they were baffled by the unexplainable mistery of magicians, nowadays, we watch Vsauce videos, and are impressed by his clever explaination, and the clever design of the universe. I love magic systems for that fact.
Agreed
@@Sesuaki19 sure, but changing the color of fire with chemicals is still dope as hell
@@YayaFeiLong Never said it isn't coloured flame are cool as fuck
17:20 Ironically, programmers were called wizards I think. At least there's installer wizards.
Technomancers
All hail the silent king @@Flesh_Wizard
As a programmer I can't confidently say that computers are magic sprinkled with a little bit of voodoo
Any sufficiently explained magic is indistinguishable from science.
Like light in the stormlight archives series that brandon sanderson writes... it basically is a science
Sufficiently❌
Explained a lot✅
Sufficient is literally not even calling it magic.
If you have magic scholars, then it’s a separate form of science, but that’s a choice you make. What you mean by “sufficiently explained” is that you want it to be studied and explained to you, the reader, as you are incapable of using your imagination. Now, while I understand we have the same point, that magic should NOT be thoroughly explained, that would mean that there’s a line that WOULD be sufficient explanation. That line would definitely be at no explanation, but still.
I prefer to think of it as science is magic and not the other way around.
@@nexus_keeperthat might be the case, but when people talk and write about “magic” systems, then they’re still calling it magic even if it’s explained so much or in a way so it isn’t actually magic. It’s just called magic because people know what to expect. But in Fullmetal alchemist the alchemy is talked about as science and as being as natural as anything that also exists in our world.
The etymology of "science" goes back to the Latin "scio", "sciens", and "scire", which simply mean "know", "knowing" and "to know".
Science is simply knowledge.
True magic can be taken as a power that can what is known and objective and change something into what you want it to be.
But even then, you need knowledge of "how" it can be done through magic. That is perhaps the true difference between "hard" and "soft" magic - soft magic can simply will whatever the user wants to happen, no prior knowledge required; hard magic requires understanding of how magic works to make it change the world in the way you want.
99% of people treat how your phone works, food showing up at the grocery store, your organs working, etc like the ring turning you invisible. Part of why the only real difference between different types of fictions in terms of realism is how familiar it is.
Its like the idea of someone going back in time and saying "I have a device that allows me to access an infinitely large library of information that I can fit in my pocket" but when someone asks you how it works, you reply "I have no idea."
@@lucas23453Ask the wizards...I mean engineers.
99% of statistics are the same as magic, that is, they are inexplicable, completely made up and 100% fictional.
@@lucas23453 Depends on how far back in time. The first "computers" were programmed using punch-cards. Can also create basic gates with water, and all the way back to the Greeks could understand that. Gears and weights could use as well to explain it to them. After use that to explain binary logic, is just a matter of knowing how each character of each "book" is produced from that. Anything can be explained one step at a time, if can find a starting point.
@@Vaeldarg that's the trick the majority of people can't explain how to make this. So, "how do we make it traveler?" "I don't know I can't teach you all, but the wizards/sages of future know and we have it" "well, traveler you like us in the end of the day"
When you staryed discussing how many fantasy stories these days try to explain everything to make the world more "believable" it reminded me of, of all things, a tumblr post that put it into words best for me.
"I dont want my fantasy to be realistic. I want it to be *convincing*." And i feel like that's a very important distinction to make.
OOH I like that, "convincing"
this also assumes that the author necessarily chooses to write for the reader, and not from personal creativity, the enforcement of the reader's wants and needs is not a requirement.
@@guymanhumanperson absolutely. But at that point, we can stop discussing anything and just do whatever
@@hugofontes5708 yeah, thats my point, this isn't a point of discussion, the authors can do whatever they want
@guymanhumanperson my point is, yes, that is correct but if you just stop there then why would any discussion or essay ever exist, such as this channel. Both are valid
Love the discussion in the video.
Just want to point out that "Magic as a Narrative" is almost entirely informed by "What do Fantasy Genre readers want to read." Brandon Sanderson makes it really clear the "rules" he has for magic systems are based off of the biases that readers have towards the narratives that they enjoy.
In many ways, Brandon Sanderson's magic systems are just another evolution to Chekov's Gun. The vast majority of people that read fantasy books want setup and delivery. They want the story to feel cohesive, not just because they're unwilling to suspend disbelief, but because fundamentally they believe in causality. Effect without cause doesn't feel good because it's just not how the world works.
Magic must become systematized in part because human brains crave causality, and the easiest way to prevent a break in a causality chain is to create rules that can't be broken. Very few people enjoy stories with Deus Ex Machina, and magic is particularly prone to that sort of mistake.
I am wondering if that really is the case. Or are we just socialized to do so? I wonder if Tolkiens fantasy feels different (it does at least to me) than most contemporary stuff, because he grew up in a time where you couldn't simply google the answer. Also, he was a Christian and I guess had a different relation to faith and believe than even a Christian alive today. 🤔 I wonder if he had therefore a different disposition to wonder and magic (and science) then we have today.
I think there's something to this, not sure it's as grand as "causality chains" etc. though.
More prosaically, people want _drama_ in their fiction, in the sense that we want _stakes_ and maybe even _peril_ and those in turn arise from _limits_ - most fiction is about overcoming or otherwise coming to terms with some limitation whether it's transcending personal flaws or defeating an adversary, we have to believe at least on some level that the characters _might_ NOT succeed or else why care ? The glaringly obvious storytelling problem with magic is, it has no natural limits (on one level that's kind of the _definition_ of magic) so a deus ex machina is an ever present threat.
Hence magic systems, which are essentially a way of _formalising_ limits, of the author entering into an _explicit_ agreement with the reader (even "soft magic" had them - Gandalf got tired, Harry Potter has to go to lessons and study etc., there was always a _cost_ to doing magic - but "hard magic" lays them all out so there's no cheating).
(have to say, for me they still often seem arbitrary, like "pretend limits", but I think all i'm doing there is effectively saying "I'm more of a sci-fi fan" in different words :)
Causality... is something I've rarely thought necessary to belief in, after all it's unscientific and worst of all things, Time-dependent.
Whose saying that the vase was going to fall and therefore it made me trip over it, and only because we experience time in a linear fashion, do we view it the other way.
Cause and Effect is not real.
@@Yarradras Tolkien's magic still had rules (more like logic). Evil can't create, only bend what's already there, and using your (spiritual) powers on the (material) world diminishes your strenght, like a sort of entropy. It's the core identity of his worldbuilding, starting from a magical land made out of song, going through a gradual decline in magic (i.e. the world going from being flat to a globe), and finally arriving at the present day. Even still, Tolkien couldn't iron all the kinks out of his lore; orcs never got a definite origin because he couldn't manage to conciliate the world's inherent philosophy with an entirely evil race.
@@YarradrasIt could be partially socialisation but it's definitely also nature, people at times crave randomness, chaos, lack of causality and the freedom it brings, more often than not when you are a child.
However as your brain matures you feel a greater need for the opposite, you want to interact with what you understand and safety that brings and chaos becomes more an obstacle. That isn't to say that you can't still let go and dream but I'd say that you want most of your day to be interacting with the known.
What's very interesting is I find the exact opposite. I PREFER the laws and definitions for magic, because they allow me to immerse myself deeper, and better appreciate the clever tricks that characters do to use those laws or their loopholes to their advantage. I think a great example is the Inheritance Cycle, where magic is quite literally just a language. Or Babel, where magic is the discrepancy in words between languages. These systems create opportunities for the reader to think "how could I, me create a use for magic in this world, how could I use magic to MY personal advantage in the situation the protagonist is in," and I LOVE that concept.
Softer magic systems always felt...wrong, like the author was just making things up with invisible rules I'm not allowed to comprehend, the force is one of the worst offenders of this, in my personal opinion, and its partly why I could never get into star wars.
I don't know, this is my personal opinion, but I LOVE IT when magic is treated like a science, like one of the pillars of our world that's just...there. Like chemistry or physics, its another part of the world that's natural, and study able.
I'm not looking for people to criticise my views, and I'm not personally criticising the opinions presented in this video, I'm just intrigued by how other people perceive magic, and magic systems. Nobody gains anything by calling others "wrong" for a non-hurtful opinion.
@jazzerdazzle5958
Thank you for sharing your views about this, you have given me a lot to think over.
Your personal opinion is valid, valuable and interesting!!
And appreciated gratefully,
Have a wonderful week and a magical month!!
Andrea and Critters. ...XxX...
Personally, the Force doesn't bother me _because_ I essentially write it off as "magic" (i'm predominantly a sci-fi fan so once I categorise something as fantasy - and agreed, Star Wars is "science fantasy", however much it might _look_ like sci-fi - I don't worry about rules as much). Well, now anyway - at age 5, when I first saw "Star Wars", I obviously didn't have an opinion about genre boundaries, I just saw cool spaceships, lightsabers etc.
I wonder if that's partly an age thing ? Hard magic systems didn't _really_ exist (certainly not to the same extent) when my tastes in fiction were forming - * cough * 70s and 80s * cough * :) - so fantasy has _always_ had that arbitrary "soft magic" element for me (frankly, that's one reason i'm predominantly a sci-fi fan so in that sense we agree :).
@anonymes2884 that’s actually a really interesting perspective. I can see how the differences in generation create differences in taste and perception regarding fantasy, thank you for the input!
This is why I enjoy the books in The Cosmere by Brandon Sanderson. There are rules for each magic system on each world that each book is set in and yet there is a universal constant in how the magic can be used. Really makes for an immersive story to me.
I also absolutely love it when magic is treated like a science. I think because I'm a scientist IRL, it just makes sense to me that there would be characters who take a scientific approach to studying magic. When a setting states that no one has ever tried make the unknown known, I find myself struggling to belief the people in that setting. No academic has ever wondered "does it do that every time?" No city planner has ever said, "how can I improve the infrastructure with this?" No king has said, "how can I defeat my enemies with this?"
If the setting tells me that they've tried and failed because the unknown is unknowable, that feels like more of a personal insult from the author. As though they are trying to imply that real-life science is a waste of time because certain things aren't just unknown, but unknowable. It gives the entire book a feeling of anti-intellectualism, which is ironic because I read in part to expand my knowledge. So, if I start feeling like a book is going "fuck you, stay dumb," I have far less of an urge to read that book.
Oooh, what I love is when the system is more integrated, commonly used not just by people but by the environment and everything in it. Ofc this isn’t necessary but I like when it changes everything, technology, economy, etc. you don’t even need to build it all, just don’t take non-magical world for granted and you can make an illusion of effects.
Mass effect fields are that. It’s used every day by ordinary people, without them ever needing to interact with it directly; it enables faster-than-light travel, microfacturing techniques, even contemporary medicine, communication, entertainment. Almost all technology in the Mass Effect universe is derived directly from, or is enabled by, mass effect fields. And at the end of the day it’s “this special rock can make things lighter or heavier”.
Please please please please please, go read the Cradle Saga (or Abidan Saga it's sometimes called) by Will Wight, if you haven't already. It is the definition of from-the-ground-to-the-heavens in terms of everything in the universe using and relying on the magic system, from weather patterns, to animals' evolutionary patterns, to the way the people migrated around the world and set up their civilizations, to how those civilizations run, and how different each civ is from one another depending on what energies were regionally more available to them and therefore which magics were more practically/efficiently useful to them. It's SO good. It's like Avatar the Last Airbender and Naruto had a brain baby, and got the Arcane team to do the imagery.
That's just "alternate science" though IMO. If it's a consistent system that governs everything in the world, that's not really magic, that's science in a reality with different rules. It becomes sci-fi that's just got the same "furniture" as fantasy (in the same sense that Star Wars - with the Force, space wizards etc. - is fantasy with the same "furniture" as sci-fi).
Not necessarily a criticism BTW, I like Star Wars plenty and i've liked "sci-fi that looks like fantasy" too (Roger Zelazny's "Lord of Light" springs to mind).
@@anonymes2884 Magic, historically, has also just been an alternate science. Witchcraft became Alchemy became Chemistry over time, and people who still practice Witchcraft can either be referred to as using Magic, or sometimes "alternative medicine" or "alternative science".
This… this video helped me a lot. I’m writing a short novel wherein the main characters engage directly with magic, and I’ve spent more time trying to explain and expand the use of magic than anything else. It never felt right. “Not knowing” makes much more sense for the story.
I'm trying to strike a middle ground with my own in-progress novel, in that some of the characters in my world actively try to make sense of the magic around them by studying it and pushing it beyond its (perceived) limitations, whereas others simply accept it for what it is, utilizing it to enhance their lives or the lives of their peers.
I'm unsure how good or effective something such as this is, but I think it strikes a fine balance between magic being a science that is studied and evolves, and magic being an everyday part of the world.
I will admit as a fellow writer too, magic is a difficult thing to bring about. As in if you leave too much out then it gets kind of deus ex machina, and if explained too much then it loses some of its wonder. Trying the middle ground is difficult. Personally, went with its rare, and only those of particular bloodlines can use it, and depending on the culture determines what it's called. Also why it doesn't hinder technological development.
As you should. Magic should be a tool, not your plot itself. As such, “select” the magic tool that works best for your story. It’s the whole reason Sanderson talks about soft magic vs hard magic. He just doesn’t go into explaining soft magic as deeply as hard magic because that would literally defeat the purpose of soft magic by definition
It's perfectly fine to use a soft magic system. It's just important to remember not to have that magic solve the big problems. It can solve little problems or give clues. The only exception is a gag story similar to one punch man or Mob psycho 100. It's given there'll be flashy powers that save the day and don't need to bw explained
Yeah, I feel like I have to know the whole theory and practice and reality of my magic system, just so it doesn't feel like my sorceror character gains new capabilites as the plot demands.
I try to remind myself periodically that trees are wonderous collections of tiny organic "machines" that collectively build themselves out of air, water, and dirt and that this is amazing and wondrous and "magical."
Yup, plants are just organic solar powered computers.
Also, remind yourself that we, ourselves, are magical!
Got a cut on your hand? Boom, it ain't even there after a little while! Because we can regrow our skin out of nothing!
Snapped your bones? Boom, healed after a little while?
We have a beating magic in our body that pumps liquid wherever it needs, and it doesn't even require a thought!
Our muscles in it of themselves remember things that the brain has forgotten!
The brain captures over 11 million things at a time, yet only shows you 40, because somehow, someway, it knows it will overwhelm itself if it gives to much information.
Our brain powers down itself, and then shows us tiny images that can include several senses, even when you are fast asleep!!
It's all so amazing when you start to think about it!
Alright Tolkien who let you out of the box again?
this reminds me of a quote(I dont remember the one who coined it sadly) that simply says: "Just because we understand how it works, doesn't be it stops being magic". it was paired with the example of a motherboard, thats its a series of crystals and metals that we fire lightning through to control other various bits of metals and lights
ITo me that quote is just conflating "magic" with a "sense of wonder" or worse, "ignorance". Magic _doesn't_ have a consistent naturalistic explanation, we _don't_ know how it works, if we did it'd be science. Lightning, crystals, metals (insofar as they're not crystals - most metallic elements are, in fact crystalline structure is one of _the_ defining characteristics of a metal), semiconductors and how they interact etc. _do_ have a consistent naturalistic explanation (now at least - if your contention is that motherboards would _at one time_ have been categorised as magic then fair enough).
Sometimes when we label something differently it's just a new name but _sometimes_ it means we actually understand that thing differently, that it's now in a genuinely different category. Magic and science aren't the same category in any meaningful sense.
@@anonymes2884i diagree with that. Tie'ing magic to be something without rules, is just as shallow as tie'ing it to be a sense of wonder. Atleast to me.
That would a quote by Sir Terry Pratchett if I’m not mistaken. A delightful and wonderful author :)
17:15 don’t worry, we programmers have no clue what the code does either sometimes.
My favorite "magic systems" are ones which aren't the author's Word Of God explanation to the reader, but exist within the setting itself as its' inhabitants attempt to explain and categorize supernatural forces, even ones they interact with regularly, but they're still ultimately dealing with something that is, by definition, inexplicable. Settings whose inhabitants try to turn magic into a science, like we would, but results may be mixed.
Yes it feels like hard magic should cover what can be understood and used by man, but magic as a whole is about tapping into something much much deeper, and the further you go the softer the magic becomes.
Imagine a school of wizards who study magic but have whole categories of forbidden and dark powers they refuse to study for the dangers involved, they only really know the surface level of magic, but to them it seems like they understand how it works.
@@dumbguy1007 I mean, we have the same thing with science in reality too.
Where much of the body of science has been rendered hard science, but go deep enough and you'll still hit soft science/soft magic. We've categorized gravity, and yet can't quite explain it. Two different models of the universe, for really big things and really small things (but we don't know how to model both at the same time). We know black holes break all our models, and can't really study them, but theoretical scientists bash their heads against it anyways.
Just because the "system" is plausible and internally consistent, doesn't mean the people in that world should inexplicably have solved the system entirely after all.
This might be a bit of a weird one to mention, but I feel like SCP is a good example of this? Despite extensive attempts to categorize things, in the end what remains is magic and there's always something new that can happen. A big part of that is SCP's decentralized nature. It helps capture the magic this video means, because different writers see the world in different ways.
I don't personally tie magic to that unknown factor
Maybe it's cause I've always had that hunger to understand things, but magic, I think, is all around us, known and unknown. I'm a carbon based, meat crafted, electronically controlled, sentient creature, using a little black box to listen to someone on the other side of the world, whos voice is locked in time for me to repeat as often as I want.
I can keep going, but theres so much magic in that to me. Being understandable and theoretically knowable, doesnt take any magic away from the world for me
Excatly.
Same, honestly I'm always baffled by magic systems where practitioners actively have no idea how their magic works, like even if the magic is actively fueled by belief or wonder or whatever and thus the rules are whatever the user thinks they are, it seems kind of unbelievable to me that *nobody* tries to study that mechanism and figure out what makes it tick or how to exploit it or whatever. It especially bothers me when there are somehow schools where people get degrees in magic but somehow nobody knows how it works or is even trying to figure it out. Like, obviously at minimum there should be some system of pedagogy that reliably results in people learning to wield magic, and obviously if years of formal education is required at all there MUST be more to it than simply "if you believe it will work then it will". It just seems inherently contradictory to me that there there can be no hard and fast rules, reliant purely on belief, and yet practitioners aren't simply omnipotent, because a belief fueled magic that can do *anything* should quickly devolve into "I can do anything and therefore am now a god". If there are limitations, then there are rules, if there are rules , then they can be studied, if they can be studied then somebody will study them, and if somebody has studied the rules, then somebody should have some idea of how things work. If a thing exists it should not be unknowable or undefinable. Maybe the characters the story focuses on don't know how it works, maybe nobody has figured it out YET, but the idea that nobody CAN figure it out, that nobody CAN know it is frankly ridiculous to me.
Theres horses with 20 foot long necks and massive beasts in the sea that can sing. The rocks are eaten by a being that does not even register as being "alive" to most people. Trees whisper to each other, mushrooms live in bloodstreams, and theres tiny natural assassins that have such fast reaction times youd be forgiven for thinking they could see the future. We have giant metal beasts that can navigate land, sea, and sky. We have created buildings so tall their own weight crushes the very ground below them, and cities slowly sinking and being reclaimed by the seas. Ancient ruins litter the earth from past empires, some of which have goods so rare, precious, and sought after that treasure hunters and ruling bodies alike kill for them. We have rocks that give false life to other rocks that we have tricked into thinking and have started to think at such speeds and quantities our society is anxious about its very survival against these golems. We have harnessed the power of the sun and stars to completely vaporize cities, and liquids you can breathe.
Magic is all around us. Though i know that the lichen on the concrete wall is slowly destroying said wall, it does not change the fact that it is amazing that such a thing exists and would sound impossible to the uninitiated.
That's what you think you know.
That was brought up in the video.
You only think you understand what you are when you don't but accept that knowledge and never want to update it.
@@RavenCloak13what is your point? I dont really uderstand what your comment says.
the thing for me, is that I feel wonders and awe in things i've come to understand.
a bunny shows up from the hat? it's cool, but knowing the the precise sleight of hands, and misdirection of the magician, to allow the public to believe, is for me enthralling than just the trick itself.
in a metaphor: I cannot truly appreciate the fancy exterior of a machine, if I do not know the intricate system inside.
the known can be far more "magical" than the unknown, who can feel... very shallow.
which I've come to understand is a strange view, since this video, and many peoples i've heard so far, tend to feel the opposite.
This is exactly my view, so we're at least not alone. The stars in the sky are, to me, more magical knowing that the night sky is filled with the lights of a trillion trillion suns and that someone else may be staring out at the stars on the far side of the universe at the same time, and in that moment, we are connected in a way that is far more wondrous than any old story or what not.
I agree, to just see something happen is cool I guess but knowing how it works is so much more interesting for me
The more I understand the complexity of something the more I love it.
I'm amazed how someone actually came up with this system in the first place and how it actually works.
Im glad someone else can understand this point of view. Its so jarring to hear other people say the opposite.
@egornick9206 no, their opinion is the same as yours. You and op have the same views.
Just because we aren't given an explanation for the magic in Lord of the Rings doesn't mean there isn't one. Presumably Gandalf knows how Gandalf's magic works, but he isn't a viewpoint character so all we get is 'he's a wizard, wizards can do stuff like that.'
This. I think the point of the video was that a lot of authors get caught up in over-explaining their magic systems, and losing the actual "magic" of it, but it kinda came across differently. There are many ways to portray magic in a way that can feel "magical" without necessarily having no rules... you have to step into your characters' shoes. How magical is it to them? What do they know about how it works? Are they a master alchemist as well, or are they a peasant whose knowledge of alchemists is some vague rumors that they can turn lead into gold? Is the master alchemist they meet going to spend time exposing all of the secrets of alchemy (assuming the peasant is even capable of understanding it in one sitting), or are they too busy with the plot? All of these questions and more help to identify its place in the story and how "magical" vs how "scientific" it will feel
10:40 you're talking about faith here more than magic. Which i guess goes into magic as a metaphor. If we explain the magic, we find we've lost something, the same way we feel once we stop believing in our gods.
Personally I love magic systems with one or two simple rules that allow for variations in how it's used. Alchemy in Fullmetal alchemist for example, the basic law of equivalent exchange dominates how alchemy works yet each individual alchemist uses it in a different, unique way.
The video essayist classifies those as science, not magic.
@@vanders626do they? How so
@@vanders626 It's not though because most of the individual techniques are esoteric and are usually a product of/drive the creator to madness
Two thoughts I had while watching this video:
1. I think that you can expand Sanderson's laws a little bit if you think of it being about establishing what magic systems can do rather than explaining how they work (it doesn't cover what you talk about in this video, but I think it overcomes some of the frustrations a lot of people have with Sanderson's laws). The One Ring is a great example of this, we don't know how or why it makes you invisible, just that it does, and that is then sufficient for it to be used as a problem-solving tool later in the story (if you are following Sanderson's laws).
2. More pertinently to the video itself, I think that how magic works (or doesn't work) heavily effects the theme of a story. Where more systematised magic allows for a variety of themes (especially if magic is being used as an allegory for science or power), the more mysterious wondrous magic that is spoken of in the video fundamentally makes the theme much more about the power of faith or belief (notably less popular themes in modern stories). A deus ex machina, whether magical or not, is fine in a story about faith. But if you don't want to tell a story about faith or belief then magic of this kind can be detrimental.
I think the core of this is just that most authors / writers nowadays don't want to tell stories of faith or belief. And while personally that fits with my taste, I can see that it is disappointing to those that need that kind of story in their lives.
The old Canon of starwars dealt with an interesting distinction between "paranormal powers" and "Magic". Luke would often make the distinction between The Force and Magic all the time, and it would come up a lot when dealing with the Dathomiri. The Witches of Dathomir would use the Force with extra bits, and call it magic, but Luke would explain that you can do those exact things through use of the force without incantation of spells or strange rituals. The Sorcerers of Tund also knowingly wrapped themselves with the trappings of magic and wizardry as a front to disguise their practice of the force, and to keep superstitious people away from them. Magic also got thrown around when something happened or someone did something that didn't seem to be natural or from the Force, and there was a little bit of debate on whether some people were just using the force or if it was something different. Some people Trained by the Aang-tii could make things appear from nowhere even when they were not force sensitive, and a lot of Jedi just admitted "we don't know what that is."
Magic can exist in all its mysteries even when there is a magic system.
Thank you for bringing us along for your curious engagement with this topic. It was beautiful and profound. I'm going to be sending this to many friends.
It's been such a joy to watch this channel and community grow from when I joined when you were at 30k-ish subscribers. You deserve the success you're experiencing. You've put in the hard work you get here. And, thanks to you, I always find some inspiration to keep making stuff up.
Just want to say, despite of what you see at 13:00, don't look at the sun with a telescope... unless you want to wear a cool eyepatch for tor the rest of your life;)
The best magic system is the one that inspires the most stories.
The owl house has a great magic system
@@Muirbrook25 And also Fullmetal Alchemist.
Often we get systems that are good however it's the characters that make us want to continue reading
As infamous as it is, there's something to be said about the sheer amount of fanfiction and fan characters for My Hero Academia
Witch hat atelier goes in there too.
Magic systems, in my opinion, make more sense than unexplained magic, for the simple reason that it is in human nature to find the order and structure in the world around us. In medieval Japan, they actually had full-on magic academies with state-sanctioned wizards whose whole job was to study what they perceived to be magic and do a bunch of jobs relating to sorcery and spirits and blessing the lands.
Magic systems can still be wondrous, especially when the emphasis is on discovery and learning. Brandon Sanderson does this really well with his magic systems, especially in Stormlight Archive and Mistborn, because those stories often put a big emphasis on discovering how the magic works and learning what new things can be done with their magic.
I like the approach of magic being fundamentally so incomprehensible that it's really hard to FIND any structure beyond "this thing seems to result in Fireball, but I have no idea how or why" or "this works like X because [contrived philosophical BS explanation that is probably wrong]"
It's enough poking around and explaining stuff to satiate human nature but at the same time unexplained enough to feel like magic.
@@blazeswordpaladin9357 I love astronomy precisely because of those parts in physics where the scientists go "we have no clue how or why this works". It's real life magic.
In the west those State and Church sanctioned wizards were called Natural Philosophers and Alchemists.
Norse has a magic system from different magic from rune, speaks, sight, magic items users, and shape-shifting magic and the study of them in the ancient pasts.
Charm magic, ingredients casting, and burning magic in the west in Wiccan magic
The whole mystery and unknown magic are pretty modern
Forms of academic magic were systematized through the centuries.
another name for suspending disbelief is to hold a thought in abeyance, which means to evaluate the idea without immediately rushing to decide its truth value. it applies more to real life than fiction, but it's essentially equivalent. i've learned to do this, because, frankly, i don't like to be wrong, but i had to recognize first i felt this pressure to decide. well, it doesn't best aid understanding to give in to the urge without adequate consideration
Hmm, not convinced they're equivalent. Suspension of disbelief _mostly_ isn't conscious IMO, we're not _refraining_ from "immediately rushing to decide its truth value", instead we're more assuming fiction _is_ "true" in a particular limited sense _unless_ given a reason not to - suspension of disbelief is more broken than built. I've never, for instance, met anyone that had to _learn_ to suspend disbelief in fiction in the way that you describe learning to not rush to judgement (what some might call an aspect of "wisdom"), which I agree BTW, _isn't_ a first impulse for most of us and _does_ take conscious awareness (not saying you therefore can't experience fiction that way incidentally, if you do you do, you'd just be the first i've come across :).
(I mean, any of us _can_ of course experience fiction while constantly reminding ourselves it's not true - people do this when overwhelmed with some emotion for instance, literally remind themselves out loud that "It's just a movie", or we might do the same for our kids if they get scared etc. - but _mostly_ that's _not_ how we experience fiction by default IMO, quite the reverse if anything, that's _why_ we sometimes have to remind ourselves)
@@anonymes2884 that's how i was viewing it, but you make some good points
"i don't like to be wrong" Then you do not learn. You are shielding your ego to be comfortable instead of realising having an ego is pointless.
If you are never wrong, then you are never growing. Failure is the path to success.
@@WaterZer0 excellent point. that is something i've ;earned over the years, eventually, but it's not productive to lie either. i can resolve to not let my feelings get in the way, but repressing them doesn't adequately address the underlying tendency. i don't like being wrong. do you? but i believe what's worse, is as you point out, letting your ego trick you into staying wrong instead of learning. thanks for your comment
The way that I love listening to them talk, it does not matter if I am actually hearing or if it's just in the background. I am in love with just listening.
Working on the rough draft for my first book. I’ve read a few grimoires and have been trying to incorporate some of the ritualism along with fantasy magic. This channel along with other content creators has really inspired me.
When it comes to actual magic, a good rule of thumb is "if there's not a reason or explanation to why you're doing something, it's not magic". Pretty much 100% of the things done in the occult surrounding magic and other topics are done for very specific reasons. Rituals are one of those things.
I like Jim Butcher's take on magic. There is an explanation on how things generally work, but no deep detail. In the end magic simply is. The explanation of how things work is a way to keep readers from asking, "Why doesn't he just 'magic' away the problem?". By having a generalized 'system' it shows that magic has it's limits, even if just within the skills of the user.
Hard magic systems and soft magic are just different tools for the author and their enjoyment just comes from the taste of a reader and their use.
It's like debating whether horror movies are better or worse than comedy movies.
Comedy is better than horror because watching a comedy movie doesn’t run the risk of giving me nightmares.
On a related note: There's a whole wing of comedy movies that would be classed as horror or thriller if the folks in the movie reacted like normal humans. Most rom-coms, for example, are stalker movies.
@@Epicmonk117there are some really bad horror movies out there that will, and vice versa
the big thing to understand in the divide between soft and hard magic is that the difference isn't magic systems with rigid rules and those that don't, it's a difference in whether the rules are narrative or in-universe, because if you just say "it happens" with no narrative reason, that's not gonna keep people's attention, there's gotta be a reason, some justification, it's just a question of did it feel like the moment had the right energy, or did the right circumstances align to make it happen in the scene
The first mistake you made was bringing up "hard and soft" magic.
This dictinomy doesn't exists outside of Sanderson's writing. You can't cathegorise magic in literature like that.
I think this view of magic is similar too how many people view horror.
There are different types of horror, but an effective form of horror is the unknown.
By not knowing what is out there the mind conjures up something scary on it's own, and tends to be more effective on it's own.
By seeing only glimpses of the unknown your mind fills in the blanks, and that tends to be more scary than what it actually is.
it's why filmmarkers and autors go out of there keep stuff vague for monsters, since knowing what it is can diminish the impact.
Magic is similar, the more magic is shown in a world, the less special it becomes.
magic also relies on the mind to fill in blanks, believe and stuff.
rituals, sprituality and belief become less special the more it is explained.
Granted both of these principles are part taste and personal viewpoint, and seeing the monster doesn't nessesary reduce the impact for some people, in fact that image of the monster can stick with them if made well and knowing a certain fact can increase the horror. many people who affraid of spiders don't feel safer by seeing the spider, for some people it makes the fear worse. i think the same can be said for magic systems. having rules for magic in a world and making something feel magical at the same time is difficult, but I don't think they are completely mutually exclusive. on example is how you described magic as metaphor, you can understand how something works and make it still feel magical.
I think that there isn't a "right" way to write a magic system, And you can enjoy different styles of magic systems.
The first rule of magic school is that you don’t talk about magic school.
I assure you, the belief doesn't fade, it just gets wrapped up in increasingly complex understandings.
I'd say there are two main types of fear: Fear of the unknown and fear of the known. For some the former hits harder, for others, like myself, the latter will hit closer to home.
Yeah, I mean, the whole time I was watching I was basically like, "you're describing eldritch horror, or Christian fantasy". Like, go read that instead of trying to tell everyone that an extremely popular genre of fiction is "doing it wrong". I'm not into hard or even semi-firm magic systems myself, I couldn't help but feel like this video was dragging the idea pretty condescendingly through the mud. There is no wrong for fantasy. It's whatever the author wants it to be for whatever reason they choose, be it mass appeal or personal creativity. Maybe it's good to try out different kinds of approaches to magic before settling, but maybe you just know what you want and like, and ultimately all that matters is the author's focus, and by trying to say there should only be one kind of focus, or that one kind of magic is lacking in the genre when it's not... it makes the video sound very subjective, poorly thought out, and kind of ill-informed.
For one thing, the video completely ignores that world-building, which usually includes a magic-system, is extremely popular in fantasy and a reason why readers are drawn to a work in the first place, so it really seems pretty dismissive or even insulting to say everyone who likes that is just kind of...wrong? Like, the entire book-ended premise of the video is that one hypothetical reader, or the creator of the video themselves, is dissatisfied and continues on in a very egocentric way with the assumption that because they're dissatisfied EVERYONE ELSE must be too. But that isn't true, and thus it's a very flimsy foundation for an argument being presented as objectively true about a subject that is 1000% subjective.
For me that moment of wonder acts as fuel to understand, to learn, if there is no depth to explore behind the mystery, I get bored since my interest isn't fueled by wonder but rather through learning and analyzing, if I don't get to learn about it, or at least get the sense that one *could* learn about it if they spent time in that world, then I will quickly lose interest and the magic will stop feeling wonderful or even believable and it will just become a plot contrivance in my head, stuff only happens because the author says so, not because that's how things work in that world. It makes the world fundamentally less real to me, which causes it to fail as a means of escapism, I can't suspend my disbelief for the same reason I can't put my faith in any organized religions, I need proof to believe, or at least the ability to logic my way to the conclusion that a thing is real. I don't necessarily need the rules of the magic system explained to me, I don't even need the *author* to know the rules, I just need to be able to see that there *are* rules and that it is possible for the people in the story to figure them out, even if they might be generations away from doing so. Anything less is just nonsensical and boring to me.
"Magic is real as long as you believe that it is."
My wondrous inner child really needed to hear that. Awesome video 👍
THIS VIDEO IS JITERALLY JUST WHAT I NEEDED!!! OMG ALWAYS ON POINT!!!!!!
I'm working on my own story where I'm creating a 2 type power system. a natural power system similar to the fore from star wars or Avater where user's can control the natural elements around them and another power system that's more un-natural "magic" and allows users reality bending abilities. IDK if IU should keep that power system or just combined them under one umbrella term so hopefully this video will help clear my head a bit.
EDIT: Yup, it curtaily did help a lot! THX TF💛
As someone who practices witchcraft and also writes fantasy, I have this opinion: "magic as plot device" *is* "magic as practice." You call vodou Gris Gris "magic" because you don't know or understand the mechanisms behind it. But the Houngan who made it has very specific ideas of what ingredients go in the bag, which Lwa to call upon to give it power, etc. A tarot reading may feel like magic to you because a skilled reader can intuit things they "shouldn't" know. But readers train in their art, they understand their tools, what each card means, by itself, in relation to the spread as a whole, and how all of it relates to their client. To put it bluntly, there are rules. Those rules differ among regions, practices, and a hundred other factors, but rules they are. To say that practitioners of magic(k) don't experiment, don't seek to gain a deeper understanding of the world and the way their practice interacts with it, is incorrect. We call what we do magic, because it can be difficult even for us to understand, harder still to explain.
I understand the idea that once you attach rules and systems to a thing it "stops being magic." But I think that's a matter of perspective and education. Chemistry, herbology, these things were the realms of the Magical because only a small group of people had the knowledge to make it work. You go to a blacksmith because he's the wizard who turns those funny rocks into a sword. You go to the village witch because she knows that if you chew on willow bark, your headache goes away. Magic. That famous Arthur C Clarke quote everyone loves, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," does a lot of heavy lifting. But I think that statement doesn't go quite far enough. I extend it into "Any sufficiently misunderstood natural process is indistinguishable from magic."
*You* may not understand it, any more than the medieval peasant understood that willow bark contains acetylsalicylic acid, which eases headaches by acting as a vasodilator. Hell, the witch herself probably didn't know that, but guaranteed, she or whoever taught her have experimented, tested, found the compounds that work and those that don't. That's science, but we called it magic because we, the laypeople, didn't understand it. The viking blacksmith will tell you that he burns the bones of his enemies and adds the ash to his iron to give it the strength of the slain warriors. A modern metallurgist will know that the smith is adding carbon to his iron, turning it into steel, which has a stronger crystalline structure. It was magic until enough people understood it that it became common knowledge.
I think the hangup is that people associate magic with the Supernatural, things that can't exist. And if you limit your understanding of what is "natural," of course this stuff feels like magic. The supernatural, by definition, can't exist. So once something is understood, it moves from "supernatural" to "natural." The word I prefer to use to define magic isn't supernatural, but esoteric. Knowledge most people don't, can't, or won't understand. You may not understand how GrisGris works, and call it magic. The houngan doesn't think of it that way, doesn't call it that. The witch is an artisan, just like the smith or the woodworker. There's a reason we call it The Craft.
That is a good point
YES!! THIS!!!
Every magician and witch knows what they're doing, there's rules, recipes, *rituals*, and every witch worth their salt knows WHY every element in the spell is there. What does each part signify, which energies they're drawing, which deities or spirits they're calling upon
It's magick because they're not scientifically repeatable, but there's rules. There's a *system* underneath it all
You said what i've been trying to say with far better words and eloquence :)
writer here; thank you for your feedback! the point we were trying to make about magic as practice is that it hinges on belief. even if there are rules and processes behind it, ultimately, whether or not something is magic depends on if the individual perceives it to be.
@@accordingtosophia Then this isn't really consistent throughout the video. It would be impossible to say that this or that world, our real one or any fictitious one, is without magic ... as long as someone in the world believes in magic, which is most certainly true of our real world, and is arguably true of even the most hard-magic-systemed fiction. Even sci-fi stories have their mystics who perceive the tech as magic, so Star Trek defines a magical universe, by this standard. This doesn't seem useful, but just looks like a vaguely anti-science craving for fake mysteries instead of real ones.
Since I am someone who likes both magic systems that are internally logical and consistent (basically hard) and also magic that is more... vague and mysterious and with its own unpredictable soul...
it might kinda seem counterintuitive to try and magic build something that incorporates basically both extreme ends of the hard vs soft magic system spectrum, that *also works and is enjoyable* to experience and read about,, but I think, that's kinda what can be done with still to be uncovered or not fully understood magic systems there. Especially also when magic works differently when applied at different levels of understanding, like for example fundamental magic working more internally logical and consistent as opposed to emerging magic that comes to be out of interaction and interpretation.
I don't see why magic can't be both a science and an art in stories that feature them. Isn't what we do and build as humans also not both a science and an art by default?
That gave, or more reminded, me of some ideas of thinking about magic I needed to be inspired to get, thanks! I swim loosely between this and my old pattern of "magic is still just cause and effect like science so it's not so magical to me" and comments like yours help me a lot! :D
True! I almost always end up having two “systems” of magic in my stories: one as (to use the terms listed in the video) phenomenon/metaphor and one as practice. Phenomenon/metaphor is unexplainable and “wild”, and those who try to explain it or control it soon find themselves in over their heads and changed in irreversible ways. Practice is “scientific” magic, replicable by multiple people getting the same results, and following general rules- though often there are multiple forms of practiced magic, all with their own ways of interpreting and working the thing (kind of like different coding languages or stringed instruments).
For me this scratches the itch of wanting something unexplainable and uncontrollable, but also allows main characters/etc to use something fantastical! The wild and the tamed, both connected yet opposing forces, replicating where I find magic in the real world; in those caught-in-between places where the old growth forest fades to tended gardens.
@Ravenhill171 no problem. if I may add a response or rather a view/lense to your cold and hard science line there?
Discoveries and explanations in science don't happen in spite of wonder, but rather, they grow out of wonder for these things in the first place and, most importantly, that wonder doesn't end or necessarily lessen with the explanation and knowledge acquired around it. The knowledge of how a rose came to be or how it is built up on a fundamental level doesn't erase the beauty it holds after all.
@@cloudGremlin i like when if we follow the setting way into the future, those previously wild and unpredictable things, have been touched by the scientific method, we have come to understand how to replicate some of that, but not all of it yet, and new things we hadn't even considered have started to pop up by accident in our attempts, like in golarion (the pathfinder rpg's default setting), divine magic vs occult magic vs arcane magic, a line of outsourcing it to the gods specifically to do something we can't figure out, just doing it and believing, and it seems to work, which strengthens to belief, or when we understand it, and we've got a school of magic centered around a man who began to tap into the powers of the divine through the methods of the arcane, just not entirely, and not as consistently, because someone would study the efforts of those who went insane trying, and eventually, something would hit, heck, they may even be insane when they come out the other end, but if they glimpsed anything, they may be able to pass that insanity on, and this is the stubborn resolve that got us where we are in the real world
@@Ravenhill171 and to me, that "magic is still just cause and effect like science" is exactly what makes it so enthralling, how can someone not be enthralled by the infinitely complex web that leads to any action in our world? we've barely touched the surface of it in our own world, imagine the possibilities that changing the rules could lead to, and how infinitely more complex it could get, or heck, how much more accessible and open to human creativity it can get once the rules are simplified like they often actually are in hard magic systems, how many more possibilities are opened up that we didn't even consider until the rules were laid bare and then pushed to their limits, that is beautiful, and beyond that, when the rules aren't like physics, and they exist entirely in the narrative, they still exist, heck, the magick practices of real witches oftentimes almost sound more like narrative writing thematics for this very reason, they're essentially assuming we exist in a setting where a soft magic system exists, tied more to thematic resonance and the narrative weight of self growth and discovery, or connection with others, that's all stuff we'd explore in narrative, and that's the rules a soft magic system abides by, the rules of the narrative, "will this make a good story?"
man the art in this video is just so good
3:59 Dr Stone (anime) did the “science as magic until it’s understood as scientific” idea very well. I found the portrayal of the island characters who had never experienced modern science suddenly experiencing and benefiting from it so fascinating!
This earns my sub. I keep telling people, “Not every magic system needs to be Sandersonian”
I love nothing more in life than seeing magicians perform a magic trick and having absolutely no clue how they managed to do it. And while it can be interesting seeing people dissect a magic trick and reveal its secret, that could never match the pure joy I feel from being thoroughly tricked.
I'm writing a book where the world believes there is a hard magic system and it's very mundane, but a character comes along who understands magic as something fantastical and works to reveal to everyone that there aren't any rules and that they actually live in a world of wonder. I really like the idea of presenting magic as simply anything that escapes your understanding of it. I had a teacher in high school walk into class with a blast shield one time, and dropped something into a beaker of water to make a big explosion. And while the explanation afterwards was cool, it was eclipsed by the excitement of getting to watch and hear something so extreme as that little science experiment was.
Cool idea!
For me the magic tricks of magicians hold nothing special anymore because I KNOW it's not "magic" but "just" mundane skill... which in itself is awesome to have those skills and being able to do such things, don't get me wrong! But I automatically bring it into the context of my understanding of "magic" and... well, it doesn't seem that magical to me anymore. Although I always enjoy watching others be bamboozled by it! :D
I can't stand not knowing how the trick was done. It just annoys me. Probably, I'm just too cynical to enjoy a magic trick... Although, I like to perform them. It is fun to see the baffled reactions.
I think learning the trick is equally fun. It's like you have fun twice, first you are wowed by the magic trick, the best you are wowed by how they pulled it off. Imo the loss of the magic feeling isn't in whether it's explained, but in how "normalized" it is in a setting. If you can go to a big school about it, it's not really magic at that point it's just this world's science that you're calling magic (perfectly mine to do so btw, you don't have to force it to have a weird name if it doesn't fit), but say a witch living in a hut in the woods asking you to collect frog split and firefly wings to make you an invincibility potion, that's still magical imo despite knowing that the recipe contains frog spit and firefly wings, because it's not systematized or normal, it's just a random witch in the middle of the woods being shady. And there's obviously some nuance there with how much each individual thing in a story is or isn't explained that might make different parts more or less magical, another comment mention avatar, in that setting by my criteria I wouldn't call bending magic but I would call spirits magic, for example.
@@mayorathfoglaltvolt I agree with you on performing magic tricks yourself. I do a ridiculously simple card trick where I take 2 cards from the top of a deck, but make it look like just 1 by grabbing them together. Show the audience, and place them back on top. Then I move the top card to the bottom, which leaves the card they saw still sitting on top. Make up some hogwash about moving their card up through the deck, and voila, their card is revealed to be back on top. Super simple, but I still get to see a lot of different funny looks from people. It's always a joy, but I usually tell people how to perform the trick if they ask me to spoil it for them because I know for some people, there is no magic in not knowing, just frustration.
@@spyro2002 I think it's exciting to learn the how of a trick when I know it's within the realm of possibility for me to perform later on myself. Because then I can have fun using it on others. When the level of skill required to perform the trick is completely outside of what I can reasonably expect to do, then I prefer to leave the magic trick a mystery so I can dwell on trying to figure it out myself. Problem is that I won't know what category a trick fits into until I've had it spoiled, so generally I only ever seek out instructions on card tricks since I can actually perform a fair bit of those.
I like how Terry Pratchett approached magic: if you think it's magic, then it is.
Also, science believing voodoo practitioner here!
I loved the discworld books. I bring them up and no one ever knows what I'm talking about.
@stolenlaptop same, my dude. And it's hard to describe them to people without making them sound confusing or too out there for people to check out.
@@rami_ungar_writer How much of a practitioner are you?
@adorbsies I do a couple of spells. Been meaning to learn more.
@rami_ungar_writer Why Voodoo in particular? You have your own ancestral magick system.
I know the point of the video isn't really about the comparison between hard and soft magic system, but I do appreciate you pointing out that the more well-defined a magic system is, the less magical it feels. It's something I've felt for a long time. So many people seem to be of the opinion that hard magic systems are inherently better, and that soft magic systems are sloppy writing. But once a magic system gets too hard it just... stops feeling like magic for me. Magic needs to be at least a little undefined, a little surprising.
The Otherverse, the setting of Pact and Pale by Wildbow, probably has my favorite magic. As he himself described it once: it isn't one a magic system, it's a hundred of magic systems interacting with each other. Yes, there are some general rules, but they're mostly vague and flexible. Subjectivity is an important part of it, there are literal entities that can make the call on how any given magic works, and those entities can have biases, blindspots, be susceptible to bribery, or be vulnerable enough to be supplanted. You can argue about the rules, make your case about how things should work. There are ways to cheat the systems. There is the possibility of changing the rules of those systems entirely. It paints such a fascinating picture that makes it clear that in theory anything is possible, but almost nothing is easy, and anything can get more complex the more you dive into it.
I agree with the sentiment that the greater the explanation and stricter the rule sets to magic, the less interesting it is to me. It begins to resemble mathematics, mechanics, or chemistry. Similarly, I get annoyed with ingredient-based systems for spells. Can you imagine a battle wizard needing to carry vials, herbs, and powders into a fight? They'd be lugging more bags and carts than a mother of triplets. 😅
I like the topics you bring up. Magic for me is something that encourages you to feel wonder and awe. Charms captivate, spells command, potions affect, so on and so forth. It’s something that you make for yourself. It’s almost emergent in a way
I have had an almost inverse issue with science fiction for about a decade. I realized that some of what we call science fiction is blatantly impossible because it's been disproven (like radiation creating the Hulk or Godzilla or being able to use a slingshot, cannon, or hot air balloon to reach the moon). That stuff very much seems like pure fantasy to me now, whereas Sherlock Holmes was science fiction for forensics that has almost entirely been shown correct and adopted the world over. So when we write speculative fiction, can we really know what our genre truly is/will be in later years? How much scifi later is shown to be fantastical, and how much fantasy might later prove to be literally possible and even common?
"Usurpation is the essence of sorcery"
To me this is the main appeal of a magic system. The idea through learning, practice and pure will power you can reshape the world as you wish.
I need to read A Practical Guide To Evil again now
So a "secondary world" could have "secondary magic", things that are actually magic to the fictional characters. I think that's common in cyberpunk fiction. Voodoo is often mentioned, rumours of gods living in cyberspace... In Shadowrun, where "magic" is basically a science, the Matrix (internet) is a place of magic.
I wonder if that all traces back to William Gibson’s book Count Zero.
Avatar the last airbender had this. Bending wasn't magic, but spirits and prophecies were.
"People don't practice magic in the real word to explain the unknown" in the same video about alchemy. People use magic to explain the unknown, it is just a different explanation from naturalist science.
Except that as alchemy was used to explain the unknown it became the naturalistic science of chemistry. Any belief that actually tries to understand the unknown arrives at naturalistic science. Sure, magic is used to "explain" the unknown, but the explanation is "a wizard did it", it doesn't in any way engage with the phenomena, if it did it would no longer be magic.
@@kamota8523 The problem with using magic to explain the unknown, is it's often wrong. Because it often started with someone just making up an explanation as a way to fake wisdom, as just a story/prank for fun, or as a scam. No matter how much magic you perform, that mercury is never going to make someone immortal if they drink it. That jar put into a horse won't produce a homunculus. Anyone can write/say that it did, doesn't mean it actually did.
@@kamota8523 I am just point the fact that in the real world exist or at least existed magic system with complex rules. Just because the crestor doesn't feel like magical this kind of stories it doesn't mean it is not magical for others, and the argument of real life use of magic that the creator puts are not really based on real life but in creator expectations. I like a lot the channel, I just disagree with the message of this video.
@@kamota8523 Do not know if this part if talking about fiction or not, "Sure, magic is used to "explain" the unknown, but the explanation is "a wizard did it", it doesn't in any way engage with the phenomena", but IRL that is just not the case, explanation is not always the focus but engaging with the phenomenon effectively is(and in cases where there is an explanation, it is bigger than that), i agree with the point that it arrives at naturalistic thinking, but not science, science is a pretty specific methodology, with many different philosophical assumptions, one of the main differences is that very few of the movements that have tried to understand the unknown have arrived at positivism, which is the belief that reality can somehow be understood and interpreted by the human mind and logic, and that is why many esoteric movements do not take the possibility of full understanding for granted.
@@nebula_Mage "...and that is why many esoteric movements do not take the possibility of full understanding for granted."
Neither does science though, it just acts _as if_ full understanding is possible _until_ we know otherwise. Which makes sense I think, given the alternative is to just stop _trying_ to achieve full understanding.
Obviously we're aware it may be beyond us though (either because _we_ aren't up to it, with our 1.5 ish kg of stone-age mush, _or_ because there genuinely _is_ more to reality than the material and it's beyond the reach of the scientific method). On one level it'll actually be more surprising if it isn't.
(it sometimes seems to me like people on the outside believe no one in science is aware of philosophical considerations, underlying metaphysical assumptions etc. but that's not true - we just acknowledge that we've made those assumptions and then get on with it because otherwise, you're doing philosophy, not science)
The sponsor spot at the end totally killed my suspension of disbelief. I mean, you're a robot. How can you not understand computer programming?
When you were talking about stuff "getting out of the realm of magic and entering the realm of science" as mystical things get studied, i thought of something
while all the magic in a fantasy world is a wonderous thing to most of the people in the land, the "Wizard" looks to me like someone who understands the Magic System, givin him the ability to use it, just like a scientist knows the rules of nature and can manipulate them in certain ocasions
with that in mind, i think that while it is important to not lose the mystical and wonder of magic, it's also important for the writer to know the rules and his own Magic System, so that he can write about it, and to me it's just a matter of presentation, on how the writer presents the magic to the writer
a Wizard or magic user of any kind is someone in the world who understands the Magic, at least a part of it, and to me it means he's someone who know about the system, just as the writer does, and i think that's wonderous!
In one of my favorite webcomics, Freefall, an engineer named Florence gave her own reply to Clarke's statement on technology and magic.
"Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who don't understand it."
"Any sufficiently analysed magic is indistinguishable from SCIENCE!" Agatha, Girl Genius
@@thoughtengine specifically after fixing a magical wand with mad science
That's similar to a joke about UFOs had seen in a livestream a couple times: "Anything is an Unidentified Flying Object if you're bad enough at identifying things."
@@feuerling IIRC, she even made it talk, much to its owners surprise.
Dude, I’ve been spending the last three days and nights muddling over what a possible magic system using runes’ could be. Falling into the exact trap of trying to make everything logically work. What I really wanna do with my magic system is created a sense of mystery and awe. Here I am struggling to reconcile logic and belief.
And then this video drops right when I’m about to go to bed.
Now that’s magical 😊.
Synchronicity is awesome lol
That really is the eternal struggle of fantasy worldbuilding
That’s why I prefer calling it power-systems instead of magic-systems.
Calling it by a different name doesn't change it. Either way it's a force within the story that has a strict set of defined rules and is from our perspective supernatural.
@@ScadrianGhostblood supernatural by our standards. This whole video just explained that if a world considers considers something like the one ring as fact, then it's not magic, just a power. Thus 'power system' is a valid classification. If anything, what's called a soft magic system is, in a way, a true magic system since at least it remains mysterious, therefore it remains 'magical.'
@@Dan-neil thanks that you pointed that out and I could edit my comment. We experience the story from our perspective so the word "magic" should be valid to describe a part of a written work since to us it is supernatural.
Because there's people that call it something else ?
I've never seen anyone refer to it as anything other than power system
@@Zenkai-9k You've never heard the term magic system?
My favorite stories often use the dichotomy of hard and soft magic in the same story to set up major reveals and paradigm shifts.
Best example in my mind is Avatar. The show goes out of its way to set up the rule that earth benders can't bend metal only so that Toph can break the rule in a pivotal moment.
I love when soft magic invades a hard magic system (if it's well executed). The hard magic convinces the audience they can anticipate the outcome, so you set the villains up to win by the rules.
Then the eucatastrophe: the rules suddenly change.
8:29 never say 0. I have no clue who that is yet found you
“Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you.
Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch it to be sure. “
To be fair, touching paint to test the claim that paint is wet is far easier than doing calculus to test the claim about stars 😅 almost anyone can touch a wall, almost no one knows how to do calculus. So we're just forced to take their word for it 🤷
I'm a painter by trade by the way 🧑🎨
@@ramondejesus65 yes, thats the point.
@@dyegoeduardosantossilva3659 the point is that people will believe extraordinary claims, but won't believe simple ones. My comment addresses the reasons for this behavior, not the point. Nice try tho...you get an A for effort 👏🏻
@@ramondejesus65 Which is more magical: the quote, or the explanation?
When one explains magic, it loses it.
(This is a perfect example of the video’s explanation.)
There's an addendum to Clarke's rule: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science. A strong magic system turns magic into a science, which is what any society will eventually do to magic if possible.
Abd there is my addendum: Magic is fundamentally unexplsinable. If sufficent abalysis turns it into science it was never magic in the first place.
The only difference between strong and soft magic systems is point of view.
Take Lord of the Rings for example: From Frodo's point of view, the magic system is soft. He and Sam collect a series of "magic items that help him on his quest. A dagger that is incredibly sharp and glows blue near orcs, cloaks that make them hard to see and a rope that unties itself on command. But from Legolas' point of view, those are just masterfully crafted tools. He probably can't make them himself, but he has a good idea of how they are made.
Since Frodo and the other Hobbits are the point of view characters for most of the book, Lord of the Rings has a soft magic system.
My two personal favorite magic systems are the ones from Owl House and Avatar. Just the right amount of complexity while still simple enough to figure out and get a hang of
I disagree. Magic systems arent that good
It isn't magic it's waterbending
the owl house’s magic system is delightful in that it feels like something *you* as the viewer could figure out if you set your mind to it. the concept of a limited alphabet of glyphs which display highly complex interactions when arranged and grouped in an inherently *creative* process is just so appealing. love the show, love the characters, and love the magic system!
Accordingly to the video essayist those wouldn't even be magic because they just work. They are just too real for them.
This video offers a contrast between magic irl and magic in books that I had never considered and appreciated hearing about.
Reflecting on my own draw to fantasy books and "magic systems", the appeal for me is the ability presented to achieve more than humans can irl - the fantasy of breaking past the limitations of our *own* reality.
If i were to explore the presented cases for magic and science in our own world, I am inclined to posit that magic irl plays a very similar role. The scenarios portrayed (the supernatural, the practice, and the wonder) all refer to subjective, emotional or intuitive experiences, or actions taken grounded in the nonrational (hope, faith, belief, despair). The point of science is to turn such phenomena into shared, objective, replicable, rationally understood events. If i were to engage with a magic trick in a "rational mode", I'd be focusing on rationally trying to understand the mechanism behind the trick; if i were to engage with the same kagic trick in an "emotional mode", I'd walk away with a sense of awe and wonder (the two are of course not exclusive of each other). I guess, considering all this, i would then define "magic" as "outside the rational for the individual in question."
Where does that leave books? I think it depends on our frame or reference. In the example of Lord of the Rings, perhaps one reason it is not questioned that Frodo can turn invisible is because the Rings of Power are known to exist and to have great effects. The mechanism by which such effects manifest, however, are not explored and thus not understood either by Frodo or the viewer. While it is not a wondrous thing, it is nontheless outside the realm of the rational - it is magic. Something similar i think can be said about the mistborn series: yes, causality and rules are established, but these rules are still not commonplace, they are not applicable to everyone, nor is the mechanism explained. While i have not finished the trilogy, the first two books definitely left me with the feeling of supernatural wonder. I would agree that it's a less magical form of magic than in LotR, I would still consider it magical.
In the case of something like Avatar the Last Airbender, however, where bending is common place and quite pervasive, I cannot think of the bending as "magic". This is further contributed to by the fact that the bending styles are grounded in martial arts and, while not explained, it is not difficult to imagine how the mechanism behind bending might work: each person has Qi energy and this is extended past the body and used to manipulate the external world based on additional factors like personality. While this world still has the same appeal to me in the sense of creating a fantasy for beyond human capability, i cannot describe it as outside the rational and thus refuse to think of it as a magic system (hearing it called that way sounds very wrong to me, and this video has finally given me the language to understand why).
All in all, i really appreciate this video, offering a counter perspective to the common discourse. Thought provoking, and well made. Thank you!
Edit: Thinking about this a little more, I was realizing this is also why it really bugs me when fantasy gets bundled together with scifi with the argument that both using "magic systems" just skinned differently. In the sense that for me scifi is about engaging with the system through the rational and fantasy through the mystical. For example, most super hero movies offer a science-y explanation for the origin of the power. Though I concede it's a spectrum, not a dichotomy, with some titles occupying the murky middle ground (for example, star wars doesn't really attempt to explain the Force, it's just a power ppl wield, making not only a soft system but also one more akin to fantasy magic; conversely, hard magic systems might offer an explanation for the origin of the magic, like Fullmetal Alchemist)
I agree with this so much. Hard magic is, what I like to call, fantastical physics. Still an amazing thing, still can be used in our storytelling, but is fundamentally different from soft magic (or as I call it, just Magic).
I find this oddly... comforting. It helped me click together everything I needed to cement my magic system in my own world that I'm worldbuilding. But on a much deeper level, I feel comforted with my own very scientific view of the world, and how it can coexist peacefully with the pseudoscientific side of my world, instead of being in conflict. I've been trying to reconcile this conflict since I started being aware of cause-and-effect. Thank you
An interesting middle ground between hard and soft magic I've been noticing lately is when an author creates a hard magic system in their head but never explains it in the story. So it feels magical to the reader but it can also gives you this underlying feeling of "there's some form of logic here, I just don't know what it is". And a lot of the time those authors might eventually release supplemental material that simply details their hard magic system and that can create this really cool "aha" moment, or you can choose to ignore it to preserve the magical feeling.
or with Hunter X Hunter, with the NEN power system, it has some conceptual base we're given early on, but it's ultimately pretty vague to start with, the rules are simple, but as time went on, stuff we sort of just assumed, or were saying in a less literal sense when we assumed things worked just as described. they were later revealed to be the case, we could intuit what the rules were well before they were ever put into words
personally, i recommend all writers do this to some extent, define some rules for your magic system, but those rules don't need to be in universe, they can be narrative, like just how often do you want it to be an active moving piece in the story
Also this shows me your not just a creator, your an artistic. It's not about what the society grasps best, it's about what you can discover. I respect that a ton
Magic: a symbiotic balance between science and art that manifests an alignment of desire and reality.
Yeah magic should be used as a vehicle to tell a story. A series with fighting magic users benefits from explaining how the "magic" works. But for any other narrative, I find that magic is best left unexplained.
Yet, Harry Potter is the best selling fantasy book
DND has the best of both worlds because I’ve recently fallen in love with Wild Magic. People infused with such deeply powerful magic that they can’t hope to control it. Theirs a small chance to do what they wanted to do but theirs a greater chance to do something wildly unexpected. From turning yourself Blue to creating a field of ravenous vines, or summoning an imp that does a funny little dance, or opening a portal to another world. You have no idea what is going to happen when you try to do even the most basic spell
@@willamschultz2169 And Harry Potter also happens to be one of the most unsatisfying, plothole riddled, least developed magical worlds of all time.
@@willamschultz2169but that's less because of the magical battles and rather because of the overall feeling of whimsy. Harry Potter is more a slice of life that invites you into a realm in which you are special than anything else.
@ciarz_and that is why it’s the best.
I had always enjoyed astronomy as a child, watching complex documentaries on TV that mostly went over my head. It felt magical - and honestly, it still does. There's so much we don't understand about the universe, things that are just facts of life but have no real explanation yet, and may never will. Reality is full of magic.
I've always wanted a fantasy setting where "magic systems" are different by culture. One culture might have one magic system, but a different culture might have an entirely different magic system. Some people have trouble with engaging with a different culture's system, some people have a more easy time, with no obvious determining factor. Sometimes stuff just happens for seemingly no reason. There are a lot of unknowns, even among the specific magic systems, which would, in any other fantasy setting, be pretty rigid.
Give the feeling that the magic isn't bending to our will, but rather it is humouring us for motives that can never be fully understood.
Try something with Shadowrun. Magic waxes and wanes by a cycle but has some kind of its own will.
Dune and Avatar the Last Airbender for starters
Malazan has an amazing soft magic setting. There are a myriad of types of magic, yet most users still don’t know why it works, they just shape it to how they believe they can use it
Thank you, I've been searching for this comment
@ I was too, couldn’t find one so I had to type it myself😂. I’m on a first readthrough a currently reading Return of the Crimson Guard
Ah nice, I wish I could read it for the first time again^^ Loved it till the end. Luckily I still have to read the spin-offs.
@@hessijames5446 I consider the Esslemont novels part of the main series. Return of the Crimson Guard has picked up multiple plot points that Erikson introduced
Every single one of these videos inspires me to write another story.
Every empirical investigation into the nature of the stars began with a child looking up at the night sky with wonder in their eyes. There is no science without magic.
I've always liked this type of magic, probably because of my fondness fpr science, math, and programing.
I've always felt like any magic was like nature, something beautiful and complex, but can be understood, and magic systems felt to me like a window, through which i could understand that forein world, to feel closer to it, like i'm one of the wizards trying to descipher the arcana, the rules of the magic, to see how and why it works, be one with it.
This is why I like the magic system in Mage: the Awakening. It's high magic, but it's not understood by the majority of secret orders that have been practicing it and categorizing it for thousands of years. Every order has its own theories on how magic works, conflicts within those theories, and exceptions for every rule. And to make matters worse, in that system, sometimes magic just backlashes for seemingly no reason. The more arcane knowledge a mage accrues, the more unpredictable and unstable there magic becomes.
I think a lot on creating a magic system for a table top rpg based on programming languages where each magic word costs mana and each one can be used to "program" your spell, but in order to not lose the magic factor you simply don't tell the player that this system exists or how it works and if he's interested in magic he needs to research and find out himself through gameplay, and you can change the syntax slightly for each campaign so even if he was a strong and experienced mage on the last one, everything is new again
Congrats on 1 million subs!
A magic system I love is the one in the 7th Prince, it is very well established it's something that is practiced and studied, but aside from the very general ideas, it really is never explained or delved on, and with each passing chapter and arc, it is expanded in very interesting ways, all mechanics connected in subtle and direct ways.
But what gets me the most about it is the core of the system and how it's used as a metaphor, the main character loves magic and to study it, but more than that, he is fascinated by the process, from the conception of a new spell to the execution, because as he puts it, magic is how humans achieve their dreams, and thus, each spell and mechanism tells a story about someone with a dream, something at the core of humanity and curiosity.
There's also a vast array of unexplained magical things, from magical beasts, to demons, a whole netherworld yet to be explored, heavenly realms just visited briefly, unexplained phenomena and a deceivingly simple, but complex and living world, not to mention most characters are just amazingly constructed, it doesn't pull many punches and the fights are just amazingly jaw-dropping.
I know it falls into many of the pitfalls that make some stories uninteresting and cliché, but at its core, it's a very honest story full of wonder.
The definition I use probably leans closest to magic as metaphor.
Magic is that which enables characters to bend the conventional mechanics of reality. In most cases, that is the conversion of willpower to matter/energy, breaking the closed loop of the world. But it also covers the unknown if conventional understanding is unable to view the phenomena as part of a closed loop.
But it can also take the form of the power of plot. The roles we play in story, the tropes and tragedies and destinies that entrench themselves in any tale. The magic is the message being told, the entire point of telling it in the first place. The magic happens because the message is true, and the message is true because the teller believes in it. And when the listener believes, the magic is passed on.
The past few years I’ve realised something for myself that generally helps me in regular life. I‘ve felt exhausted by our modern world for the longest of times, but nowadays, every now and then i just look at some piece of technology and tell myself that in another world with different physics these things could be impossible. It‘s then that i realise for myself that that is our magic system. To me practitioners of magic or alchemists, etc. in the past were that, but they were also scientists. Nowadays i feel like magic is often used as another tool to distinguish ourselves from our predecessors. Many of them might not have known about the things we know today, but a lot of them still researched into understanding it more and using it. Seeing magic that way makes the term science almost meaningless, since in that regard both means the same just differently applied. In future stories and worlds i want to build i want to take that into regard, for example in realistic modern stories that i still want to make feel magical.
This has to be one of your best videos. Thank you for speacking on this topic.
I think that even if explained, it is difficult for many people to understand that magic is not the unexplained, and even if understood, explained and mapped, it continues to be magic, something still ends up beyond what can be understood or mapped, there is always a way to go deeper down the rabbit hole.
For me, magic is something that exists from a subjective perspective:
A seamstress will think that what a mechanic does with a car is magic, and a mechanic will think that what a seamstress does to create a suit is magic.
16:23 Ah yes, Germany! The most magical of all the realms!
7:14 I wrote a paper on this topic, specifically on Tolkien's belief in the "Secondary world." His belief is in total internal consistency of the secondary world matched my beliefs perfectly before I heard about the concept of "suspending disbelief." I believed anything that is out of place in one's model fantasy world would cause viewers of it to no longer see it as a distinct world from our real world. Like viewing a model train with a disproportionate wheel.
“[The author] makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed."
this is actually pretty important. in my D&D world there is a fundamental divide between types of magic. there is "old magic" which is made up of the magic that comes from nature and raw human expression (druids and bards) and then we have "new magic" which is learned magic like the spellbooks of wizards and the machines of artificers. these class examples arent the whole story but theyre the ones that examplify my ideas
I had to write down this quote from your video twice just to work through the energy it gave me, so here it is again just to appreciate it one more time.
This applies to monsters as well. There are no monsters in real life, because the instant they are discovered, they become animals. They become so analyzed that the fear of the unknown that is a monster, becomes lost in the comfort of an animal
I'll have to disagree. Human monsters exist and no amount of explaining how they became like they are undoes that.
@@Aerinndis You consider monsters with a human visage as being the same as you and me? If you do not then Jacob is right.
@@heraadrian7764 Arguing semantics doesn't change my comment.
@@Aerinndis No semantics, just wanting to know your opinion. Mine is that those are animals so no need to fear those things when you must hunt or the price is to much to pay if you do not do it.
@@heraadrian7764 I've stated my opinion.
I find magic that feels like a science within the universe way more interesting, It makes it feel like it's actually part of the world instead of like a "because magic" blanket thrown on top of everything. The appeal to me, has absolutely nothing to do with wanting it to be more believable, it just makes it more interesting. I feel uninterested in the magic of a world if I'm not provided with a system it's rooted in to mentally engage with. It's like "oh cool the 9000000th fireball spell" vs having a conceptual framework to explore.
That intro at the start was animated beautifully. I love it!
This is one of the reasons I love Terry Prattchett so much. Discworld is full of magic, and some forms are explained, but others, hey, it's just magic. I still get lots of wonder, but don't feel things just happen randomly. Magic normally follows patterns, not rules.
Personally for my own worlds I like trying to have as much explanation as possible for myself, I need to fully understand how every mechanism, every being works. However, I don’t include all of this in writing or lore for DnD, as I know for other people if I described exactly how and why everything works it would no longer feel so magic, so ‘beyond’.
I loved hearing this put into words. When the Marvel Thor movies came out, they traded the magic of the stories for alien technology. Though I could see the reasoning, it rely bothered me. It's a trend I see more and more.
People often misinterpret the definition of soft and hard magic systems. Is not that hard magic systems have by definition more rules, it is about how much the audience knows about the rules and inner workings of a magic system. The author may have a limitless number of rules and conditions of their magic system, but is how much the audience knows what determines if is soft or hard magic system. The use is also a main factor, hard magic systems are more like tools the characters are going to use to solve problems and move the plot, so that is why the audience needs to know the rules.
But you're right, for hard magic systems I prefer called them something else. Magic has a meaning to it that is kind of loss when it's giving reasoning and logic
i'd argue the difference is in how the rules function, one exists as rules in the setting, where as the other exists as rules in the narrative, "will this make for a good story?" is still a rule, and a rule all these systems abide by, but soft magic systems use those rules as the system, that's how the magic system works, where as the hard magic systems are designed and while they may be part of the narrative, it could exist outside of this narrative, and would work just the same
One of the fascinating things about RWBY is that they can do apparently magical things within the magic system of the story (dust, aura and semblance), but they explicitly don't see it as magic. The wonder appears when the main characters learn that there's another older magic system outside their familiar magic system, that they actually call "magic." Of course, even the second magic system has its rules created by the gods, until yet another level of pure mystery is added with the Ever After!
Please, do not, just don't try to justify
I feel like the primary issue also lays in all of the main characters of these stories being magic users. You can have the hardest most logical magic system in the world and if the main character doesn't know and doesn't care it can still feel otherworldly.
I think the magic of Hard Magic Systems is that you can play the game of reality bending too, you can be the wixard creating spells and using the already existing ones in creative ways.
"If you understand the difference between THE world and MY world, you understand the difference between Logos and Mythos. THE world is objective, logical, universal, factual, scientific. MY world is subjective. It's emotional. It's personal. It's perceptions, thoughts, feelings, dreams. . . THE world tells us HOW the world functions: how the sun rises, how we are born. MY world tells us WHY the sun rises. Why were we born?" - Devdutt Pattanaik
Magic for the layman versus magic for the wizard seems like an important distinction here: in real life magical practice the actual practitioners often have a complex system of semi-hard magic they believe in.
I like magic when it is more vague and unpredictable.
4:46 "you can read a book and learn all about electricity" oh how I wish that were true :') after spending 5 years in college to understand electricity, I think I can give you a few books to get you started, but after Griffiths and Jackson, you'll have a good foundation to really start poking at electricity. Maybe,with a few more years of study, you could join the ongoing studies of those lightning storms, cuz I don't think anyone has fully explained that lightning yet. Electricity is just magic we learned to manipulate and gave a new name to.
I have a small writing project about a world with a magic "system" that's only explained when the plot demands it. It makes the magic feels interesting and allows me to make things up on the fly