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i favor simplicity in a foundation. where the foundation is the only hard rule, with the system being developed to work around this hard rule, or take advantage of it
Dude I'm judging by the episode picture that you were going to talk about living food You Know like from cloudy with a chance to meetballs 2 and bugsnax.
The easiest modern example to point at were two different episodes of Edd, Ed n Eddy. In one episode Rolf is quickly and fearfully burying a gaudy but cool looking golden phone. The way he buries it is clearly some ritual we don’t understand but Rolf does. Rolf tells the Ed’s to stay back because the phone is cursed. Not believing them Eddy takes it back and immediately it starts ringing despite the old phone not being plugged in, the moment Eddy answers it bad things happen to him practically out of no where. No matter who else answers only Eddy is punished. People have theorized how the curse works but no actual answer is given. Another is a Magic Boomerang that flies in from no where. Whoever holds it is instantly transformed into the opposite of who they are. The wimpy Jimmy becomes strong and confident, Ed becomes smart, Eddy becomes Motherly, Edd becomes a nudist hippie. We don’t have an answer how or why this does what it’s doing and Edd just gives a tiny bit of trivia that some cultures believed boomerangs were magic.
Honestly I think this kind of wild magic or unexplained magic can be just as compelling as stories with hard magic systems. It makes perfect sense for supernatural occurrences to not always adhere to any sort of logical pattern.
Honestly “soft” magic is my favorite type of magic in stories. I love it when something weird happens and wverybody in the story is just mildly annoyed or unimpressed. I love how everyone in “The Gingerbread Man” isn’t disturbed by this little living cookie, but just trying to catch him for their own purposes (which vary depending on the iteration).
I figure the caveat here is there must only be one instance of said magic per story. Even TF's examples follow that rule. Because when it happens over and over again, the story becomes word salad.
It's also a solid basis for horror fiction: Bad Things happening for no discernible reason in ways that make no sense is in itself horrifying. (It's quite common in horror manga: see, Junji Ito)
@@siramaytheshowgundragon Do you have any examples of this in media? because most of the time i prefer the unexplained part, so i wanna know what are the exceptions
@@nandanthony well yah but I'm not much of a horror fan so it's limited andi feel like at the end of the day it can run down to subjective opinion but like the more you know about a thing the more you think about it where as if a movie has a thing like "hears a demon, it's evil the end" I will quickly disregard it but if it has complex lore and history and development it stays with me as I'm left to ponder all I know like forbidden knowledge
The Shadow of my favourite fairy tale, ever. I've analyzed it so much. There's actually TWO explanations on why the shadow ia ble to leave, actually. First time I've seen Tale Foundry miss the mark.
In the book "one hundred years of solitud", one of the prime examples of magical realism, one of the characters dies, and chapters later, he comes back because "he was bored in dead"
lol that just reminds me of this sci-fi story where a rogue AI spends the better part of a century orchestrating events ultimately to position itself to leap through a black hole and ascend beyond reality into the cosmic only to get bored 5 minutes later and promptly begin searching for ways it can return. Ultimate hype disappointment.
@@AIIuminium Neal Asher's Transformation trilogy. Mostly the last book. Teaser for the last book The Infinity Engine: In the outskirts of space, and the far corners of the Polity civilization, complex dealings are in play. Several forces continue to pursue the deadly and enigmatic Black AI named Penny Royal, none more dangerous than the Brockle, a psychopathic forensics AI and criminal who has escaped the Polity’s confinements and is upgrading itself in anticipation of a deadly showdown, becoming ever more powerful and intelligent. Aboard Factory Station Room 101, the long lost behemoth war factory that birthed Penny Royal, groups of humans, Prador aliens, and AI war drones grapple for control. The stability of the ship is complicated by the arrival of a Gabbleduck known as the Weaver, the last living member of the ancient and powerful Atheter alien race. What would an Atheter want with the complicated dealings of Penny Royal? Are the Polity and prador forces playing right into the Black AI’s hand, or is it the other way around? Set pieces align in the final book of Neal Asher’s action-packed Transformation trilogy, pointing to a showdown on the cusp of the Layden’s Sink black hole, inside of which lies a powerful secret, one that could destroy the entire Polity civilization.
"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrariwise, what it is, it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?" -Alice to Dinah, prior to her Adventures in Wonderland (animated film, 1951)
I like to imagine Frankie encountered the Foundry over an invitation by the Telloids, stayed for gentle conversation for reasearch on this transmition but stayed long enough to see them perform the video live and sneak through the intro. Wonderful.
somehow this reminds me on one of my characters: Dr. Weird. an "evil" scientist from the future who travelled to the past because nobody in his time period would take him seriously. he uses unconventional techniques, that occasionally break the system, by using anti-logic. similar to how anti-matter negates matter, anti-logic defies logic and can therefore bypass the limits of what should be possible. naturally there's no logical explanation to how it works, it just does.
According to earlier versions of LRRH, the Big Bad Wolf IS himself magical, because he somehow manages to keep Little Red and Grandma inside him, alive, until Grandpa rescues them. That makes even less sense than him talking. Still, no-one seems to be melting down over the fact that Porco Rosso never bothered to explain why Porco was a pig-man...
@@thoughtengine it might be possible if his he can eat things like a frog ,which he might be able to do somehow , he is already weird as it is , with him being to walk and talk and that not be odd.
@@chongwillson972 A frog is about the size of my hand. Or less. A wolf's jaws do open that wide. They don't open six feet wide, though. Which is only the first hurdle. If he eats little Red and Grandma he's going to have to do so in literal bite-size pieces. They ain't coming back.
As I recall, the original story has Red and Grandma eaten and done with, it is a cautionary tale after all. The part where the woodsman with his ax cuts the wolf apart and they are alive was tacked on later to put the story in an anthology for children. The original is interesting to research, it is French, and there was an actual court case where a hunter with a trained wolf was suspected of a series of murders of young women. We might make a true crime novel of that, sixteenth century peasants made a cautionary tale, with lots of sexual symbolism (most of that removed as well !)
It's odd how "nonsense magic with arbitary rules" is so... Horrifying and unsettling. I think there's something Lovecraftian about it, like that there rules imposed are there for reasons you will never be able to comprehend.
i have my character be able to summon a ladder (with adjustable height, material etc.) and mess with the "hitboxes" of the world (basically being able to noclip, blj, warp etc.)
Uttering a wish out loud was considered magic, that is why folk tales and fairy tales use them and that is how we got magical incantations in the first place. That is why we call things said in a moment of heightened emotion swearing and curses. In the past you would swear to do something or curse someone for doing you wrong. Europe did not have a concept of Karma, but it had the idea of curses accumulating, causing misfortune to the ones who were hated. So things do not just happen in fairytales, they happened because the characters dared to utter their wishes aloud.
To hell with sense. Common sense is a trap. When making a complex world to use as a setting, we want internal coherence and all that. But being able to sit down and just CREATE is a wonderful thing.
Both systems have their place IMO. I think magic that has some rules behind it and is grounded is great in longer stories. Like multi-book novel series. They need grounded magic, otherwise it can just become an actual or an expected plot-device. When the heroes are facing an impossible situaton the audience will asks: Why didn't they solve it with magic? If magic is grounded then they'll know exactly why they didn't solve it with magic. And the writer won't be able to use it as a copout solution to all problems. Which will eventually lower the stakes of every situation.
Thank you for mentioning thematic magic. Magical realism is one of my favourite subgenres of literary fiction but discussions of world building so often focus on the fantasy genre alone.
Something that I like about the King Killer Chronicle is that yes, the magic makes absolute sense... Until it doesn't. Sometimes the story just goes straight up into fairytale territory, but since the world feels so grounded, you have to take it as face value. Things that sound like metaphors are meant to be taken literally. I really like that.
I love soft magic systems. The magic does whatever it wants to do, whenever it wants to, and the only thing you can do is try to figure out how to make it work in your favor
I think the thing about Brandon Sanderson's "Magic System(s)" that enchants me is that it is (almost) the inverse of the "Technology as Mysticism" that is central in Asimov's Foundation. Rather than a Universe of people trusting in the incomprehensible powers of the ancients while a select few know the secret truth that it was all created by them in the first place--all of The Cosmere has a (theoretically) cohesive and consistent additional set of physical rules that are just as baffling (but crucially, just as tantalizingly almost-understandable) as quantum physics is to a modern high school student.
One thought I have is that magic should be consistent, and the writer should know what its rules are...but the reader doesn't need to know all of them. Another thought is that, yes, sometimes things just happen. Things have happened in my own life, and in the lives of people whose clear-mindedness I rely upon, which don't seem to make sense, rationally, so I know for a fact that sometimes things DO happen that you can't explain. That being the case, it seems entirely fair to put things into stories that can't be explained.
In some of my own worldbuilding, magic jumps between a force of nature no different than the weather, a universal constant that effects some places and people more than others depending on how connected to the magic they are, or the product of eldritch or godlike beings simply existing. I also have a constant rule in terms of magic works: it often taps into the ethereal power that binds body to soul, material to immaterial: allowing connection and influence over both states of being. The soul is something beyond even magic's reach, but it allows life to exist and attain miraculous abilities thanks to magic binding the mystical to the physical. It works in some ways like the Force: magic is in everything, holds everything together. Some have more attunement to it than others, but anyone can tap into it with enough effort. Though specializations do exist, magic can be used quite freely and specific spells are simply techniques that are widely used. I like keeping a sort of system in place while also having it still be very mystical: most can only scratch the surface of what magic can do, only just knowing how it ties to everything. Again, another universal process that simply is: one that offers boundless potential to those who explore it.
I was trying think of an origin for 5 god-like characters of mine. I know where 4/5 came from, but couldn't think of a fitting origin for the 5th... but I think that's okay. After watching this, I think it's almost better if I just simply let them be. Not only is there very little reason to focus on them consdering their positions in the story, but they make more sense as beings that simply just are part of the world. Ofc they still have roles to play and rules to follow, but I think it's best that I leave it at that... which is something I had never considered... so thank you:)
2 things: 1- About the fable about the hare and the tortoise, I think their dialogue is just translated to ease the comprehension of the audience. This explanation is exactly how the film Isle of dogs begins, after all. 2- Another example is Snegurochka. There is this animated short film based on a Russian fairy tale, telling the story of an elderly couple, who, craving to have a child, one day build a snow maiden, who comes to life. Just like that. Naming her Snegurochka, they adopt her as their granddaughter and she starts living with them. In Russian folklore, Snegurochka is also depicted as Morozko's daughter or granddaughter.
I agree... Soft or Hard magic systems are used in different ways... like what you said, if the magic wasn't supposed to be studied in the story, it doesn't have to be "scientific" or have lots of rules. But if the story requires it, or if it's gonna be crucial for the story, then go.
I’ve been going between writing three different stories, all with different ways of writing them just to try it out. Among other differences, one uses very “scientific” magic, one uses more mystical but studyable magic, and one exists in a sort of spirit world where anything can exist just… because.
Arthurian literature is a lot like this. Why does a tornado show up when Arthur's knight shows up to fight an enemy? Just because that's the way it is. And you can apply that answer to just about everything weird in the stories of King Arthur.
Magic being explained by science reminds me of NieR/Drakengard series. A world where Magic can be explained by Science through exposure and harnessing the "Maso Particles".
What if Magic worked on the principle of Order & Chaos, like Magic being put into a special System was Magic being used through Order like the way we see Science, but if the Magic defies the System & seems out of place, random, illogical, or nonsensical would be the Magic being thrown into Chaos, like a small amount of Chaos would allow it so animals could talk, or an inanimate object comes to life, or a person experiences a strange alteration, and a large amount of Chaos would basically create a World so different from ours that it would defy one's perception of Reality itself, I might be overthinking this, but it's just a theory, what is your opinion on this whole Magical Order & Chaos thing?
While fantasy with magic that follows rigid/clearly defined rules is cool, insisting that all fantasy must fit that standard in order to be considered good is fundamentally missing the point of the genera
Scientific systems feel less magical mostly because we've deceived ourselves into thinking that science isn't magic. A group of wise elders designed and crafted arcane bits of metal that allow this video to be seen across the world through messages the air; all powered by freaking lightning. Learned scholars in white robes counteract the effects of both age and the invasion of your body by invisible, basically-malicious life-forces through the application of specific combinations of difficult-to-produce distillations. Humans fly through the hard work and craftiness of generations of people mastering control over fundamental forces of nature and the discovery and refinement of long-hidden sources of power buried deep within the earth itself and the very plants around us. Modern education forces a poor trade on children by stripping the wonder out of reality only to replace it with mere facts.
Meanwhile psychic spies from China try to steal your minds elation And little girls from Sweden achieve silver screen quotation And memers meme but soon They fall into AI damnation
I’m sorry, but there’s one quote I find very missing from this episode: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, by A.C Clark. Perhaps you made a deliberated decision not to include it in this work, but IMHO, I’m afraid it’s essential, because it explains the other side of the range of POV regarding magic and its dominance in the culture we have become.
Recently I’ve come to hate almost the entire internet. It’s made almost entirely of liars and hypocrites. This channel is literally one of the only things worth listening to on the entire net and everyone involved deserves enormous credit.
I think another example of "magic not making sense" would be the film "Groundhog Day". There's never an explanation as to why he relives the same day over and over. It's just something that happens.
there was an (intentionally) cut scene explaining it, basically a generic witch lady is like "i put a curse on you!" cus phil is a bit of a dick to her son, but they set it to be recorded right at the end of production, so that they could run out of time and have to release it without the explanation this is cus originally the producers thought the audience would need an explanation for the time loop, but the directors didnt want to do that
And over the garden wall, shit make no sense but it can bait thousands upon thousands of theorist to find the answer. The closest one we got is they're in purgatory because they almost drawn while running away from cops during Halloween night. Little nightmare franchise approach dark fairytale the same way so is bramble the mountain king. There's always something charming about shit that don't make any sense tho, like watching dream ore stuff.
Sometimes you need to step back from the scientific method and embrace the engineering method: repeated tests find WHAT works, but not necessarily HOW it works.
The good ol historical method of trial and error. Folks often forget that our ancestors figured shit out without really understanding shit. Damascus steel? Greek fire? Roman concrete? Ancient folks were damn impressive with only trial and error. Our scientific methods and ability to predict phenomena is magic in comparison lmao.
One of my favorite examples of thematic magic is a rather obscure old movie called 'Halloween Town.' There's a quote from the movie that perfectly explains it's thematic magic system, "Magic is really very simple, all you need to do is want something, and let yourself have it!"
spontaneous little guy generation was actually a very common phenomenon in ye olde times. Sometimes people would think, "hm what if there was a little guy," and then there would be. True story.
I'm afraid you may have forgotten one of the most interesting story, that might be defined as fantasy and/or fairytale. The story of Baron Munchausen. Riding on cannonballs, pulling himself and his horse out of the water by his own hair and travelling to the moon (in the 1800's) are among his more believable feats. Yes, I said more believable and I mean it. And how can he do all this? Because he is Baron Munchausen. That's all.
In the talmud there's a story about some Rabbis who were hungry but had nothing to eat and they made a goat out of clay. Then the prayed and the goat became -somewhat like Pinocchio- a real goat. Then they slaughtered it, and ate it. Happy ending
Terry Pratchett fixed this problem by making his magic system based on the power of story itself. It allowed his Discworld series to be both deeply magical but also evolve into to explain the difference between science, technology and fantasy. In later books Discworld is said to be rich in Narrativism - the fundemental element of story which is why belief is enough to make something happen. This provides the 'hard magic' system used by Wizards and Witches being entirely based on making something happen because 'the story' needed it to. This is contrasted in the Science of Discworld with their wizards exploring our universe which is devoid of Narrativsm and thus follows it's own rules that often sounds like fantasy to laypeople when you get into things like evolution or quantum physics.
Before you even finished your intro, I was wanting to say: This is why I have such a massive beef with that certain kind of person who hyper focuses on EXACTLY _how_ things happen, and insist stories are bad if they lack these explanations. I'd agree that few fairy tales live up to modern story standards, but the arbitrary "how" of something is so unnecessary in so many kinds of stories now, just like it has been for MILLENNIA. That obsession is practically as nonsensical as the fairytale logic they decry. Following their criteria of criticism with full consistency would lead them to discard every true, real life story -- as in everything that has ever happened to anyone who's real -- because we don't know how or why gravity exists. Many ideas exist, but all we _know_ is just some of what it does. And the same part of me that loves mind bending fairytale logic, absolutely _loves_ that absurd stance. It's _so_ delightful! I just wish it wasn't used to deride the stories which understand that some perceived rules are just that.
I'm more attached to the last point, magic doesn't always need an origin or a scientific text book to explain it, but some concrete rules are helpful. Fables have talking animals, I can't say why but it helps give them human-like personality and sets the plot in motion, it also makes the world feel more charming especially when they tend to act more like friendly animals than people, or even deeper you can make it a thought experiment into how their instincts explain their actions. This is separate from the world where people spontaneously combust if they eat buckwheat pancakes, no real sense and it doesn't seem to work on some days and everyone feels less happy about the world when it's unreliable. The pythagorean theorem is useless so science never advanced very far (not even in a non-euclidian way but an observer effect way, acting or measuring the environment immediately changes the rules). Over explaining your magic system can be harmful to having it feel interesting or some elements are added for the sake of the story and an allegory. Tolkien made a full pantheon of spirits but what's mainly important is Gandalf has magic to do what he needs yet is limited, he's powerful and knowledgeable but primarily there to inspire men to be better and fight their battle. He's even just as vulnerable to corruption as men, Saruman or anyone else, therefore the Hobbits as a simple small folk are helpful but if mislead can end up as Gollum. It's only scratching the surface of the grander world and it doesn't all get explained why it is, but it can be understood and all works towards the story and themes. How about one more, Full Metal Alchemist is a world where science and magic are the same, alchemy uses equivalent exchange and knowledge to do just about anything. With the right creativity and some circles for more advanced formulas the alchemists can do just about anything. The main conflict now is bringing the dead back to life, for what can equal the value of a human soul, and philosopher stones which have immense power but are created with the sacrifice of cities worth of people. To gain anything you need to apply yourself and put forward something of value, but also consider if what you're working for is worth it in the end or is at the cost of others, and even how that applies to governments that have their entire country at their disposal.
There's this strong urge in modern nerd culture to categorize and systematize everything, which can be fun, but misses the point of a lot of narratives.
Might I suggest the works of Patricia A. McKillip? Her stories almost always focus on mages of some sort or another, their learning and using magic, but the magic itself is neither rationalized or systemized, despite there often being magic schools. The magic comes across more like art, and is often tied to music or poetry, or, as one of her characters puts it, a way of seeing the world.
Honestly I like soft magic systems because many stories don’t need complex rules. A modern example that first comes to mind would be the show the Owl House. The magic doesn’t have explicit rules. Many are merely implied. It’s a given over time that there are unspecified limitations to what it can do. We know there’s different types, and we know it all came from one magical being dying and life evolving on the corpse of that dead god. If your story doesn’t necessitate a focus on the magic, you don’t have to have intricate rules. Explain a few things but much like Owl House, you don’t have to fully outline a system of glyph magic to have magic done with glyphs. If the audience doesn’t need to know the minute details of the magic for them to see the magic, then you don’t need to include it. That said you of course can if you want. It’s your story. But sometimes, brevity is the friend of wit
Soft and hard magic aren't polar opposites. The Owl House is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. The fact that we know what a lot of the magic does, especially when it's being used to solve problems, puts it on the harder end of the spectrum. Heck, we even more what using too much of it does to certain people. Glyph magic is just straight up hard magic, the way it's presented. We know its source (the Titan). We know its limits and how it needs to be activated (it needs to be drawn and touched and can only do something directly associated with the glyph drawn). And we know what each combination used does when it's used. We can even guess exactly what magic is about to be used just by seeing that a glyph was placed. Even Titan Luz mostly uses magic that we have seen already if you pay attention. Flying is from her staff, she makes ice, fire, plants, and light, and she draws a circle with her magic to create it. The fact that she only uses glyph magic goes back to how Willow only uses plant magic because it's the only thing she fully understood even though she can do every other form as well. Yeah, there's still nebulous things in there, but the dichotomy isn't either a full periodic table or nonsense. It's only about how the audience can see a connection between the rules they've learned, their expectations, and the solutions created through the magic.
it is said, "any sufficiently advance technology is indistinguishable from magic" but the opposite is also true, any sufficiently explained magic, sounds like technology itself.
Terry Pratchett used this to the extreme in his books. Discworld had magic-revolutions that mimic real world technological advancements. The Science of Discworld series had his wizards go wandering about OUR world to show how Discworld runs on belief of how things to work, while our world doesn't because our universe lacks narrativism - the element of magic!
I think this is why the SCP Foundation is so appealing. It’s full of magical objects and beings that scientists try to understand, but simply cannot, as every layer reveal another layer of impossibilities
my favorite story is probably "Ronald Regan being cut while talking". yeah they experiment on it but they dont even try to bring rationality on why Tape is different on every watch or why there is an entity lurking in the background. It just happens. Premise is oddly specific but it works on SCP worldbuilding
I would really love to see a video on latinamerican magical realism, like the one from Gabriel García Márquez, Juan Rulfo, Arturo Uslar Pietri, Miguel Ángel Asturias and the such
One of my new favorites, I’ll be coming back to this for sure!! This is an approach I’ve had to use in order to refocus my own longstanding worldbuilding project (which is based off of fairytales). It got to a point where I was trying to analyze and categorize everything from mythical creatures to what exactly magic can do, which burnt me out and made things feel super…off. By throwing a lot of explanations/material out (for instance, dragons being extinct instead of a daily, looming threat), everything feels loose and free again. I’m reminded of the Hidetaka Miyazaki video and how one of his principles is letting the world *be*, without a Dune-length compendium of lore and logic behind things.
This makes me think of something. In your case, it seems the question you should've asked yourself, is "Am I writing a story, or a wiki?" And it sounded like you were writing the latter. Even if you weren't making an actual webpage for your story, you were mentally writing a wiki without intending it.
Jon Solo is great. Frankie is okay, but her opinions sometimes get under my skin a bit (such as her stubborn refusal to accept that Mother Gothel in the Disney movie is a manipulative gaslighting hag).
The thing we often forget about science: I don't have to know how a washing machine operates to load it. And sometimes, without my understanding why, the damn thing breaks. Magic can have this too.
Though it can certainly be thought of as a simple magic, I tend to take in these elements on a logical basis, my mind unconsciously filling gaps that were otherwise left blank as I take in the information. In the example of the animals who communicate effectively, though not advancing as humans would, my mind rationalized that they must simply be in a reality where their placement is similar, but lacking the drive and/or thoughts of humans as placed in the same situation. I know it breaks the story, at least the parts that were left to the audience to interpret, but it’s that same allowance for interpretation that I can find so simultaneously wonderful. If I’m creating questions and scenarios in my mind, the author has succeeded in making me enjoy the piece itself, so no harm, no foul.
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Rad
Sounds like a magical deal!
i favor simplicity in a foundation. where the foundation is the only hard rule, with the system being developed to work around this hard rule, or take advantage of it
Dude I'm judging by the episode picture that you were going to talk about living food You Know like from cloudy with a chance to meetballs 2 and bugsnax.
Do tell me how the nature caused itself. It is only rational to assume that what caused nature would transcend it. That it would be supernatural.
I would like to highlight that "magic that makes no sense" can still be readily found in modern comedies and horror stories.
magic makes no sense is different to magic is not consistent. alot of magic in horror is just not consistent.
The easiest modern example to point at were two different episodes of Edd, Ed n Eddy. In one episode Rolf is quickly and fearfully burying a gaudy but cool looking golden phone. The way he buries it is clearly some ritual we don’t understand but Rolf does. Rolf tells the Ed’s to stay back because the phone is cursed. Not believing them Eddy takes it back and immediately it starts ringing despite the old phone not being plugged in, the moment Eddy answers it bad things happen to him practically out of no where. No matter who else answers only Eddy is punished. People have theorized how the curse works but no actual answer is given.
Another is a Magic Boomerang that flies in from no where. Whoever holds it is instantly transformed into the opposite of who they are. The wimpy Jimmy becomes strong and confident, Ed becomes smart, Eddy becomes Motherly, Edd becomes a nudist hippie. We don’t have an answer how or why this does what it’s doing and Edd just gives a tiny bit of trivia that some cultures believed boomerangs were magic.
@@Broomer52 Since when was Ed Edd and Eddy about magic?
@@maxzapsgamingzepzeap2337 it’s not about magic it just had two episodes with unexplained magic in it
Honestly I think this kind of wild magic or unexplained magic can be just as compelling as stories with hard magic systems. It makes perfect sense for supernatural occurrences to not always adhere to any sort of logical pattern.
Honestly “soft” magic is my favorite type of magic in stories. I love it when something weird happens and wverybody in the story is just mildly annoyed or unimpressed.
I love how everyone in “The Gingerbread Man” isn’t disturbed by this little living cookie, but just trying to catch him for their own purposes (which vary depending on the iteration).
I figure the caveat here is there must only be one instance of said magic per story. Even TF's examples follow that rule.
Because when it happens over and over again, the story becomes word salad.
Like Benjamin Button!
"Владимир Семёныч, ну что вы как паук?" ©
It's also a solid basis for horror fiction: Bad Things happening for no discernible reason in ways that make no sense is in itself horrifying. (It's quite common in horror manga: see, Junji Ito)
And as soon as it is explained somehow, the fear is less.
@@danielled8665well I don't entirely agree with that sometimes an explanation makes things scarier depending on the scenario
@@siramaytheshowgundragon yeah we know "the thing" is an alien but it doesn't make it less terrifying
@@siramaytheshowgundragon Do you have any examples of this in media? because most of the time i prefer the unexplained part, so i wanna know what are the exceptions
@@nandanthony well yah but I'm not much of a horror fan so it's limited andi feel like at the end of the day it can run down to subjective opinion but like the more you know about a thing the more you think about it where as if a movie has a thing like "hears a demon, it's evil the end" I will quickly disregard it but if it has complex lore and history and development it stays with me as I'm left to ponder all I know like forbidden knowledge
Mans shadow be like:"Yo your life sucks, imma head out"
Man:"Well thats annyoing...oh well, i'm shadowless now."
Peter Pan: You can't just do that, You have to sew it for your life!!!!
And that's the energy why his shadow left.
Shadow was so right!
Whoops I'm now an Ascian!
The Shadow of my favourite fairy tale, ever. I've analyzed it so much. There's actually TWO explanations on why the shadow ia ble to leave, actually. First time I've seen Tale Foundry miss the mark.
In the book "one hundred years of solitud", one of the prime examples of magical realism, one of the characters dies, and chapters later, he comes back because "he was bored in dead"
lol that just reminds me of this sci-fi story where a rogue AI spends the better part of a century orchestrating events ultimately to position itself to leap through a black hole and ascend beyond reality into the cosmic only to get bored 5 minutes later and promptly begin searching for ways it can return. Ultimate hype disappointment.
@ScionStorm what is the name of it?
@@AIIuminium Neal Asher's Transformation trilogy. Mostly the last book.
Teaser for the last book The Infinity Engine:
In the outskirts of space, and the far corners of the Polity civilization, complex dealings are in play.
Several forces continue to pursue the deadly and enigmatic Black AI named Penny Royal, none more dangerous than the Brockle, a psychopathic forensics AI and criminal who has escaped the Polity’s confinements and is upgrading itself in anticipation of a deadly showdown, becoming ever more powerful and intelligent.
Aboard Factory Station Room 101, the long lost behemoth war factory that birthed Penny Royal, groups of humans, Prador aliens, and AI war drones grapple for control. The stability of the ship is complicated by the arrival of a Gabbleduck known as the Weaver, the last living member of the ancient and powerful Atheter alien race.
What would an Atheter want with the complicated dealings of Penny Royal? Are the Polity and prador forces playing right into the Black AI’s hand, or is it the other way around? Set pieces align in the final book of Neal Asher’s action-packed Transformation trilogy, pointing to a showdown on the cusp of the Layden’s Sink black hole, inside of which lies a powerful secret, one that could destroy the entire Polity civilization.
Mood
Solitude *
"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrariwise, what it is, it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?" -Alice to Dinah, prior to her Adventures in Wonderland (animated film, 1951)
I'm little bit having headache reading the lines even rereading it still confused by the last part lol, brilliant 😂😂😂😂
Alice, the Chaos Cultist
@@williansnobre Alice Wonderland is a chaos god, confirmed
I’m surprised I understood what that means, at least when I read it the second time-
@@belynda1224 Lewis Carroll was _The_ math and logic nerd
I like to imagine Frankie encountered the Foundry over an invitation by the Telloids, stayed for gentle conversation for reasearch on this transmition but stayed long enough to see them perform the video live and sneak through the intro. Wonderful.
Does she have a channel? If so what is it?
youtube.com/@abitfrank
@@endymionselene165 it’s youtube.com/@abitfrank
@@endymionselene165 abitfrank
@@narnilphilomythus2821 thank you.
This legitimizes my decision to mix in "irrational" magic with my "science" magic.
What you just described is mixing hard magic systems with soft ones
Ooh l like this concept. It's like, "This is what we know and understand, and this is what happens what we don't understand."
@@bigawesomewatermelon9511 Just like actual science.
@@deadheat1635 indeed
somehow this reminds me on one of my characters: Dr. Weird. an "evil" scientist from the future who travelled to the past because nobody in his time period would take him seriously.
he uses unconventional techniques, that occasionally break the system, by using anti-logic. similar to how anti-matter negates matter, anti-logic defies logic and can therefore bypass the limits of what should be possible.
naturally there's no logical explanation to how it works, it just does.
According to earlier versions of LRRH, the Big Bad Wolf IS himself magical, because he somehow manages to keep Little Red and Grandma inside him, alive, until Grandpa rescues them. That makes even less sense than him talking.
Still, no-one seems to be melting down over the fact that Porco Rosso never bothered to explain why Porco was a pig-man...
@thoughtengine
he just swallowed them whole i guess
@@chongwillson972 Which isn't remotely possible.
@@thoughtengine it might be possible if his he can eat things like a frog ,which he might be able to do somehow , he is already weird as it is , with him being to walk and talk and that not be odd.
@@chongwillson972 A frog is about the size of my hand. Or less. A wolf's jaws do open that wide. They don't open six feet wide, though. Which is only the first hurdle. If he eats little Red and Grandma he's going to have to do so in literal bite-size pieces. They ain't coming back.
As I recall, the original story has Red and Grandma eaten and done with, it is a cautionary tale after all. The part where the woodsman with his ax cuts the wolf apart and they are alive was tacked on later to put the story in an anthology for children. The original is interesting to research, it is French, and there was an actual court case where a hunter with a trained wolf was suspected of a series of murders of young women. We might make a true crime novel of that, sixteenth century peasants made a cautionary tale, with lots of sexual symbolism (most of that removed as well !)
It's odd how "nonsense magic with arbitary rules" is so... Horrifying and unsettling.
I think there's something Lovecraftian about it, like that there rules imposed are there for reasons you will never be able to comprehend.
i have my character be able to summon a ladder (with adjustable height, material etc.) and mess with the "hitboxes" of the world (basically being able to noclip, blj, warp etc.)
Just leaving a general praise comment for the channel. You guys make think about writing again.
Uttering a wish out loud was considered magic, that is why folk tales and fairy tales use them and that is how we got magical incantations in the first place. That is why we call things said in a moment of heightened emotion swearing and curses. In the past you would swear to do something or curse someone for doing you wrong. Europe did not have a concept of Karma, but it had the idea of curses accumulating, causing misfortune to the ones who were hated.
So things do not just happen in fairytales, they happened because the characters dared to utter their wishes aloud.
To hell with sense. Common sense is a trap. When making a complex world to use as a setting, we want internal coherence and all that. But being able to sit down and just CREATE is a wonderful thing.
Both systems have their place IMO. I think magic that has some rules behind it and is grounded is great in longer stories. Like multi-book novel series. They need grounded magic, otherwise it can just become an actual or an expected plot-device. When the heroes are facing an impossible situaton the audience will asks: Why didn't they solve it with magic? If magic is grounded then they'll know exactly why they didn't solve it with magic. And the writer won't be able to use it as a copout solution to all problems. Which will eventually lower the stakes of every situation.
Thank you for mentioning thematic magic. Magical realism is one of my favourite subgenres of literary fiction but discussions of world building so often focus on the fantasy genre alone.
Oh yeah, Talebot, been meaning to tell you, your (relatively) new intro.. 🥰, best I've seen on UA-cam.
Something that I like about the King Killer Chronicle is that yes, the magic makes absolute sense... Until it doesn't. Sometimes the story just goes straight up into fairytale territory, but since the world feels so grounded, you have to take it as face value. Things that sound like metaphors are meant to be taken literally. I really like that.
I love soft magic systems. The magic does whatever it wants to do, whenever it wants to, and the only thing you can do is try to figure out how to make it work in your favor
I think the concept behind magic is the simple, but wonderous, question "what if... ?".
Love the intro animation. Looking forward to an actual short film starring the Telloids.
I think the thing about Brandon Sanderson's "Magic System(s)" that enchants me is that it is (almost) the inverse of the "Technology as Mysticism" that is central in Asimov's Foundation. Rather than a Universe of people trusting in the incomprehensible powers of the ancients while a select few know the secret truth that it was all created by them in the first place--all of The Cosmere has a (theoretically) cohesive and consistent additional set of physical rules that are just as baffling (but crucially, just as tantalizingly almost-understandable) as quantum physics is to a modern high school student.
One thought I have is that magic should be consistent, and the writer should know what its rules are...but the reader doesn't need to know all of them.
Another thought is that, yes, sometimes things just happen. Things have happened in my own life, and in the lives of people whose clear-mindedness I rely upon, which don't seem to make sense, rationally, so I know for a fact that sometimes things DO happen that you can't explain. That being the case, it seems entirely fair to put things into stories that can't be explained.
"If you're wondering how he eats, or breathes, or other science facts, repeat to yourself 'It's just a show. I should really just relax'."
In some of my own worldbuilding, magic jumps between a force of nature no different than the weather, a universal constant that effects some places and people more than others depending on how connected to the magic they are, or the product of eldritch or godlike beings simply existing. I also have a constant rule in terms of magic works: it often taps into the ethereal power that binds body to soul, material to immaterial: allowing connection and influence over both states of being. The soul is something beyond even magic's reach, but it allows life to exist and attain miraculous abilities thanks to magic binding the mystical to the physical.
It works in some ways like the Force: magic is in everything, holds everything together. Some have more attunement to it than others, but anyone can tap into it with enough effort. Though specializations do exist, magic can be used quite freely and specific spells are simply techniques that are widely used. I like keeping a sort of system in place while also having it still be very mystical: most can only scratch the surface of what magic can do, only just knowing how it ties to everything. Again, another universal process that simply is: one that offers boundless potential to those who explore it.
I was trying think of an origin for 5 god-like characters of mine. I know where 4/5 came from, but couldn't think of a fitting origin for the 5th... but I think that's okay. After watching this, I think it's almost better if I just simply let them be. Not only is there very little reason to focus on them consdering their positions in the story, but they make more sense as beings that simply just are part of the world.
Ofc they still have roles to play and rules to follow, but I think it's best that I leave it at that... which is something I had never considered... so thank you:)
Just found you. What a beautiful channel! Thank you!
2 things:
1- About the fable about the hare and the tortoise, I think their dialogue is just translated to ease the comprehension of the audience. This explanation is exactly how the film Isle of dogs begins, after all.
2- Another example is Snegurochka. There is this animated short film based on a Russian fairy tale, telling the story of an elderly couple, who, craving to have a child, one day build a snow maiden, who comes to life. Just like that. Naming her Snegurochka, they adopt her as their granddaughter and she starts living with them. In Russian folklore, Snegurochka is also depicted as Morozko's daughter or granddaughter.
I love this CHANNEL!
I love how you sounded exhausted when mentioned sanderson and his fans love it. 😂
I agree...
Soft or Hard magic systems are used in different ways...
like what you said, if the magic wasn't supposed to be studied in the story, it doesn't have to be "scientific" or have lots of rules.
But if the story requires it, or if it's gonna be crucial for the story, then go.
Clarkes Law is a good explaination of magic
I’ve been going between writing three different stories, all with different ways of writing them just to try it out. Among other differences, one uses very “scientific” magic, one uses more mystical but studyable magic, and one exists in a sort of spirit world where anything can exist just… because.
😏
Arthurian literature is a lot like this. Why does a tornado show up when Arthur's knight shows up to fight an enemy? Just because that's the way it is. And you can apply that answer to just about everything weird in the stories of King Arthur.
Erin Morgensterns "The starless sea" seems like it would be right up this channels alley
That animation in the intro was amazing
Go go Gadget dream-logic.
Huh.. when you mention watership down i immediatly get flashbacks of Hare violence.
The power of speech is weird
i think ghibli studio movies offer that kind of irrational magic without the need to explain it too
For me this kind of magic is really confusing because there’s no explanation for it or even a spell
The animation is so good
We need a magical realism video
Magic being explained by science reminds me of NieR/Drakengard series. A world where Magic can be explained by Science through exposure and harnessing the "Maso Particles".
fairy tales are really odd
the great suspension of disbelief requested of children in their early life is such an odd request
Children don’t have the disbelief to suspend. They just accept what they’re given.
@@BlackCover95 that's fair
0.20 The first story about manifestation.
Would youtube object shows count as magic that doesn't make sense?
You should do a video on Michael Ende's "The Neverending Story" book.
DIBS on the term 'shadowless' for some supernatural organization or something!!!
You can try to beat me to publishing it 🌝
i'd always loved Cortazar, i allways remember the story of a man that puked grown rabbits and acted as it was just a fever
I like seeing Franky on here
The arcane becomes mundane if it is everywhere all the time. You have to work the balance when creating your worlds.
Having just watched this video (over on Nebula actually!), I was wondering if you’d read Ra by QNTM, another story involving magic as a science.
What if Magic worked on the principle of Order & Chaos, like Magic being put into a special System was Magic being used through Order like the way we see Science, but if the Magic defies the System & seems out of place, random, illogical, or nonsensical would be the Magic being thrown into Chaos, like a small amount of Chaos would allow it so animals could talk, or an inanimate object comes to life, or a person experiences a strange alteration, and a large amount of Chaos would basically create a World so different from ours that it would defy one's perception of Reality itself, I might be overthinking this, but it's just a theory, what is your opinion on this whole Magical Order & Chaos thing?
While fantasy with magic that follows rigid/clearly defined rules is cool, insisting that all fantasy must fit that standard in order to be considered good is fundamentally missing the point of the genera
So mine comes from some ffx stuff where sin is the magic and driving force
The story about the queen is called snowdrop
Best crossover? XD
Yeah.
Like in real life things just happen.
Somethimes whith no sense at all...
The Theory of Flight by Gloria Ndlovu, a book of magical realism from Zimbabwe
Ha what even make sense?!😂 Also first🥇
Hmm... makes sense.
This is the kind of randomness I see in tf2 or gmod videos
It's kolobok in our culture
because they're magical
Scientific systems feel less magical mostly because we've deceived ourselves into thinking that science isn't magic.
A group of wise elders designed and crafted arcane bits of metal that allow this video to be seen across the world through messages the air; all powered by freaking lightning. Learned scholars in white robes counteract the effects of both age and the invasion of your body by invisible, basically-malicious life-forces through the application of specific combinations of difficult-to-produce distillations. Humans fly through the hard work and craftiness of generations of people mastering control over fundamental forces of nature and the discovery and refinement of long-hidden sources of power buried deep within the earth itself and the very plants around us.
Modern education forces a poor trade on children by stripping the wonder out of reality only to replace it with mere facts.
Meanwhile psychic spies from China try to steal your minds elation
And little girls from Sweden achieve silver screen quotation
And memers meme but soon
They fall into AI damnation
Sorry for this incredibly stupid question, but how do Skillshare usually contact creators on 'Tube? Plain old email?
2:06 LMAO
we appreciate your effort wne hard work god boeee yoy
>not everything has to make sense, not everything has to be beautiful
You are objectively incorrect.
So....we're not gonna talk about frank being in the video? 😂
I’m sorry, but there’s one quote I find very missing from this episode: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, by A.C Clark.
Perhaps you made a deliberated decision not to include it in this work, but IMHO, I’m afraid it’s essential, because it explains the other side of the range of POV regarding magic and its dominance in the culture we have become.
We quote that in our upcoming video about the nature of magic systems. 🙂
Recently I’ve come to hate almost the entire internet. It’s made almost entirely of liars and hypocrites. This channel is literally one of the only things worth listening to on the entire net and everyone involved deserves enormous credit.
Def go to the other platform
I think another example of "magic not making sense" would be the film "Groundhog Day". There's never an explanation as to why he relives the same day over and over. It's just something that happens.
there was an (intentionally) cut scene explaining it, basically a generic witch lady is like "i put a curse on you!" cus phil is a bit of a dick to her son, but they set it to be recorded right at the end of production, so that they could run out of time and have to release it without the explanation
this is cus originally the producers thought the audience would need an explanation for the time loop, but the directors didnt want to do that
It's not even self-consistent since he does make it past midnight one day.
And over the garden wall, shit make no sense but it can bait thousands upon thousands of theorist to find the answer. The closest one we got is they're in purgatory because they almost drawn while running away from cops during Halloween night.
Little nightmare franchise approach dark fairytale the same way so is bramble the mountain king.
There's always something charming about shit that don't make any sense tho, like watching dream ore stuff.
PTSD?
Time magic
Sometimes you need to step back from the scientific method and embrace the engineering method: repeated tests find WHAT works, but not necessarily HOW it works.
The good ol historical method of trial and error.
Folks often forget that our ancestors figured shit out without really understanding shit.
Damascus steel? Greek fire? Roman concrete?
Ancient folks were damn impressive with only trial and error. Our scientific methods and ability to predict phenomena is magic in comparison lmao.
once you've done enough trial and error, you can see a pattern emerge and use the pattern that works instead of t&e
Some birds can speak, but like a great man once told a Gungan, "the ability to speak does not make one intelligent."
Intelligence is a prerequisite for the ability to speak.
@@elio7610 but not for mimicry.
One of my favorite examples of thematic magic is a rather obscure old movie called 'Halloween Town.' There's a quote from the movie that perfectly explains it's thematic magic system, "Magic is really very simple, all you need to do is want something, and let yourself have it!"
I love Halloween Town! Peak childhood nostalgia
Go marnie its just an evil spell that freezes us 🥶🥶🥶
Trapa - Apart
bruh old? obscure??? it was a disney halloween classic series from the late 90s to early 00s you cant call those oooold or ill be old!
@@Beefaroni_Bert Well that was 30-20 years ago
Thematic magic sounds really cool. More modern fantasy should impalent this more.
*implement
Is that what you meant? 🙂
One of the funniest facts about the gingerbreadman is that wikipedia categorizes it as an "Edible Golum"
spontaneous little guy generation was actually a very common phenomenon in ye olde times. Sometimes people would think, "hm what if there was a little guy," and then there would be. True story.
I always thought they made that cookie just to, you know, eat it and that’s it.
I once read a short book that pretty much cut off those parts as just "a woman baking cookie then it fled & got chased by anyone until fox ated it."
I'm afraid you may have forgotten one of the most interesting story, that might be defined as fantasy and/or fairytale. The story of Baron Munchausen.
Riding on cannonballs, pulling himself and his horse out of the water by his own hair and travelling to the moon (in the 1800's) are among his more believable feats.
Yes, I said more believable and I mean it.
And how can he do all this? Because he is Baron Munchausen. That's all.
Sounds like the 1800s version of those Chuck Norris memes that were popular in the 2000s
@@Gloomdrake Yes, yes it does
In the talmud there's a story about some Rabbis who were hungry but had nothing to eat and they made a goat out of clay. Then the prayed and the goat became -somewhat like Pinocchio- a real goat. Then they slaughtered it, and ate it. Happy ending
That getting a book off the shelf intro was so immersive and definitely got me wanting to watch more :)
New relaxing outro too! 😊
Terry Pratchett fixed this problem by making his magic system based on the power of story itself. It allowed his Discworld series to be both deeply magical but also evolve into to explain the difference between science, technology and fantasy. In later books Discworld is said to be rich in Narrativism - the fundemental element of story which is why belief is enough to make something happen. This provides the 'hard magic' system used by Wizards and Witches being entirely based on making something happen because 'the story' needed it to. This is contrasted in the Science of Discworld with their wizards exploring our universe which is devoid of Narrativsm and thus follows it's own rules that often sounds like fantasy to laypeople when you get into things like evolution or quantum physics.
Before you even finished your intro, I was wanting to say: This is why I have such a massive beef with that certain kind of person who hyper focuses on EXACTLY _how_ things happen, and insist stories are bad if they lack these explanations.
I'd agree that few fairy tales live up to modern story standards, but the arbitrary "how" of something is so unnecessary in so many kinds of stories now, just like it has been for MILLENNIA. That obsession is practically as nonsensical as the fairytale logic they decry.
Following their criteria of criticism with full consistency would lead them to discard every true, real life story -- as in everything that has ever happened to anyone who's real -- because we don't know how or why gravity exists. Many ideas exist, but all we _know_ is just some of what it does.
And the same part of me that loves mind bending fairytale logic, absolutely _loves_ that absurd stance. It's _so_ delightful! I just wish it wasn't used to deride the stories which understand that some perceived rules are just that.
I'm more attached to the last point, magic doesn't always need an origin or a scientific text book to explain it, but some concrete rules are helpful. Fables have talking animals, I can't say why but it helps give them human-like personality and sets the plot in motion, it also makes the world feel more charming especially when they tend to act more like friendly animals than people, or even deeper you can make it a thought experiment into how their instincts explain their actions. This is separate from the world where people spontaneously combust if they eat buckwheat pancakes, no real sense and it doesn't seem to work on some days and everyone feels less happy about the world when it's unreliable. The pythagorean theorem is useless so science never advanced very far (not even in a non-euclidian way but an observer effect way, acting or measuring the environment immediately changes the rules).
Over explaining your magic system can be harmful to having it feel interesting or some elements are added for the sake of the story and an allegory. Tolkien made a full pantheon of spirits but what's mainly important is Gandalf has magic to do what he needs yet is limited, he's powerful and knowledgeable but primarily there to inspire men to be better and fight their battle. He's even just as vulnerable to corruption as men, Saruman or anyone else, therefore the Hobbits as a simple small folk are helpful but if mislead can end up as Gollum. It's only scratching the surface of the grander world and it doesn't all get explained why it is, but it can be understood and all works towards the story and themes.
How about one more, Full Metal Alchemist is a world where science and magic are the same, alchemy uses equivalent exchange and knowledge to do just about anything. With the right creativity and some circles for more advanced formulas the alchemists can do just about anything. The main conflict now is bringing the dead back to life, for what can equal the value of a human soul, and philosopher stones which have immense power but are created with the sacrifice of cities worth of people. To gain anything you need to apply yourself and put forward something of value, but also consider if what you're working for is worth it in the end or is at the cost of others, and even how that applies to governments that have their entire country at their disposal.
There's this strong urge in modern nerd culture to categorize and systematize everything, which can be fun, but misses the point of a lot of narratives.
Might I suggest the works of Patricia A. McKillip? Her stories almost always focus on mages of some sort or another, their learning and using magic, but the magic itself is neither rationalized or systemized, despite there often being magic schools. The magic comes across more like art, and is often tied to music or poetry, or, as one of her characters puts it, a way of seeing the world.
I would like to see your take on the magic in Larry Niven's "The Magic Goes Away".
Honestly I like soft magic systems because many stories don’t need complex rules. A modern example that first comes to mind would be the show the Owl House. The magic doesn’t have explicit rules. Many are merely implied. It’s a given over time that there are unspecified limitations to what it can do. We know there’s different types, and we know it all came from one magical being dying and life evolving on the corpse of that dead god.
If your story doesn’t necessitate a focus on the magic, you don’t have to have intricate rules. Explain a few things but much like Owl House, you don’t have to fully outline a system of glyph magic to have magic done with glyphs. If the audience doesn’t need to know the minute details of the magic for them to see the magic, then you don’t need to include it.
That said you of course can if you want. It’s your story. But sometimes, brevity is the friend of wit
Soft and hard magic aren't polar opposites. The Owl House is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. The fact that we know what a lot of the magic does, especially when it's being used to solve problems, puts it on the harder end of the spectrum. Heck, we even more what using too much of it does to certain people.
Glyph magic is just straight up hard magic, the way it's presented. We know its source (the Titan). We know its limits and how it needs to be activated (it needs to be drawn and touched and can only do something directly associated with the glyph drawn). And we know what each combination used does when it's used. We can even guess exactly what magic is about to be used just by seeing that a glyph was placed. Even Titan Luz mostly uses magic that we have seen already if you pay attention. Flying is from her staff, she makes ice, fire, plants, and light, and she draws a circle with her magic to create it. The fact that she only uses glyph magic goes back to how Willow only uses plant magic because it's the only thing she fully understood even though she can do every other form as well.
Yeah, there's still nebulous things in there, but the dichotomy isn't either a full periodic table or nonsense. It's only about how the audience can see a connection between the rules they've learned, their expectations, and the solutions created through the magic.
Loving that A WIZARD DID IT is becoming a thing across my fave UA-cam channels after so long 🤣
it is said, "any sufficiently advance technology is indistinguishable from magic" but the opposite is also true, any sufficiently explained magic, sounds like technology itself.
Terry Pratchett used this to the extreme in his books. Discworld had magic-revolutions that mimic real world technological advancements. The Science of Discworld series had his wizards go wandering about OUR world to show how Discworld runs on belief of how things to work, while our world doesn't because our universe lacks narrativism - the element of magic!
I think this is why the SCP Foundation is so appealing. It’s full of magical objects and beings that scientists try to understand, but simply cannot, as every layer reveal another layer of impossibilities
my favorite story is probably "Ronald Regan being cut while talking". yeah they experiment on it but they dont even try to bring rationality on why Tape is different on every watch or why there is an entity lurking in the background. It just happens. Premise is oddly specific but it works on SCP worldbuilding
I would really love to see a video on latinamerican magical realism, like the one from Gabriel García Márquez, Juan Rulfo, Arturo Uslar Pietri, Miguel Ángel Asturias and the such
Yes! I was hoping someone would mention magical realism in Latino America, some of my favorite stories.
Abitfrank + Tale foundry = fairy-tale duo
One of my new favorites, I’ll be coming back to this for sure!!
This is an approach I’ve had to use in order to refocus my own longstanding worldbuilding project (which is based off of fairytales). It got to a point where I was trying to analyze and categorize everything from mythical creatures to what exactly magic can do, which burnt me out and made things feel super…off.
By throwing a lot of explanations/material out (for instance, dragons being extinct instead of a daily, looming threat), everything feels loose and free again.
I’m reminded of the Hidetaka Miyazaki video and how one of his principles is letting the world *be*, without a Dune-length compendium of lore and logic behind things.
This makes me think of something. In your case, it seems the question you should've asked yourself, is "Am I writing a story, or a wiki?" And it sounded like you were writing the latter. Even if you weren't making an actual webpage for your story, you were mentally writing a wiki without intending it.
I love how Abitfrank pops up to take offense when they were possibly referring to a certain other youtuber who covers "messed up origins" lol
Jon Solo is great. Frankie is okay, but her opinions sometimes get under my skin a bit (such as her stubborn refusal to accept that Mother Gothel in the Disney movie is a manipulative gaslighting hag).
The thing we often forget about science: I don't have to know how a washing machine operates to load it. And sometimes, without my understanding why, the damn thing breaks.
Magic can have this too.
Though it can certainly be thought of as a simple magic, I tend to take in these elements on a logical basis, my mind unconsciously filling gaps that were otherwise left blank as I take in the information. In the example of the animals who communicate effectively, though not advancing as humans would, my mind rationalized that they must simply be in a reality where their placement is similar, but lacking the drive and/or thoughts of humans as placed in the same situation. I know it breaks the story, at least the parts that were left to the audience to interpret, but it’s that same allowance for interpretation that I can find so simultaneously wonderful. If I’m creating questions and scenarios in my mind, the author has succeeded in making me enjoy the piece itself, so no harm, no foul.