To be honest, if there was a actual system? It would go like this. Old magic: requires ritual and time with a equivalent exchange with nature. It takes more time, but you can use powerful spells depending on the magic cast. You take the magic out, but also give back magic to nature to keep the circle going. Cons: take too long to work magic. New magic: spheres are artificial and sucks up the magic from the land. Once it empty, either replant it to redo the process or get a new one. Con: because it just takes and doesn’t give back, it cause the Rot, and because everyone is using it, the rot grow. As for the pre made spells…I don’t know, maybe they were spells made from rituals of old magic to pour in? And that’s why they’re so powerful? Boom. Developed the ground work of magic and it took me five minutes.
I mean for old and new that is what they were going for, they just meant for the rot to be the (stupidly obvious) season 2 twist. The other stuff just seems like stuff they didn’t think about though.
@@yoseisovereign6728 Maybe, but the point is that despite their attempt? The new magic just does whatever, and maybe if they explain the rot in the beginning-- or at the very least early in the episodes? Then it could've salvage the situation...then again, I figure the Rot is from new magic from first glance.
This show isn’t good but I thought that was one thing they handled fine. Sage is fretting over a drawing of the rot at the same time the teacher claims that new magic has no cost. Then the teacher’s wand runs out of power which would directly disprove her claim that it has no cost. Doesn’t make the magic system good, it’s just that that one particular criticism isn’t accurate.
@@yoseisovereign6728 another issue is that neppy drives the rot off a tree in episode 3 using new magic. So if that new magic twist is what they were going for they contradicted their system since new magic being able to fix it would make no sense
If anyone in the real world got isekai’d into High Guardian Spice they’d basically just become a god. Grab like 10 terraspheres and spam magic like no tomorrow since New Magic is basically just reality warping.
This is why portal/teleportation in a lot of other fantasy genre are mostly an artifact structures or devices. If not then they are high level magic that only archmage can use.
In Harry Potter for example portkeys are widely used. And on top of that apparition is limited by multiple factors such as magical wards that can block teleportation, and also the danger of leaving parts of yourself behind if you teleport to far. Compare this to hgs where there are no limits at all and people don’t bother using portals for everything despite it being insanely useful
Yeah, also the non-magical way to get into the magic government building in Harry Potter was super basic and basically never used, aka it was only for special cases. But otherwise everyone uses the magical transport to get in.
Old vs. new magic was just a terrible allegory for conservative and liberal political views. The more you look at this show, the worse it gets. Ironically, this show teaches you how to NOT write a story, set up a world, mechanics, etc.
So conservative political view is much more confortable and useful than liberal? We know that -liberal- old magic is good because main character's mom is using it but they don't show anything bad about new magic
@@KumaOso16 But someone (Amaryllis?) on the show said all this stuff for new magic comes from "Witch Country" or something. And this country of witches are presented as villains in the latest episodes. Are liberals the villains in the show? Most likely the new magic is an allegory for mass industrialization. There are hints in the show that the new magic is simpler and more accessible to everyone, but its danger is not visible to ordinary people who are not involved in the process of creating new... what are these things called... terospheres... pterospheres? Could tree rot be caused by this? Or maybe there are no allegories at all! I do not know. This show is a mess. I think we will never know for sure.
@@ScorchedCube Sage’s cousin outright say that Sage’s mom didn’t use to be so “Conservative.”. I think they couldn’t figure out what poorly veiled metaphor they wanted their magic system to be.
The problem with that is that Sage’s mom is right. The new magic would definitely be revealed to be causing the rot if there was ever a season 2. Calling her “conservative” is a subtle bit of irony. Which is surprising because that’s about the only subtle moment the show has.
The only good thing that came with this show is people using this show as a instruction book about what NOT TO DO while writing a story, and exercising themselves to be better writers. This is, unironically, inspiring.
I watched a few episodes and knew it wasn't for me, so I dropped it and I thought that would be the end of it like any other dropped show. I can't believe how much HGS "content" I've been watching. There are so many fascinating insights to gain as everyone analyzes its various flaws from many angles!
My biggest qualm with the show is the severe lack of world-building: especially when it comes to the role of "Guardian". Like, what even *IS* a "Guardian" in this show? What do "Guardians" even do? What are they the guardians of? The city? The world? Some special gemstone that could destroy the world if it falls into the wrong hands? Why are there no other guardians outside of the cast of students? Shouldn't there be older, more experienced guardians out there (not counting the professors at the Academy, I'm talking about the guardians who are just...out there in the city) who could maybe provide guidance to our main cast of tween guardians? Furthermore, I don't understand the species of this show. Like, ok, demons are evil & scary monsters...so, why is one lady demon working at the school? It's inconsistent!
I think the writers flipped through a D&D monster manual and added whatever they thought looked cool to them. It would explain why the show is all over the place.😂
@@synkieagda7620 Exactly. At least in shows/series like, say, "Soul Eater" for instance, there are weapon-wielding meisters living normal, passive lives in the city.
And the worst thing is, there are people who actually liked the show and are waiting for season 2 :/ not only that, but some of them really said that the show is "pretty good", ugh.
You also forgot to mention how portal magic makes Thyme's dilemma about trying to contact her father way more stupid, instead of summoning a demon why doesn't she just ask Sage or any other magic user to help open a portal to where her father is? I know they're trying to make Thyme the independent lone wolf but her attitude is not understandable at all. It just makes her look stupidly stubborn and proud. All I think of is that they were low key trying to make Thyme their version of Homura akemi (no shade to that character at all). The thing is tho what makes Homura a much better written character is that she actually DID try to help reach out to other characters, and it ended up BACKFIRING on her, like MANY TIMES. The people around her are unfit to help with her situation. With Thyme however, she hasn't even given the method of reaching out to others a proper chance, so it hasn't even backfired on her yet, she legit has NO REASON to be so averse to getting help from others.
Even worse is in episode two Parsley says that Thyme is on both the warrior track, and the magic track! Which means she probably could’ve done it herself! (Though I’m also aware she has said that she doesn’t mess with new magic.)
@@legendarybubbles4567 to be fair thyme explicitly stated that she sucks at magic, so maybe her magic skills weren't adequate enough to directly create a portal, but still. If she needed a demon to help summon a portal to where her father is, then why the fuck didn't she just go to the ethics teacher lady? Since she works with the academy she'd obviously cooperate much better than the other demon that thyme summoned, and not to mention she's demonstrated that she can open MULTIPLE PORTALS TO MANY DIFFERENT LOCATIONS even! Thyme even saw it for herself! This goes back to my point of how thyme's lone wolf characterization is so poorly executed and unjustified. It doesn't make her look strong and capable, it just makes her look stupid and incompetent instead. -_-
@@poweruppikawho9007 TRUE. This highlights how this show doesn't properly utilize its own world building elements. Spark spells despite being so useful are only used ONCE for one important plot point. Seriously how did the writers miss the fact that thyme cloud've tried a spark spell to reach her dad?
The demon summoning is legit the most stupid thing Thyme did in the show. Above all previous comments... Thyme knew about this demon from history stating directly that the demon is not cooperative, doesn't grant wishes and is very hostile to the point stepping out of some salt circle when he is around is sure death. So she obviously asked him to grant her wish... Not even having anything in exchange. It is like aproaching known serial murderer just to ask him if he can borrow you his car.
Funniest part, if not the most tragic, is that they had the bases to make the system work, but they were so distracted trying to preach they completely fumbled it. Let's start with the most classic of classics in the fantasy games, the RPS-like Class Triangle! Warrior beats Rogue, Rogue beats Mage, Mage beats Warrior; How do we make sense of this? Warriors are brutes by nature, not to say they lack skills, but in battle they're more about overpowering their opponents with their strenght; Rogues are tricky fighters, but they can only manage brute force for so long, reason the matchup is unfavourable. Rogues are all about their speed and trickery, relying more on their combat prowess than their muscle, even if it means they have to "fight dirty", some are even known to have some basic knowledge of the Arcane arts; Mages are still people, and spells take time to cast, they can only do so much about an enemy that can easily get out of their sight, be it by skill or foul play (Say, smoke bombs or dust in the eyes) to quickly get on their face, or most likely, their backs. Their physiques are usually on the frail side, so it doesn't take much strenght to take them down. Mages are most commonly depicted as the studious type, your typical bookworm, too busy reading and practicing their craft to hit the gym, but really, when you can blow stuff up with a flick of your wrist and some fancy wordplay it's hard to believe you'd ever need to. Warriors are very much about brute forcing their way to victory, which is really hard to achieve when this weird guy 10 meters away from you entangled you with plants and then lit you on fire without moving from his place, brain can often best brawn, as they say. So, what's the point of a Sword when you can kill everyone around you by chanting a Yo Mama joke in a dead language? Simple, you gotta finish the stupidly long joke before that can happen, and since you're such a weakling you'll probably get your ass kicked before you get to the punchline... Unless you got this big asshole with a giant sword keeping the bullies away from you, and this sneaky mother f*cker giving surprise wedgies to the other nerds also in the middle of their own jokes. Magic is supposed to be a long and arduous proccess that requires all of your attention for years to even grasp the basics, something some people are just incapable of even dreaming of learning, and that could be very draining for those who do learn it. HGS has this with Old Magic, magic that takes preparation, might require ingredients and can take a while to be ready to launch. Had this been the one and only Magic system available it'd be very easy to understand what the point of pairing Sage with Rosemary is, someone has to keep Sage safe while she casts the Win-the-fight Spell. Instead we also got New Magic, that allows the user to cast spells instantly with a thought, isn't a drain on the user, and even when it does require preparation you can just have it preemptively done and saved on your backup staff, that doesn't even take much space since you can shrink it to the size of a marble. So, the Mages can now drop nukes on demand with just a thought, meaning they wouldn't need protection, and can outplay every non magic user that isn't ready to work 10 times as hard. They didn't even try to balance it out with something like "Old Magic is much more powerful, but New Magic is faster" or "Old Magic allows you to do much more stuff, while New Magic is limited on what it can accomplish" It feels like someone in the staff realized this was a stupid idea and tried to retroactively fix it by implying New Magic is Unwieldy (Even tho every New Magic user we see, that isn't Sage, is so adept at it you would struggle to believe it), that it runs on batteries (that never seem to actually get emptied, so they might be so longlasting it doesn't even matter) and that is somehow bad for the planet (tho one could argue against that since it wasn't explicitly said on the show, and we're not getting a second season to fill in the gaps). Let's not even get into the debate about the Conservative vs Progressive allegory they just casually dropped in there, tho that is probably the whole reason why they decided to make New Magic so unapologetically OP. Lastly, and just in the name of being fair with the show, by the end of the show we had Profesor Self-Insert fight by using both New and Old Magic, using New Magic to keep his foe at bay while he prepared a powerful Old Magic finisher. Why is this interesting or worth mentioning? Because had the magic system been better developed this would have been an amazing breakthrough! Picture this: In a world where most magic users dropped the slow and more powerful magic of the past in favour of the new faster yet weaker magic, an old magic user struggles to fit in. She joins an academy of heroes where she hopes she can develop her skills as a magic user only to find out her ways are looked down on, through trials and tribulations she starts to believe her peers might be right to abandon the old ways, and just when she's about to give up, she finds this mysterious magic user, so skilled he can use the weaker New Magic to defend himself in combat while simultaneously casting the more complex, and stronger, Old Magic spells. On what we actually got, New Magic is so powerful you just can't help but wonder why he'd even bother doing both when he could, say, dual cast using New Magic instead. If there was a rule that said that's not doable they sure didn't mention it.
This is a very interesting detailed breakdown of your thoughts on the magic system of HGS. I applaud your dedication, kind person. Thank you, it was very insightful✨
He probably bothers to do it because in later seasons there would be revealed that New Magic causes the rot, but it would imply mr Caraway can't be transgender anymore cause it is bad for environment, so to avoid such an emotional conundrum (that would be good writing imo, but... Well, it would imply transgender in some way bad, so probably no) they just equipped him with solution - I bet old+new magic would be like hybrids in wattpad fantasy novels: having all pros and no cons of their ancestors.
The funny thing, at least for me, is that I’m trying to work the kinks out of my own magic system and it follows some of what you said was missed potential. Summoning magic is self explanatory but then theirs emitter magic which is basically doing magic yourself rather than phoning someone in (shooting fire, lighting etc) Emitter magic is more versatile but the practitioners of it devote more time to these spells tend to have a harder time up close. Closing the distance would naturally leave them open. Summoners have more ridged system of magic, since they can call in creatures to help, so they’re better at protecting themselves. The weakness comes in with the nature of summoning, with more simple creatures like basic animals and stuff you just need to know the proper sign and type of energy they resonate with. With Summoning more powerful creatures an actual contract needs to be made, so the more learned Summoners can only learn so much in one place. Theirs two schools of thought when it comes to summoning, pre made Summoning circles, typically written on a slip of paper who’s only activation is the proper energy being pumped into it, or the quicker manner of using the proper energy and writing a circle in the air with it. One requires only preparation but theirs a more tangible ability to lose them, or being able to never lose a circle but needing to memorize each one. Both have downsides and upsides. That’s about all I got and I focused on Summoning more because I feel like it’s under appreciated and under utilized in fantasy.
*"Picture this: In a world where most magic users dropped the slow and more powerful magic of the past in favour of the new faster yet weaker magic"* ------------------------------------------------------ That's essentially what happened in the world of Avatar by the time of Korra. Traditional martial arts based bending from long before even Aang's time is mostly phased out in favor of kickboxing style bending, trading power and form for speed and mobility. And that's before getting into what happened to lightning bending.
The show really is broken from the premise up as there is no seemingly no thought given to answering the questions: 1. What is a Guardian? 2. What are they guarding? 3. Why are they guarding it? 4. What are they guarding it from? 5. Why is it important that they are guarding it? Everything to do with the specific systems such as the magic that will be used to do the whole Guardian thing just adds to the dysfunction of the whole thing.
6) what's with the spice in the title? 7) Are herbs really spices, they do change flavor, but they are well used for aromas and garnishes. 8) What tone does this story set? a) Just a wacky cartoon like Pop Eye? i) if so, then why is the show trying to take themselves seriously? b) why does the audience need to be mature to watch this and doesn't said audience tend to be more intelligent than kids? i) If this is the case then shouldn't we try to respect our audience by world building, rules of magic (like how we have rules for physics) 9) what is the laws of conservation?
I feel like all the planning that went into this show was just "umm..a show about a magic school would be neat, harry potter is still popular rite?" and they just winged it from there. Hell, that's not even much of a far-fetched idea since by their own admission they were hiring people for storyboarding before the first script was even written. It explains why everything feels so rushed with no real setup, the plot is so illogical and inconsistent, and the characters are just so flat and terrible.
@@fearlesswee5036 Rumor has it, that Crunchyroll wanted this REAL anime about magical girls, but couldn't get the rights to it. So they went with this plan B 🤪 High Guardian Spice is literally the discount version
Maybe a solution for warriors would be enchanted weapons. Let's say if Rosemary's sword could absorb magic and she could summon it like Thor does will make that sword as special as everyone said it is in the series. And maybe we can say that enchanted weapons must be forged with care and not everyone can do it. That would make Parsley's arc better if she isn't as talented in enchanted smithing as she is in normal smithing. Well, just these two things won't make the series good, but at least that aspect of the magic system better.
Or just make them superhuman. Kinda makes the whole spamming nukes pointless if a person can hit you several times while you are falling to the ground.
Raximus3000 Kind of like in anime. In many action anime, there are people with powerful magic powers (although not always called "magic"), but there are also people who can casually punch boulders in half.
@@schwarzerritter5724 Do you know what the saddest part is? This magical system seemd to be a lame immitation of the one in the trails game series. They basicaly have devices that allow them to use "magic." There though you need to buy the spheres that contain the "spells" and it takes time to cast them. On the other hand normal magic uses mana as a power source and it takes talent and time to learn it, while it has more uses and can do some pretty absurd things that are possible by less than a dozn people across 9 games.
I don't know whether this will actually work or not but as an addition to the enchanted weapons, maybe another improvement could be making the idea of stronger magic seem more limited and hard to obtain in some sense? Like its still possible to obtain strong magic but you have to sacrifice something for it like sacrificing your own life span. That could also be integrated to the entire "you need to recharge your scepter thing". What do they recharge it with? Your life span. And there could also be like a stamina system or mana system. For example, casting portals require more mana hence will drain your life span more which could explain why people don't use it as often. So warriors technically will have the advantage in that they never have to spend their lifespan on ultra strong magic but still have some form of magic nevertheless while mages literally dedicated their life to using the scepter looking thing to do magic But again, I'm not sure if this will work well since I've never really watched the show so its just going by my understanding of it so far
another solution comes from this TTRPG I play where mages might be all-powerful, but some threats of magical nature just so happen to be highly resistant to magic, so people who can fight properly with mundane weapons are vital
Also you forgot the plot point that Dr Strange himself forgot to use. You can open a portal below your enemies' feet, and close it by their torso, cutting them in two.
Altough I do understand why he won't use it tho, Strange doesn't really plan on killing people, and the fact that doing something like that requires precise timing, reaction speed, and concentration. Wich is hard to do when your enemy is someone who can control the literal fabrics of reality and time and space (Thanos)
2:34 I would just call it bullshitting. The problem simply stems from the fact that Raye came into the studio with nothing but a pitch and expected his staff to make the next Little Witch Academia. Remember, Raye only wrote for episode 1 and I would have to say it was the worst episode of the series.
An at least better portal system: - In order to teleport, a portal "gate" must be made by creating a portal "channel". - A channel is made by enchanting a rune on or near an object(or reflective surface) in one location, and a rune on or near an at least somewhat similar object in another(a gate can be made between a pool and a mirror, but not between a mirror and a door). - The runes on two linked gates must be the same. - Gates can also have multiple runes, and the active rune must be switched with magic(think of turning a knob on a radio to switch who you're talking to). - Once an object is made into a gate, it is a permanent change until the channel is broken. - Because gates are permanent, objects are made specifically to be used as gates(most commonly being reflective surfaces like pools and mirrors, or holes like doors and windows). Limits: - The more unstable a gate is, the more likely it is to break or go to the wrong location while a subject is going through. - Things that decrease stability are longer distances, more channels, rapidly switching channels(especially while a subject is going through), bigger subjects going through, and multiple subjects going through too rapidly. - Because people die via being sliced by the gate closing, or being stranded in the wrong location, gate safety classes are taught in schools, there are regulations over what is considered a safe gate, gates that are deemed unsafe are illegal and punishment can range from fines to jail time depending on the severity.
"New Magic" in HGS is fundamentally broken! "Old Magic" is still limited in many ways, and is based on spells, incantations, rituals, alchemy (including the concept of Equivalent Exchange), and sacrifices (especially personal sacrifices).
"magic is fundamentally broken in HGS" "The sky is blue" Ok in all seriousness, wow you're actually making a serious HGS critique this time around. Don't get me wrong I still love your more memey/ironic HGS parody content but it's still quite a pleasant surprise. The magic in this show is the ultimate indication of shoddy if not non existent pre-production. It makes me wonder this series ever even had a show bible (it probably didn't), even MLP:FIM had a proper show bible and that show was for 6 year olds. It's sad to see how mlp:fim has a better magic system than this supposed "mature audience only" series... The way that the magic is written, it's like they made shit up as they went along instead of making established rules for it to make it work properly. and please don't attack me for indirectly comparing mlp:fim to hgs I'm not trying to "insult" mlp:fim. -_-
Well, to be honest, the only consistent things in FiM's magic are: -Sombra has somewhat of a connection with the Crystal Hearth -The Magic of Friendship is A.K.A. deus ex machina -Candace is extremely weak
Technically, Anise and Aloe could only use Portal magic by holding hands and mixing their magic together. Which gets thrown out in the very next scene when Anise uses a remote control to open multiple portals to and from various locations. And then Aloe does something with cookies that you can legitimately argue is either teleporting or summoning. Not like it matters because not only are no established rules, even presented limitations are summarily ignored or so poorly explained that it's worse than having no rules.
I hope it’s teleporting and not summoning food. If it is summoning the world has just been broken even further. World hunger would be solved instantly, kitchens would become irrelevant, and restaurants/farms would largely stop existing because whats the point if you can just summon food from thin air
The problem with this show is it’s so easy to fix the magic system while still having good character relationships? For example, maybe the downside of new magic is that Teraspheres (or however you spell it) are dug up from the ground and simultaneously cause the rot due to them drawing energy from the earth upon use. You could make thyme a magic user who also wants to study old magic because the fairy woods were destroyed by the creation of a massive terasphere mine, and said mine destroyed much of the natural wild life and caused the elves to evacuate. If you really wanna stick with the whole dark theme thing you could have Thymes mom or dad be killed either by trying to defend their home from the miners or being killed by the rot. This could be one of the ways she bonds with the rest of the girls. Sage over their shared pursuit of learning old magic, Rosemary over the death of a parent (which would also make Rosemary look less selfish and possibly humanize her more as well as define why she wants to become a guardian) and Parsley over the contrast between a huge family and a family that’s been destroyed. I’m terms of motivation, Rosemary wants to become a guardian to be just like her mom who was either killed or went missing, Parsley wants to escape family pressure, Thyme wants to save the fairy woods and Sage originally just went to keep Rosemary from getting herself killed but eventually ended up enjoying her time at the academy. Maybe Amaryllis’s motivation is wanting to be noticed or praised by her neglectful mother, and part of the reason she lashes out and resorts to violence is because of insecurity. Snap probably felt pressured by their parents to be a mAnLy mAn but never felt like that kind of person and their journey could be about accepting that the academy and the life their parents want just isn’t right for them. Have the main moral be about how family can change the way people see themselves. There. Fixed your shit.
I want to see you make more video essays on this show’s failures, like the uneven structure, rushed pacing, stupid characters, lack of set-up and pay-off.
Talk about making swordsmen obsolete...can you just imagine the horrifically destructive things, say, Goblin Slayer could hack together with ample access to the crummiest Terra Spheres? "This one opens up a half-inch wide portal. I linked it to a 10,000 gallon tank of pressurized lamp oil..."
Wow. Didn't expect a serious essay from this channel, but glad it happened. Adding to questions this show raises, do magicians exist like some kind of caste, and magic is only accessible for them, or just anyone can use it? Like, why, for example, Parsley or Rosemary won't use any magic, whether it's an old or new one, but Sage and that purple-haired demonic kid do it on the regular basis? Is there some kind of analog for muggles or what? And about the portal-transportation thing: they could do it like in The Witcher series, where portals were kinda hard to stabilize, so people could easily get their head nor other body parts chopped off, or if the person wouldn't work hard enough on it, the other side of portal would lead in the middle of nowhere. But yeah, looks like none of ideas we can offer are good enough for the progressive studio of HGS.
You know, I had a thought about reworking the magic. Okay, imagine this; Old Magic, which I'll call Vitality Magic, is magic that draws from energies inside one's self. However, each person can only use one type of Vitality Magic, no matter what. And it's always of one of these elements; water, earth, plant, lightning, ice, wind, and fire. These elements are because that's what the people believe those elements came together to create humanity (I use the term to refer to the "advanced" races such as humans, elves, and dwarves); they came from the earth, fire for their warmth and drive, wind for their natural love of exploring, ice to steel their hearts, and lightning being the energy that allowed them to move. To awaken to Vitality Magic, one is usually exposed to a lot of a particular element; surrounded by plants for plant magic, in a very hot place for fire magic, etc. And such uses of magic draws energy from within one's self and too much of it can be draining or even fatal, but experiences magic-users can either increase their energy (like MP), or learn how to ration their energies to get the most out of their spells. It's also said that what element a person can use relates to their personality or belief; like someone who's short-tempered uses fire magic or one who can't sit still uses lightning magic. Also, only those with a special gene can use magic (think how Quirks in MHA work, only those with a single joint in their pinky toe are capable of developing a Quirk). New Magic, which I'll call Conjure Magic, is pulling natural magical energies from the environment, focus it, and use a spell. Such energies just occur naturally, like water magic energies come from rain, dew, or the humidity. Fire comes from an extinguished fire or even heat. It can also be modified and edited, provided the person doing so knows what they're doing. Conjure Magic gained popularity because it's easier to use, doesn't tire the user out, can allow any number of different magics, and can be used by anyone, provided they have that magic gene. But as a downside, because people use it so often, the balance in the magical energies is disrupted, causing The Rot. As for those without the magic gene, they're slightly more resistant to magic, making magic attacks to not hit as hard, and are naturally a bit stronger. I kinda just thought this up in a few hours and that last part was only thought up while typing this, so sorry if it isn't all that great.
You forgot to mention the fact that the first scene the cousins open a portal they hold hands and use both new and old magic and after 3 mins we saw the butch use new magic alone to open portals. Not only is the magic is broken but also inconsistent
The "pre-made magic" sparkles are actually expensive (and the witch country is still testing it(?)) as Amaryllis said when she was explaining its use (if I still remember it correctly). But that doesn't excuse the many flaws new magic has. Even without it, it still needs a lot of fixing.
This video pairs perfectly with @LobsterHero’s video: “High Guardian Spice Decimates it’s Worldbuilding in the First 10 Minutes | Part 5” I’d definitely check them out lol Their rant on the portal is hilarious! This was a great video! It’s honestly extremely helpful the way you explained this. I’ve been writing a fantasy story, and creating a magic system with this in mind helps a ton!
It’s incredibly frustrating when you realize that in the very first episode the first half drags on when Rosemary and sage take two carts, a tram, a train, and another cart, to get to Sages cousins. Meanwhile sage had a flying broomstick all along, so that could have cut out two cart rides right there. Or her cousins could have just used a portal to transport the girls there! There’s no reason for them to waist so much time at the beginning of the very first episode, but they do.
The situation with magic reminds me of One Piece. People can acquire extra powers with the consumption of Devil Fruits and be able to do all sorts of crazy stuff: control elements like sand, fire, lightning and snow, turn themselves into animals (including dinosaurs and mythological creatures), control people’s bodies and even their souls. So if you’re like Kaido, Big Mom or Blackbeard, who ate powerful Devil Fruits and are by default very strong, your victory is guaranteed, isn’t it? Not quite. First of all, Devil Fruits only give dominion to one particular field, which allows for strengths and weaknesses. For example Luffy is immune to Enel’s lightning, Crocodile becomes tangible when wet, and Galdino’s wax is impermeable to most of Magellan’s poison. Traditional warriors are also not in a position of powerlessness simply for not having powers. Zoro’s swords have been able to cut steel, fire and even a whole mountain, Sanji can use his kicks to fly into the air and Garp is so strong he can defeat powerful adversaries with a fist. There’s plenty of ways someone who didn’t eat a Devil Fruit can become a top player, including weaponry, Haki and martial arts such as Rokushiki and Fishmen Karate. Nami has turned from a simple young girl with a wooden staff into a worthy follower of the Pirate King simply because of Usopp’s technical skills and her own ability as a climatologist. There’s also science (hence cyborgs, chemical weapons and modified DNA), different species like Giants and Fishpeople, and specific Devil Fruit related weaknesses like Seastone and seawater. So when I picture a character like Rose in a world of magic, what I expect is “pink Zoro”. She can cut so hard buildings are wrecked, and Olive has plenty of reasons to be scared.
Yeah this story would make a lot more sense if they gave warriors something in terms of power to compete with the op magic users. Unfortunately the writers of high guardian spice didn’t think that far ahead
@@-rlmn That's what we call AC Syndrome Called it Skyrim Syndrome because of a video from Hello Future Me. Where he revealed that Transmutation and Magic Sword/Bow completely destroys the worldbuilding of Skyrim
Part 1 reminds me of the Telvanni from Morrowind. Because fuck us stair-needing plebs. "If you can't levitate like a normal person, you're fucked out of luck."
I already said in the comment of another video that the way I would write magic is that pterospheres would be magical organs of magical creatures turned into items for mages, and that's why they wear out after too much use. Then I would probably put a plot in an ep that they have to save a creature from being killed to make a pterosphere. And the magic would work in the concept of charge, you are taking a part of the energy from the pterosphere to perform a magical effect, the greater the effect, the more effort you are putting on the pterosphere, which can cause its total depletion (breaking it completely) that's why several mages have to team up to do things like teleport. And magical creatures can do bigger magic effects because they were made for that, it's not like a mage who doesn't know how to calculate the right way to do it.
I think the idea that warriors of any kind are less useful than spellcasters, and that magic is compulsory for all students, is a pretty unique one that would've been really interesting.
Especially the "mage fighting a warrior without using a single spell, without an explanation" tells us how incompetent the writers are in terms of "how classes would fight".
Even when I designed a magic system for myself and a friend to play with, it was better designed that this. It even had teleportation magic, but it had limits. Like only a handful of people could generate the magic needed to cast it, and the range was based on how much magic you put into it. It had other aspects to it as well, like cities generating magic like wireless energy since magic was a replacement for electricity. So inside city limits spell casters felt recharged.
8:45 actually the spark petrify spell was single target spell, it just so happened that the shield spell cracked it up so it petrified almost everyone wich would have made more sense if it reflected back to sender. Also since cat girl is working with the bad guys here that have no problem with killing people i´m pretty sure you wouldn´t find such a high level spark spell in your regular spellmart. But that never gets explained when a school setting is perfect for giving exposition Also also they could have simply made catgirls staff run out of magic after using the petrify spell and it wouldn´t come off as weird for her not using the same spell again and instead running away and then fighting the madoka ripoff girl with her very inferior staff in a swordfight
(Coming from someone who has just watched a few YT rundowns of the show but not the show itself) Personally while I agree that story wise, the lack of portals is mind boggling. I will say that in a worldbuilding sense trying to replace everything with portals could be reasonably explained as being prohibitive as for example in real life we have elevators so why do stairs still exist? In my opinion, just by actually assuming that terrospheres do actually have charge(as mentioned @8:00) meaning that every portal has a economic cost that makes them unviable for mass transport. And to continue the charge concept, it makes sense to assume that new magic uses terrospheres as a sort external battery/ external processor that boost a mages capabilities by consuming the terrosphere. This would explain the spark spheres as they are a sort of dedicated processors that are built for one specific spell and thus are able to be uber optimized for that one specific spell. This would also help to explain the divide between new and old magic as the new magic proponents see the old way of doing things as archaic and the old magic people see new magic as a cheat/shortcut and not as someone's own actual talent. I mean consider in real life how in say the woodworking community there is a debate as to how complex tools can get before it is no longer woodworking, some people believe nothing but hand tools are allowed for proper woodworking whereas others use things like cnc machines to help them elevate their craft. So the divisiveness isn't that hard to justify from a worldbuilding perspective. The final point however about the swords is just plain bad worldbuilding, falling in to the way too common trap of not thinking about how magic would actually affect society. I did rail against the idea that portals would be everywhere, but I do believe that in a believable world in this setting there would be dedicated teleportation hubs for premium travel (if not just general travel depending on how much it cost in terrospheres). Terrospheres and spark spells would probably be seen in a similar light to guns or at the very least similar to archery(depending on how difficult it is for the average layperson to be accurate/effective). In the end I don't think the magic system is broken so much as it is just completely half assed. With a few minor clarifications or possibly tweaks(such as for instance some sort of way to ward against teleportation so that tele-thievery wouldn't be a massive problem that would necessitate a massive rework of the way business is done (and could explain why they didn't teleport in the plot situations)) it would be a perfectly serviceable magic system, definitely on the higher end of the power spectrum, but not completely broken. It is just that as is the definition for the magic system is half assed and there was little to no actual thought that went into how a magic system would actually change the way society was build.
Seriously, when y'all run out of episodes to abridge, can your team please just make new episodes. Like, maybe the the two ladies with the portal terraspheres are specifically trained in using portals, leading to an action sequence where they heavily weaponise it against Olive.
At 3:45 I think if the elf lady said a magic word or two and say there was a teleport rune on the plate that would make it less broken. Showing some level of limit and not just teleporting just cause. Also for Terra Spheres I would say they only do one type of magic for each one. Like a fire sphere or a water sphere. Also yeah giving Terra Spheres a limit of how much mana it can use before breaking would be great. Plus casting time would make it less broken. If they said some monsters were resistant to Magic that would answer why there are warriors in this world. A different type of Guardian for monsters resistant and not-resistant to magic.
Or have terra spheres have a limited number of uses, like the more expensive the sphere, the more spells you get out of it before you have to bring it in to reload it. Imagine the tension in a scene where Sage's 5 spell terra sphere has one spell left on it before it runs out.
Maybe teleporting is has a high chance of becoming carcinogenic or even a glitchy explosion or carcinogenic when unstable which happens due to overexhastion or incompatibility, incredibly expensive, and requires alot of energy and for you to put coordinates in a terminal?
Listening to this made me think of the Telvanni in the Elder Scrolls. Lore wise, they quite honestly can bend reality over their knees if they so choose. They even show this off when you talk with them as you have to cast flying spells to even talk to most of them, as though it's such a basic thing to fly for them. What holds them back is their own narcissism and lack of care for the greater world. They're too focused on how they can make reality whatever they wish that they can be bothered with the affairs of others most of the time. And when they are involved, it's usually with each other and for petty reasons. Petty reasons that they're ok justifying the murder of colleagues because it's legal and they're annoyed. It was all great fun to learn about them@
I think i like the magic system established over fire emblem games much more. It is never super clear but what you can gather in various games it is stated by that magic is only learned throughout dedicated training and by those with inherent talent or devotion. Anima magic is most common form of magic due to being more accessible. Dark magic is an old form of magic that is described as dangerous to use due to being destructive in nature, while light magic requires additional associating to holy being. Mages cannot cast magic without medium like tomes and practice in magic is said to drain your own life which explains the frailty of most magic users. Mages who cast without tomes are said to die off from their own spell or drain their life without control. Magic is also generally destructive and long range, but has little defense and takes time to cast and people can even deflect projectiles with weapons. Altho in game contradicts the stories, but you can see a clear system regardless. Also things like warping are considered magic so high mostly gods or witches(described in some games as people who have borderline become detached from humanity in magic practice) can use it and it is only usable on human transportation
It’s true, Magic in High Garden Spice is just so poorly defined and fleshed out. It’s pretty much just the writers excuse to do whatever they want. Swords broken, use magic. Creature problem, use magic. Too tired to walk up stairs, use magic. One big element that the creators really wanted to include in the show is “transition magic.” But just like all the other forms of magic it’s incredibly loosely defined and with little explanation. There are plenty of characters that can transform using magic. The main girls transform into mermaids with magic. Neppy cat was turned into a bigger stronger humanoid cat with magic. Olive can switch from being a cat to a cat girl with magic. And Mandrake can turn into anyone with magic. So why is transition magic a thing? What makes it different? Why do you need to keep taking potions to stay in the form you want instead of just doing it once? No real explanation is ever given. Despite High Guardian Spice being set in a magical world. Magic is just heavily squandered.
The part about portals makes me want to see a world where “portal magic” is something that you can specialize in. That would explain why portals exist but are not used most of the time. It also opens up the possibility of a character that almost exclusively casts portals to solve all their problems (retrieving items, moving around, attacking & defending etc).
the only thing that would make swords have a purpose in the world of high guardian spice would be if they were all elemental and or enchanted weapons or the user themselves has a body that is elemental and/or enchanted, that would make their regular weapon useful for example lets say there exists a wind elemental basically looks like a living dense cluster of wind where you can make out the being's form somewhat but its a bit transparent and with this body the wind elemental can be as fast as the wind itself so give it a dagger or a sword and it could slash people to bits easily and also if it were to train itself more it could be even faster and thus being unbeatable unless it fights with someone that has a good counter to it or some time magic to make it slower
With the “why is there hallways/rooms/ transportation in a world with portals” you can theorize that it’s either a new thing and people just yknow, keep the trains n stuff since it isn’t like common yet? Or, you could theorize that it takes a lot of energy, but yea no magic is broken and neither of that is canon
"Accessibility" also comes to mind. Clearly not everyone is proficient in magic so some people need to be able to handle things nonmagically. Also "just in case" situations, like how we have elevators but require staircases near them. Surely things could go wrong. Although I guess the correct immersion would be ... brain empty.
I honestly need to make a playlist of hgs reviews/essays etc. to motivate me to write because everyone time I watch one of these it makes me want to flesh out my own magic system further (with the added bonus of making me feel better about my own fantasy universe because even though it’s not at all finished yet, it’s already better than the one in this show lol)
They could have actually tried to explain why martial arts are still taught. As visible in a lot of fights, New Magic is very prone to collateral damage, so they could have reasoned that martial arts are used in situations where you need to be accurate, like in civilian areas or a historical location, and New Magic is used where something is very powerful and there’s nothing around worth worrying about
Honestly I think old magic is actually balanced, you can't cast spells you don't know so the character needs to study and takes time and practice, you also need to make a ritual for it wich again takes time and resources and also considering nature's balance. The problem is new magic and the teleportation thing wich is too OP, I think new magic can work but limiting with a magic use limit and money. The old teacher said "this is out of juice" for one of the orbs, so implementing they're like bateries wich acumulates magic and it's rationated when used on spells is one way to limit it. You can use a lot of simple spells, but for example a teleportation spell drains the terrasphere's with that single spell or are not strong enough to do it, for this you have the terosphere's by grades and be actually expensive with the price incresing depending on the grade. An amateaur's sphere being expensive limits the use on other classes and also requieres previous knowledge on how much magic one spell costs to not waste it away. The richest and most powerful elite has access to high grade terraspheres with more magic enough to cast spells nobody else can like teleportation, unless they have the knowledge on old magic to do so. Also for Parsley going to school to learn things she already know, why not also introduce blacksmith enchantments wich make "regular" warriors more powerful and capable to repeal some spells?
On the scale and brokenness of their magic, you didn't mention that while Sage was going through her potion book she skipped over a potion of immortality. And its not like it was skipped out of skepticism. So there's also casually accessible immortality out there, also impacting the world (yet ... the healing water is special). It was definitely presented as humor, so I don't want to focus on it too much...
I think the simplest fix would be to add a charge time. Simple mana blasts wouldn't require much, if any charge, but more powerful or specific spells require you to focus magic into what you need, requiring a longer cast time. This also gives a reason for warriors to exist as they don't have that as a drawback
They don't even stick with what few rules they do give the audience. After all, "New magic can do ANYTHING!" except heal mortal wounds, clear rubble, cleanse the rot, or tell us what the fuck a guardian actually does.
All they really needed to do was tell us the limitations. Requiring a certain amount of power to create and maintain them, making sure to not put in too much or too little, knowledge about the location they are placed and where they lead to and knowledge of how to create the portal itself. These would all be good ways to explain why they can't be used all the time.
Looking back on this over a year later, I realised something: The only instances of portals being made are done by a new magic human x old magic elf duo and a demon. For the first, the show was probably trying to tell us that portals require new magic and the old magic of elves to be created. Mind you, I say “trying”, whether the show succeeded is not for me to judge. However, this would explain why Sage didn’t portal the group out of the cave, because she and Thyme had not learned that ability yet (though that would be great for first year students to learn right off the bat-). As for the second, it seems to be an innate ability to demons as no one else is shown to use such stylised magic let alone to teleport. (I think… I can’t remember tbh) So, these distinctions in why portals aren’t used all the time fixes everything right? Wrong. If these were the case, why doesn’t Dretch teleport students to their quests instead of making them walk? We know she can not only teleport herself but create portals, portals that anyone should be able to traverse through, right? If only demons can pass through these portals then that was never explained! Oh, and where are the elf teachers? They would have been useful along with Carraway in transporting the students to the destination where the Scypith is wreaking havoc. Seriously, every time you try to find reason in what little clues the show gives you, you end up either right where you started or even more lost! Edit: just realised Aloe manifests pastries into existence without Anise… I give up 😵💫 Edit 2: this comment keeps getting even more and more outdated with everything I remember from the show. Anise is able to make portals on her own in the first episode. Did no one care about consistency? Not even Raye himself? He co-directed the episode why didn’t he see there being no point in having the show off of Alonise creating a portal together when they were going to follow that up with a nonchalant single person portal use? I’m trying so hard to convince myself that he’s smart in spite of everything but it gets harder and harder the more I use my own brain 😵💫😵💫😵💫 I’m not trying to be insulting, I’m just so confused 😵💫😵💫😵💫
those are actually the reasons I thought watching the video- the only thing is that the cast could at least explain it in one episode, so that issues like this couldn't happened
Making a world where magic in theory is unlimited but it's incredibly hard to execute and also very physically draining and only limit is execution and your will to do it would ve cool... I think
They could’ve done something like a drawback like in my hero. Like how bigger the spell, how more energy will be used or that it takes some health from you so if you use a very big spell that you’ll be sick at the end of it and that there were spell too big that you can from them that you have to combine old and new magic or do it with more people There could also be areas where they put a spell that magic can’t be used, so magic users have to use something else than magic and warriors can have a moment to shine
first seconds of this videos, and already have a ominous narrative and Death Note soundtrack on the background... I already know this video is gonna be good
10:10 - The idea of The Rot being caused by New Magic just made me think "Oh no, it's a prequel to the Dark Sun campaign setting!" It would be very on-brand for some of these characters to end up being Sorcerer-Kings there.
The issue with this magic system is that, genuinely, it could be good. A good writer could make something interesting out of this magic system, the bones are there but you need ONE thing to make it good. You could make old magic worse but much cheaper and give the story a class divide angle. You could make old magic less powerful, but easier to control, so beginners use it (this is even almost in the show when Sage accidentally kills the dragon thing from the lake), making the jump to new magic a serious undertaking that requires you to go to a prestigious university. There's even potential to do this without stating it explicitly, show sage's family using old magic for basic household tasks, then show her being amazed at professors using new magic for unimportant things because of how unwieldy and dangerous it is. Another idea, to balance the magic/martial divide, have fighters use magical weapons (which makes a reason for these kids in a prestigious academy to be learning blacksmithing). You could give them weak magic because it's not their main focus, which requires them to use it creatively and work with their environment (For example, using magic to blow open doors or windows during an alley fight to knock down the enemy for an attack, or creating illusory doubles of themselves to confuse their foe, which would make for much better fight choreography and be much more interesting than "they hit each other a bunch") The LAZIEST way you could do this (which would STILL be acceptable) would be to say that, due to magic being incredibly powerful, fighters carry items that create a small anti-magic zone around them (which also has room for expansion with the caster needing to space themselves properly from the fighter to attack, and the fighter using magic to close the gap. It even leaves room for big, exciting plays like throwing the item, potentially giving a brief opening to cut through an enemy's defenses). Something like the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter would also work, where criminals are kept in check by a magic police force, which gives another angle for something the story could be about. It's almost as if the writers looked at all the amazing potential that the fantasy setting has, and how much they were given in terms of resources, but instead of making something of quality, they phoned it in because they knew if they focused on woke marketing, they could get people who don't care about quality to watch it. I am THOROUGHLY convinced that I have thought more about the magic system and storytelling in this show than the writers, and it is a fucking disgrace and an insult to all entertainment that anyone who calls themself a writer would be able to shit out such a thoroughly uncreative and banal show as High Guardian Spice.
Imagine if a hypothetical season 2 kills off some characters. (At least the ones are not animals) Not because I want them to die (even if some are more hatable than others) but it would be a bit of a nice change of pace. But that’s just me. lol
I'm very late to this discussion. Anime, what HGS what's to be, has it pretty well down. I'll use Mushoku Tensei for an example. Mages draw there mana from their bodies to cause a physical change in the world, and Warriors manipulate the mana in their bodies to enhance their abilities, so they are faster, stronger, more agile, can do incredibly martial feats, and subconscious pool this mana in their skin to protect them from damage. This is already been done in fantasy anime for so long and it's been done incredibly well there, most good fantasy anime uses this exact same system format in some way, they literally could have just used it. Since they already want it to so bad to be anime
It jusy hit me. Terraspheres, allow you to use absurd Magic, everyone and their mom use it, and may or may not be killing the planet. Terraspheres are FF7 Materias but stronger.
Overreliance on magic leaves someone physically weak, so if you can overcome their magic, a punch would be just as painful as it would be to a non magician. A jewel is just one of many options for magical conduits, but one still must do the ritual for the spell. wait no, that's Rayman, not Hogh Guardian Spice.
Watching your point about the magic and swordsmen thing actually made me think of a show that manages to do this: Black Clover. The protagonist in black clover, Asta, is someone who cannot use any magic at all in a world where magic is commonplace. Instead, he has a sword that negates magic. Its also stated that he isnt strong but is still trying hard to get to the top. You see him struggle to keep up with magic users but he manages to do it to some degree of success regardless
The best thing about "nitpicking" at poorly thought out magic systems, is when you think about all the series you like where they actually bothered to think it through. My respect for several solo-produced worlds having such sensible magic just skyrocketed after watching this. HGS is really good at that, at making you see the good that it usually invisible in other media, because when it's done well, you're not supposed to notice it. It's why videos like this are worth making. It's why "nitpicking" is not some shameful behaviour. Criticism and looking properly into what went wrong is the best way to know how to do better. So thank you for making these videos, even if it can seem like beating a dead horse. One good series that comes to mind has teleportation rods to make fast travel viable without exhausting a mage, or leaving in the risk of teleporting to a wrong spot and getting hurt. But the rods are not just openly available. Whoever had them, are the same people in the real world who have guns. The military, the demon slayers, pirate gangs, and that one alchemist you get your special potions from. The magic exists and could make life easier for everyone, but is clearly restricted and witheld from the general populace. Add in that on top of the legal issues, there is the fanatic group of demon-magic haters that make new innovations in magic feel like a risk incase it's deemed to be demonic magic. And we got a world where anything is possible ONLY when you avoid the cops. A world where magic can do anything can work, so long as it just has rules and reasons for why everyone doesn't do it. Harry Potter and HGS really never think beyond the scene, the moment, and it's sad. Because there was potential for a decent world there. It's weird that I see real world building more often from hobby fic writers. I also like when if an exploit is there, the author doesn't shove it under the rug, they use it. If there's an attack spell that uses low mana, and you're a powerful mage with lots of mana reserves then yes, you can use supressing fire for 6 hours and absolutely piss off your enemy until they figure out a solution. And if a character is meant to be a smart mage, they absolutely should do this. And when you add in anti-magic, be aware that you're not solving problems, you're creating a new set. When a scout cast a vision spell and caught the MC who was using anti-magic, and then said "Well yeah, I knew where you where because it was the only place I couldn't see." like that is the kind of common sense I don't think HGS would ever think of. HGS really teaches us the mistakes to avoid.
My favorite magic system is eragon. I could talk for hours about it. It's a system where you could do anything but in order to get there, you need a huge amount of experience and knowledge. Teleportation is only used twice to my knowledge and in both situations it took high level magicians with an incredible amount of power and was used in an emergency or a ritual involving hundreds of participants. The system eragon uses is essentially a language that controls reality, but anything you do with it consumes an amount of energy from the caster. If you cast a spell to pick up a rock, it would tire you out about as much as it would for you to just go physically pick up the rock. It's a little more convoluted for things that aren't physical, like starting a fire, but it's the same concept. Casting spells consume energy and if you use too much, you'll die. Practice can raise how much energy you can consume, but if you're human and not a master, you'll probably kill yourself if you use it recklessly. The first case of teleportation is an elf magician. Specifically a high ranking official of her race that was chosen to protect an extremely valuable artifact. Casting the teleportation spell on its own consumed so much strength that she couldn't fight, and might have passed out if I remember correctly. And that was for an artifact the size of a football. The other case its used is by an entire race of people doing a ritual chant in multiple languages including the magic one to retrieve a crown. But magic in general does a lot more than that. People don't use it for everyday life despite the convenience because most people that did were hunted down by an immortal wizard. To use the magic you have to know the language, which means it has to be taught to you by someone who knows it or you have to discover words by an incredibly complex process in part using the words you already know. Nobody uses it because nobody knows how. Those that do know how to use it will use it in their everyday lives. Humans that know it will often only use it for starting fires or cooking. People learning it are told not to use it for everyday life because any mistake in wording might cause you to cast a spell that you don't intend or kill yourself or others in strange ways, and this happens in the books. You're told to shave with a razor instead of magic because you could accidently cut your head off. You could attempt to cast a spell to cure a disease and accidentally create super aids. Elves, who have a huge reserve of magical energy and use the magical language for speaking, use magic in their everyday lives because it's a part of them and they're incredibly powerful for it. Many of them have altered their forms either for function or aesthetics. Their food is magically grown in quantities that allow them to feast whenever they want. Their houses are grown out of trees because why build or hunt when nature bends to your will? They only do things without magic out of boredom. They live such long and easy lives that they pursue art and science sometimes without using magic just to give themselves a little bit of a challenge in life. It's a super interesting and well written system
The stairs thing is nit picky because any one who can’t use magic or is say a child would still need to be able to get from place to place. You can get rid of something so fundamental unless the magic doesn’t need to learned and is just known at birth.
I’m not actually trying to defend this show just arguing getting rid of say stairs and boats is difficult when u consider not everyone would be using magic
An okay way to make swords better is for them to absorb magic like having the sword absorb the magic of the terrasphere making just a walking stick however it has a limit to how much magic it can wield and it is only good against new magic thankfully most people love new magic
i think the reason martial arts are taught at the school is the same reason in medieval days, it wasn't uncommon for a warrior or knight to also be decent at hand to hand or to have a backup dagger. the terrasphere is just an orb and you could lose it and be defenseless. BUT if you also had a sword you would at least have SOME chance. still no reason for rosemary to purposefully limit herself.
If you wanna see what teleporting can do to a fight, watch the shimazaki fight from mob psycho 100 season 2. The guy is one of the strongest characters for a reason.
One really cool thing they could have done for the swordsmen is make them have innate anti-magic. They can't be directly targeted by mana, and actually drain it on contact, and that also shields things they are directly touching. Can't teleport their sword away, can't throw them high into the air, etc. You can hit them, but only with attacks that hit other things or have indirect effects- like shooting the floor to blow them into the sky. That would also make for a great way to ratchet up the danger level of more skilled magic opponents. Beginners would get absolutely annihilated as most of their attacks just do nothing, but then you throw someone who completely bypasses this weakness at them? It could even get through the teleporting issue. Sure, Sage and the others can go through a portal, but then they'd just be leaving Rosemary behind because *she can't*.
The way to make swords good is so simple too, since magic is op af just use magic to reinforce your body/mind and layer your sword with a shield or something to make it sharper and more durable as well as able to block actual spells
I love how me- a teenager- actually tough about issues like this- (about my wattpad book) like teleport= yes you can teleport but you *must* know to coordinates or you need to focus of the place in your vision( well the teleport spell here is WERY hard to try and it tires peps easily) The other thing is that when you look the door there's an actual spell that that's anti-teleport. The other thing is about weapons- In mine Wattpad story they're made with a particular metal one that can break magic and can't be actually broke by it in the process. And the magic- Magic is separated in various usage (like fight spells ecc.). to use a spell you must have a certain power level (like- you must have 1000pl to summon a certain spell)- it's litterally how strong someone's magic can be- then you need the magic production- that's how much magic someone's body product, to higher it you must eat well and do a lot of excercises, so that you have all the resources to product magic wile making sure you don't collapse from exhaustion. And the last but not least fact is that you need to learn that spell and making it yours.
"Why warriors exists in a world with magic?" Oh sweet summer child, if DnD has taught me something, it's that the Guy with a Sword™ will always enjoy swinging his metal stick regardless of how immensely stronger wizards are.
In dungeons and dragons powerful spells require material components and take time to cast. The magic is powerful but it has certain limitations and restrictions which make warriors still useful in their world. Here however thats not the case, the magic barely has restrictions at all, and with new magic materials become almost meaningless.
Looks over at the 12 style magic system of my setting (note that evolutions or inspired by combining other styles to create something distinct are classified as separate magic styles in that number) For example form 12 (scientific theory applied to abstract energy forming spells that can be taught as part of a physics curriculum for example) and form 7(holy/Devine magic formed from the belif in religious texts invoking phenomena that under standard physics isn't possible but by accounting for infinite theorical dimensions with slightly different laws it becomes possible) l have a destructive reaction of annihilation of each other's respective conceptual groundwork/frameworks with the person who's belief in there structure who's stronger coming out on top regardless of the spells strength
Really all they could have done is say that teleporting spells are revised only for certain people. That people need to train to be able to make portals and such for years. That you need a LICENSE to use a teleporting spell. It would have solved so many issues because THEN it would make sense why everyday people aren’t just moving about.
To be honest, if there was a actual system? It would go like this.
Old magic: requires ritual and time with a equivalent exchange with nature. It takes more time, but you can use powerful spells depending on the magic cast. You take the magic out, but also give back magic to nature to keep the circle going.
Cons: take too long to work magic.
New magic: spheres are artificial and sucks up the magic from the land. Once it empty, either replant it to redo the process or get a new one.
Con: because it just takes and doesn’t give back, it cause the Rot, and because everyone is using it, the rot grow.
As for the pre made spells…I don’t know, maybe they were spells made from rituals of old magic to pour in? And that’s why they’re so powerful?
Boom. Developed the ground work of magic and it took me five minutes.
I mean for old and new that is what they were going for, they just meant for the rot to be the (stupidly obvious) season 2 twist. The other stuff just seems like stuff they didn’t think about though.
@@yoseisovereign6728 Maybe, but the point is that despite their attempt? The new magic just does whatever, and maybe if they explain the rot in the beginning-- or at the very least early in the episodes? Then it could've salvage the situation...then again, I figure the Rot is from new magic from first glance.
This show isn’t good but I thought that was one thing they handled fine. Sage is fretting over a drawing of the rot at the same time the teacher claims that new magic has no cost. Then the teacher’s wand runs out of power which would directly disprove her claim that it has no cost.
Doesn’t make the magic system good, it’s just that that one particular criticism isn’t accurate.
@@yoseisovereign6728 another issue is that neppy drives the rot off a tree in episode 3 using new magic. So if that new magic twist is what they were going for they contradicted their system since new magic being able to fix it would make no sense
@@guardianHQ yooooo u right. Every time the magic system is discussed my heard hurts.
Magic in HGS
Pros: Is overpowered
Cons: Requires more than 3 brain cells to be stronger than warrior
So, not a single character in HGS can be stronger than a warrior using magic.
If anyone in the real world got isekai’d into High Guardian Spice they’d basically just become a god. Grab like 10 terraspheres and spam magic like no tomorrow since New Magic is basically just reality warping.
This is why portal/teleportation in a lot of other fantasy genre are mostly an artifact structures or devices. If not then they are high level magic that only archmage can use.
In Harry Potter for example portkeys are widely used. And on top of that apparition is limited by multiple factors such as magical wards that can block teleportation, and also the danger of leaving parts of yourself behind if you teleport to far. Compare this to hgs where there are no limits at all and people don’t bother using portals for everything despite it being insanely useful
Yeah, also the non-magical way to get into the magic government building in Harry Potter was super basic and basically never used, aka it was only for special cases. But otherwise everyone uses the magical transport to get in.
In DnD is a level 5 spell
@@antoniosanchez-qd4cg wizards don’t learn that level till level 9
@@reviewman at which point you're a fully fledged caster
Old vs. new magic was just a terrible allegory for conservative and liberal political views. The more you look at this show, the worse it gets. Ironically, this show teaches you how to NOT write a story, set up a world, mechanics, etc.
So conservative political view is much more confortable and useful than liberal? We know that -liberal- old magic is good because main character's mom is using it but they don't show anything bad about new magic
@@realdragon Sorry, read that backwards.
Conservative: Old Magic
Liberal: New Magic
@@KumaOso16 But someone (Amaryllis?) on the show said all this stuff for new magic comes from "Witch Country" or something. And this country of witches are presented as villains in the latest episodes. Are liberals the villains in the show? Most likely the new magic is an allegory for mass industrialization.
There are hints in the show that the new magic is simpler and more accessible to everyone, but its danger is not visible to ordinary people who are not involved in the process of creating new... what are these things called... terospheres... pterospheres? Could tree rot be caused by this?
Or maybe there are no allegories at all! I do not know. This show is a mess. I think we will never know for sure.
@@ScorchedCube Sage’s cousin outright say that Sage’s mom didn’t use to be so “Conservative.”.
I think they couldn’t figure out what poorly veiled metaphor they wanted their magic system to be.
The problem with that is that Sage’s mom is right. The new magic would definitely be revealed to be causing the rot if there was ever a season 2.
Calling her “conservative” is a subtle bit of irony. Which is surprising because that’s about the only subtle moment the show has.
The only good thing that came with this show is people using this show as a instruction book about what NOT TO DO while writing a story, and exercising themselves to be better writers. This is, unironically, inspiring.
Also, the redesign and rewriting ! It's so interesting to watch!
I watched a few episodes and knew it wasn't for me, so I dropped it and I thought that would be the end of it like any other dropped show. I can't believe how much HGS "content" I've been watching. There are so many fascinating insights to gain as everyone analyzes its various flaws from many angles!
this is inspiring for all the wrong reasons
Funny enough I was watching this video for that exact reason for fleshing outthe magic system in my dnd campaign
Also the animation. It's pretty good.
My biggest qualm with the show is the severe lack of world-building: especially when it comes to the role of "Guardian". Like, what even *IS* a "Guardian" in this show? What do "Guardians" even do? What are they the guardians of? The city? The world? Some special gemstone that could destroy the world if it falls into the wrong hands? Why are there no other guardians outside of the cast of students? Shouldn't there be older, more experienced guardians out there (not counting the professors at the Academy, I'm talking about the guardians who are just...out there in the city) who could maybe provide guidance to our main cast of tween guardians?
Furthermore, I don't understand the species of this show. Like, ok, demons are evil & scary monsters...so, why is one lady demon working at the school? It's inconsistent!
I think the writers flipped through a D&D monster manual and added whatever they thought looked cool to them. It would explain why the show is all over the place.😂
@@dragowolfraven3806
Y'know, you're probably right.
We don't even see gardians outside the school (and Rose's mom).
They just don't exist.
@@synkieagda7620
Exactly. At least in shows/series like, say, "Soul Eater" for instance, there are weapon-wielding meisters living normal, passive lives in the city.
Dance emotes
Shoot bad guys
Step into a War with the Cabal on Mars
Speaking of season 2, can't fucking believe they made an cliffhanger expecting people would actually watch this show again
And the worst thing is, there are people who actually liked the show and are waiting for season 2 :/ not only that, but some of them really said that the show is "pretty good", ugh.
@@jesspat7009 they gonna wasting their time for waiting the sequel that probably not gonna happen.
The team split up, so there ain’t no way they’re getting a Season 2.
Just imagine the meme potential.
@@jesspat7009 there were people who liked one of the few pieces of non-interactive media that can be considered objectively abysmal?
You also forgot to mention how portal magic makes Thyme's dilemma about trying to contact her father way more stupid, instead of summoning a demon why doesn't she just ask Sage or any other magic user to help open a portal to where her father is?
I know they're trying to make Thyme the independent lone wolf but her attitude is not understandable at all. It just makes her look stupidly stubborn and proud. All I think of is that they were low key trying to make Thyme their version of Homura akemi (no shade to that character at all). The thing is tho what makes Homura a much better written character is that she actually DID try to help reach out to other characters, and it ended up BACKFIRING on her, like MANY TIMES. The people around her are unfit to help with her situation. With Thyme however, she hasn't even given the method of reaching out to others a proper chance, so it hasn't even backfired on her yet, she legit has NO REASON to be so averse to getting help from others.
Even worse is in episode two Parsley says that Thyme is on both the warrior track, and the magic track! Which means she probably could’ve done it herself!
(Though I’m also aware she has said that she doesn’t mess with new magic.)
@@legendarybubbles4567 to be fair thyme explicitly stated that she sucks at magic, so maybe her magic skills weren't adequate enough to directly create a portal, but still.
If she needed a demon to help summon a portal to where her father is, then why the fuck didn't she just go to the ethics teacher lady? Since she works with the academy she'd obviously cooperate much better than the other demon that thyme summoned, and not to mention she's demonstrated that she can open MULTIPLE PORTALS TO MANY DIFFERENT LOCATIONS even! Thyme even saw it for herself!
This goes back to my point of how thyme's lone wolf characterization is so poorly executed and unjustified. It doesn't make her look strong and capable, it just makes her look stupid and incompetent instead. -_-
Even if they wanted to keep her independent... just have her buy a pre-made portal spell.
@@poweruppikawho9007 TRUE. This highlights how this show doesn't properly utilize its own world building elements. Spark spells despite being so useful are only used ONCE for one important plot point.
Seriously how did the writers miss the fact that thyme cloud've tried a spark spell to reach her dad?
The demon summoning is legit the most stupid thing Thyme did in the show. Above all previous comments... Thyme knew about this demon from history stating directly that the demon is not cooperative, doesn't grant wishes and is very hostile to the point stepping out of some salt circle when he is around is sure death. So she obviously asked him to grant her wish... Not even having anything in exchange. It is like aproaching known serial murderer just to ask him if he can borrow you his car.
Funniest part, if not the most tragic, is that they had the bases to make the system work, but they were so distracted trying to preach they completely fumbled it.
Let's start with the most classic of classics in the fantasy games, the RPS-like Class Triangle! Warrior beats Rogue, Rogue beats Mage, Mage beats Warrior; How do we make sense of this?
Warriors are brutes by nature, not to say they lack skills, but in battle they're more about overpowering their opponents with their strenght; Rogues are tricky fighters, but they can only manage brute force for so long, reason the matchup is unfavourable.
Rogues are all about their speed and trickery, relying more on their combat prowess than their muscle, even if it means they have to "fight dirty", some are even known to have some basic knowledge of the Arcane arts; Mages are still people, and spells take time to cast, they can only do so much about an enemy that can easily get out of their sight, be it by skill or foul play (Say, smoke bombs or dust in the eyes) to quickly get on their face, or most likely, their backs. Their physiques are usually on the frail side, so it doesn't take much strenght to take them down.
Mages are most commonly depicted as the studious type, your typical bookworm, too busy reading and practicing their craft to hit the gym, but really, when you can blow stuff up with a flick of your wrist and some fancy wordplay it's hard to believe you'd ever need to. Warriors are very much about brute forcing their way to victory, which is really hard to achieve when this weird guy 10 meters away from you entangled you with plants and then lit you on fire without moving from his place, brain can often best brawn, as they say.
So, what's the point of a Sword when you can kill everyone around you by chanting a Yo Mama joke in a dead language? Simple, you gotta finish the stupidly long joke before that can happen, and since you're such a weakling you'll probably get your ass kicked before you get to the punchline... Unless you got this big asshole with a giant sword keeping the bullies away from you, and this sneaky mother f*cker giving surprise wedgies to the other nerds also in the middle of their own jokes.
Magic is supposed to be a long and arduous proccess that requires all of your attention for years to even grasp the basics, something some people are just incapable of even dreaming of learning, and that could be very draining for those who do learn it.
HGS has this with Old Magic, magic that takes preparation, might require ingredients and can take a while to be ready to launch. Had this been the one and only Magic system available it'd be very easy to understand what the point of pairing Sage with Rosemary is, someone has to keep Sage safe while she casts the Win-the-fight Spell.
Instead we also got New Magic, that allows the user to cast spells instantly with a thought, isn't a drain on the user, and even when it does require preparation you can just have it preemptively done and saved on your backup staff, that doesn't even take much space since you can shrink it to the size of a marble.
So, the Mages can now drop nukes on demand with just a thought, meaning they wouldn't need protection, and can outplay every non magic user that isn't ready to work 10 times as hard.
They didn't even try to balance it out with something like "Old Magic is much more powerful, but New Magic is faster" or "Old Magic allows you to do much more stuff, while New Magic is limited on what it can accomplish"
It feels like someone in the staff realized this was a stupid idea and tried to retroactively fix it by implying New Magic is Unwieldy (Even tho every New Magic user we see, that isn't Sage, is so adept at it you would struggle to believe it), that it runs on batteries (that never seem to actually get emptied, so they might be so longlasting it doesn't even matter) and that is somehow bad for the planet (tho one could argue against that since it wasn't explicitly said on the show, and we're not getting a second season to fill in the gaps).
Let's not even get into the debate about the Conservative vs Progressive allegory they just casually dropped in there, tho that is probably the whole reason why they decided to make New Magic so unapologetically OP.
Lastly, and just in the name of being fair with the show, by the end of the show we had Profesor Self-Insert fight by using both New and Old Magic, using New Magic to keep his foe at bay while he prepared a powerful Old Magic finisher. Why is this interesting or worth mentioning? Because had the magic system been better developed this would have been an amazing breakthrough!
Picture this: In a world where most magic users dropped the slow and more powerful magic of the past in favour of the new faster yet weaker magic, an old magic user struggles to fit in. She joins an academy of heroes where she hopes she can develop her skills as a magic user only to find out her ways are looked down on, through trials and tribulations she starts to believe her peers might be right to abandon the old ways, and just when she's about to give up, she finds this mysterious magic user, so skilled he can use the weaker New Magic to defend himself in combat while simultaneously casting the more complex, and stronger, Old Magic spells.
On what we actually got, New Magic is so powerful you just can't help but wonder why he'd even bother doing both when he could, say, dual cast using New Magic instead. If there was a rule that said that's not doable they sure didn't mention it.
This is a very interesting detailed breakdown of your thoughts on the magic system of HGS. I applaud your dedication, kind person. Thank you, it was very insightful✨
This deserves a 10/10 solely for the description of spellcasting as "telling 'your mom' jokes in a dead language".
He probably bothers to do it because in later seasons there would be revealed that New Magic causes the rot, but it would imply mr Caraway can't be transgender anymore cause it is bad for environment, so to avoid such an emotional conundrum (that would be good writing imo, but... Well, it would imply transgender in some way bad, so probably no) they just equipped him with solution - I bet old+new magic would be like hybrids in wattpad fantasy novels: having all pros and no cons of their ancestors.
The funny thing, at least for me, is that I’m trying to work the kinks out of my own magic system and it follows some of what you said was missed potential. Summoning magic is self explanatory but then theirs emitter magic which is basically doing magic yourself rather than phoning someone in (shooting fire, lighting etc) Emitter magic is more versatile but the practitioners of it devote more time to these spells tend to have a harder time up close. Closing the distance would naturally leave them open. Summoners have more ridged system of magic, since they can call in creatures to help, so they’re better at protecting themselves. The weakness comes in with the nature of summoning, with more simple creatures like basic animals and stuff you just need to know the proper sign and type of energy they resonate with. With Summoning more powerful creatures an actual contract needs to be made, so the more learned Summoners can only learn so much in one place. Theirs two schools of thought when it comes to summoning, pre made Summoning circles, typically written on a slip of paper who’s only activation is the proper energy being pumped into it, or the quicker manner of using the proper energy and writing a circle in the air with it. One requires only preparation but theirs a more tangible ability to lose them, or being able to never lose a circle but needing to memorize each one. Both have downsides and upsides. That’s about all I got and I focused on Summoning more because I feel like it’s under appreciated and under utilized in fantasy.
*"Picture this: In a world where most magic users dropped the slow and more powerful magic of the past in favour of the new faster yet weaker magic"*
------------------------------------------------------
That's essentially what happened in the world of Avatar by the time of Korra. Traditional martial arts based bending from long before even Aang's time is mostly phased out in favor of kickboxing style bending, trading power and form for speed and mobility. And that's before getting into what happened to lightning bending.
The show really is broken from the premise up as there is no seemingly no thought given to answering the questions:
1. What is a Guardian?
2. What are they guarding?
3. Why are they guarding it?
4. What are they guarding it from?
5. Why is it important that they are guarding it?
Everything to do with the specific systems such as the magic that will be used to do the whole Guardian thing just adds to the dysfunction of the whole thing.
6) what's with the spice in the title?
7) Are herbs really spices, they do change flavor, but they are well used for aromas and garnishes.
8) What tone does this story set?
a) Just a wacky cartoon like Pop Eye?
i) if so, then why is the show trying
to take themselves seriously?
b) why does the audience need to be
mature to watch this and doesn't
said audience tend to be more
intelligent than kids?
i) If this is the case then shouldn't we
try to respect our audience by
world building, rules of magic (like
how we have rules for physics)
9) what is the laws of conservation?
I feel like all the planning that went into this show was just "umm..a show about a magic school would be neat, harry potter is still popular rite?" and they just winged it from there. Hell, that's not even much of a far-fetched idea since by their own admission they were hiring people for storyboarding before the first script was even written. It explains why everything feels so rushed with no real setup, the plot is so illogical and inconsistent, and the characters are just so flat and terrible.
@@fearlesswee5036 Rumor has it, that Crunchyroll wanted this REAL anime about magical girls, but couldn't get the rights to it.
So they went with this plan B 🤪
High Guardian Spice is literally the discount version
Maybe they're guarding the answers to all of those questions so nobody can find them.
Maybe a solution for warriors would be enchanted weapons. Let's say if Rosemary's sword could absorb magic and she could summon it like Thor does will make that sword as special as everyone said it is in the series.
And maybe we can say that enchanted weapons must be forged with care and not everyone can do it. That would make Parsley's arc better if she isn't as talented in enchanted smithing as she is in normal smithing.
Well, just these two things won't make the series good, but at least that aspect of the magic system better.
Or just make them superhuman. Kinda makes the whole spamming nukes pointless if a person can hit you several times while you are falling to the ground.
Raximus3000
Kind of like in anime. In many action anime, there are people with powerful magic powers (although not always called "magic"), but there are also people who can casually punch boulders in half.
@@schwarzerritter5724
Do you know what the saddest part is?
This magical system seemd to be a lame immitation of the one in the trails game series.
They basicaly have devices that allow them to use "magic." There though you need to buy the spheres that contain the "spells" and it takes time to cast them. On the other hand normal magic uses mana as a power source and it takes talent and time to learn it, while it has more uses and can do some pretty absurd things that are possible by less than a dozn people across 9 games.
I don't know whether this will actually work or not but as an addition to the enchanted weapons, maybe another improvement could be making the idea of stronger magic seem more limited and hard to obtain in some sense? Like its still possible to obtain strong magic but you have to sacrifice something for it like sacrificing your own life span. That could also be integrated to the entire "you need to recharge your scepter thing". What do they recharge it with? Your life span. And there could also be like a stamina system or mana system. For example, casting portals require more mana hence will drain your life span more which could explain why people don't use it as often.
So warriors technically will have the advantage in that they never have to spend their lifespan on ultra strong magic but still have some form of magic nevertheless while mages literally dedicated their life to using the scepter looking thing to do magic
But again, I'm not sure if this will work well since I've never really watched the show so its just going by my understanding of it so far
another solution comes from this TTRPG I play
where mages might be all-powerful, but some threats of magical nature just so happen to be highly resistant to magic, so people who can fight properly with mundane weapons are vital
Also you forgot the plot point that Dr Strange himself forgot to use.
You can open a portal below your enemies' feet, and close it by their torso, cutting them in two.
That actually happen in what if
Altough I do understand why he won't use it tho, Strange doesn't really plan on killing people, and the fact that doing something like that requires precise timing, reaction speed, and concentration. Wich is hard to do when your enemy is someone who can control the literal fabrics of reality and time and space (Thanos)
@@mirzapramudya1580 finally someone like you understands 👍
2:34 I would just call it bullshitting. The problem simply stems from the fact that Raye came into the studio with nothing but a pitch and expected his staff to make the next Little Witch Academia. Remember, Raye only wrote for episode 1 and I would have to say it was the worst episode of the series.
Nah, slight disagreement there. Episode 1 is the most pointless episode, the worst episode by far is episode 6.
The guy never upgraded the story since he came up with it in middle school a long time ago so it would come off as a children’s show
@@sagrawolf and his pitch was nothing but a proto design for the main characters.
imagine bringing a knife to a gunfight and instead of getting shot the gunman just starts swinging the back of the gun at you like a hammer
Accurate representation of Olive there.
⁹⁹⁹⁹ no ⁹⁹⁹ⁿ999⁹⁹99 to ⁹9⁹⁹9⁹9 to ⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹9
⁹⁹⁹9⁹⁹⁹⁹9⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹⁹90 100 ⁹⁹
9⁹⁹
⁹9 lol 9⁹99⁹⁹99
now I want to see abridged rosemary teleport a png heart out of a person and eat it
Yes
and watch her say "oh my god hearts are so delicious *incomprensible grunts*"
@@ringtailmaster3120 are human hearts a food
I love how a single scene (the portal scene) is literally enough to tarnish the entire magic system and of course the writing.
An at least better portal system:
- In order to teleport, a portal "gate" must be made by creating a portal "channel".
- A channel is made by enchanting a rune on or near an object(or reflective surface) in one location, and a rune on or near an at least somewhat similar object in another(a gate can be made between a pool and a mirror, but not between a mirror and a door).
- The runes on two linked gates must be the same.
- Gates can also have multiple runes, and the active rune must be switched with magic(think of turning a knob on a radio to switch who you're talking to).
- Once an object is made into a gate, it is a permanent change until the channel is broken.
- Because gates are permanent, objects are made specifically to be used as gates(most commonly being reflective surfaces like pools and mirrors, or holes like doors and windows).
Limits:
- The more unstable a gate is, the more likely it is to break or go to the wrong location while a subject is going through.
- Things that decrease stability are longer distances, more channels, rapidly switching channels(especially while a subject is going through), bigger subjects going through, and multiple subjects going through too rapidly.
- Because people die via being sliced by the gate closing, or being stranded in the wrong location, gate safety classes are taught in schools, there are regulations over what is considered a safe gate, gates that are deemed unsafe are illegal and punishment can range from fines to jail time depending on the severity.
"New Magic" in HGS is fundamentally broken! "Old Magic" is still limited in many ways, and is based on spells, incantations, rituals, alchemy (including the concept of Equivalent Exchange), and sacrifices (especially personal sacrifices).
@Marav Reviews Nothing is ever "free"...
"magic is fundamentally broken in HGS"
"The sky is blue"
Ok in all seriousness, wow you're actually making a serious HGS critique this time around. Don't get me wrong I still love your more memey/ironic HGS parody content but it's still quite a pleasant surprise.
The magic in this show is the ultimate indication of shoddy if not non existent pre-production. It makes me wonder this series ever even had a show bible (it probably didn't), even MLP:FIM had a proper show bible and that show was for 6 year olds. It's sad to see how mlp:fim has a better magic system than this supposed "mature audience only" series... The way that the magic is written, it's like they made shit up as they went along instead of making established rules for it to make it work properly.
and please don't attack me for indirectly comparing mlp:fim to hgs I'm not trying to "insult" mlp:fim. -_-
Well, to be honest, the only consistent things in FiM's magic are:
-Sombra has somewhat of a connection with the Crystal Hearth
-The Magic of Friendship is A.K.A. deus ex machina
-Candace is extremely weak
🎃👍
@@danielutriabrooks477 every other unicorn other than twilight is weak sauce. also they can only levitate things.
@@whitemoonwolf13 True, one wonders why these semi all-powerfull appear all at once
@@whitemoonwolf13 Exept Sunset and Starlight, of course
Technically, Anise and Aloe could only use Portal magic by holding hands and mixing their magic together. Which gets thrown out in the very next scene when Anise uses a remote control to open multiple portals to and from various locations. And then Aloe does something with cookies that you can legitimately argue is either teleporting or summoning. Not like it matters because not only are no established rules, even presented limitations are summarily ignored or so poorly explained that it's worse than having no rules.
I hope it’s teleporting and not summoning food. If it is summoning the world has just been broken even further. World hunger would be solved instantly, kitchens would become irrelevant, and restaurants/farms would largely stop existing because whats the point if you can just summon food from thin air
The problem with this show is it’s so easy to fix the magic system while still having good character relationships? For example, maybe the downside of new magic is that Teraspheres (or however you spell it) are dug up from the ground and simultaneously cause the rot due to them drawing energy from the earth upon use. You could make thyme a magic user who also wants to study old magic because the fairy woods were destroyed by the creation of a massive terasphere mine, and said mine destroyed much of the natural wild life and caused the elves to evacuate. If you really wanna stick with the whole dark theme thing you could have Thymes mom or dad be killed either by trying to defend their home from the miners or being killed by the rot. This could be one of the ways she bonds with the rest of the girls. Sage over their shared pursuit of learning old magic, Rosemary over the death of a parent (which would also make Rosemary look less selfish and possibly humanize her more as well as define why she wants to become a guardian) and Parsley over the contrast between a huge family and a family that’s been destroyed. I’m terms of motivation, Rosemary wants to become a guardian to be just like her mom who was either killed or went missing, Parsley wants to escape family pressure, Thyme wants to save the fairy woods and Sage originally just went to keep Rosemary from getting herself killed but eventually ended up enjoying her time at the academy. Maybe Amaryllis’s motivation is wanting to be noticed or praised by her neglectful mother, and part of the reason she lashes out and resorts to violence is because of insecurity. Snap probably felt pressured by their parents to be a mAnLy mAn but never felt like that kind of person and their journey could be about accepting that the academy and the life their parents want just isn’t right for them. Have the main moral be about how family can change the way people see themselves. There. Fixed your shit.
I want to see you make more video essays on this show’s failures, like the uneven structure, rushed pacing, stupid characters, lack of set-up and pay-off.
Talk about making swordsmen obsolete...can you just imagine the horrifically destructive things, say, Goblin Slayer could hack together with ample access to the crummiest Terra Spheres?
"This one opens up a half-inch wide portal. I linked it to a 10,000 gallon tank of pressurized lamp oil..."
if he got a terrasphere he would just cast a spell that erases goblins from existence.
@@theinfiniteking I'm terrified that that may be possible in HGS
After all why not? Why shouldn't I create a man-portable Nicholl-Dyson beam?
_Sees the word Lamp Oil._
*Lamp Oil, Rope, Bombs. You want it, it's yours my friend, as long as you have enough rubies.*
@@keylimepython641
*I’m Sorry Link, But I Can’t Give Credit! Come Back When You’re A Little Bit* , mmMmMmMmMMMMMMm, *Richer!*
Wow. Didn't expect a serious essay from this channel, but glad it happened.
Adding to questions this show raises, do magicians exist like some kind of caste, and magic is only accessible for them, or just anyone can use it?
Like, why, for example, Parsley or Rosemary won't use any magic, whether it's an old or new one, but Sage and that purple-haired demonic kid do it on the regular basis?
Is there some kind of analog for muggles or what?
And about the portal-transportation thing: they could do it like in The Witcher series, where portals were kinda hard to stabilize, so people could easily get their head nor other body parts chopped off, or if the person wouldn't work hard enough on it, the other side of portal would lead in the middle of nowhere.
But yeah, looks like none of ideas we can offer are good enough for the progressive studio of HGS.
You know, I had a thought about reworking the magic. Okay, imagine this;
Old Magic, which I'll call Vitality Magic, is magic that draws from energies inside one's self. However, each person can only use one type of Vitality Magic, no matter what. And it's always of one of these elements; water, earth, plant, lightning, ice, wind, and fire. These elements are because that's what the people believe those elements came together to create humanity (I use the term to refer to the "advanced" races such as humans, elves, and dwarves); they came from the earth, fire for their warmth and drive, wind for their natural love of exploring, ice to steel their hearts, and lightning being the energy that allowed them to move. To awaken to Vitality Magic, one is usually exposed to a lot of a particular element; surrounded by plants for plant magic, in a very hot place for fire magic, etc. And such uses of magic draws energy from within one's self and too much of it can be draining or even fatal, but experiences magic-users can either increase their energy (like MP), or learn how to ration their energies to get the most out of their spells. It's also said that what element a person can use relates to their personality or belief; like someone who's short-tempered uses fire magic or one who can't sit still uses lightning magic. Also, only those with a special gene can use magic (think how Quirks in MHA work, only those with a single joint in their pinky toe are capable of developing a Quirk).
New Magic, which I'll call Conjure Magic, is pulling natural magical energies from the environment, focus it, and use a spell. Such energies just occur naturally, like water magic energies come from rain, dew, or the humidity. Fire comes from an extinguished fire or even heat. It can also be modified and edited, provided the person doing so knows what they're doing. Conjure Magic gained popularity because it's easier to use, doesn't tire the user out, can allow any number of different magics, and can be used by anyone, provided they have that magic gene. But as a downside, because people use it so often, the balance in the magical energies is disrupted, causing The Rot.
As for those without the magic gene, they're slightly more resistant to magic, making magic attacks to not hit as hard, and are naturally a bit stronger.
I kinda just thought this up in a few hours and that last part was only thought up while typing this, so sorry if it isn't all that great.
Hgs hire this guy
You forgot to mention the fact that the first scene the cousins open a portal they hold hands and use both new and old magic and after 3 mins we saw the butch use new magic alone to open portals. Not only is the magic is broken but also inconsistent
The "pre-made magic" sparkles are actually expensive (and the witch country is still testing it(?)) as Amaryllis said when she was explaining its use (if I still remember it correctly).
But that doesn't excuse the many flaws new magic has. Even without it, it still needs a lot of fixing.
This video pairs perfectly with @LobsterHero’s video:
“High Guardian Spice Decimates it’s Worldbuilding in the First 10 Minutes | Part 5”
I’d definitely check them out lol Their rant on the portal is hilarious!
This was a great video! It’s honestly extremely helpful the way you explained this. I’ve been writing a fantasy story, and creating a magic system with this in mind helps a ton!
It’s incredibly frustrating when you realize that in the very first episode the first half drags on when Rosemary and sage take two carts, a tram, a train, and another cart, to get to Sages cousins.
Meanwhile sage had a flying broomstick all along, so that could have cut out two cart rides right there. Or her cousins could have just used a portal to transport the girls there!
There’s no reason for them to waist so much time at the beginning of the very first episode, but they do.
The situation with magic reminds me of One Piece. People can acquire extra powers with the consumption of Devil Fruits and be able to do all sorts of crazy stuff: control elements like sand, fire, lightning and snow, turn themselves into animals (including dinosaurs and mythological creatures), control people’s bodies and even their souls. So if you’re like Kaido, Big Mom or Blackbeard, who ate powerful Devil Fruits and are by default very strong, your victory is guaranteed, isn’t it?
Not quite.
First of all, Devil Fruits only give dominion to one particular field, which allows for strengths and weaknesses. For example Luffy is immune to Enel’s lightning, Crocodile becomes tangible when wet, and Galdino’s wax is impermeable to most of Magellan’s poison.
Traditional warriors are also not in a position of powerlessness simply for not having powers. Zoro’s swords have been able to cut steel, fire and even a whole mountain, Sanji can use his kicks to fly into the air and Garp is so strong he can defeat powerful adversaries with a fist. There’s plenty of ways someone who didn’t eat a Devil Fruit can become a top player, including weaponry, Haki and martial arts such as Rokushiki and Fishmen Karate. Nami has turned from a simple young girl with a wooden staff into a worthy follower of the Pirate King simply because of Usopp’s technical skills and her own ability as a climatologist. There’s also science (hence cyborgs, chemical weapons and modified DNA), different species like Giants and Fishpeople, and specific Devil Fruit related weaknesses like Seastone and seawater.
So when I picture a character like Rose in a world of magic, what I expect is “pink Zoro”. She can cut so hard buildings are wrecked, and Olive has plenty of reasons to be scared.
Yeah this story would make a lot more sense if they gave warriors something in terms of power to compete with the op magic users. Unfortunately the writers of high guardian spice didn’t think that far ahead
Also eating a devil fruit nerfs you by getting rid of your ability to swim, which balances it out more
@@Mothlord03 Which in a world full of Devil Fruit users who are also pirates, having the ability to swim be taken away is a big deal
@@itsmefm indeed
The more you think about this show, the more problems you find..
Its the gift that keeps on giving
"Yandere Simulator Syndrome" actually exists. It's called "Skyrim Syndrome".
Nah Skyrim Syndrome is being released 30000 times
@@-rlmn That's what we call AC Syndrome
Called it Skyrim Syndrome because of a video from Hello Future Me. Where he revealed that Transmutation and Magic Sword/Bow completely destroys the worldbuilding of Skyrim
@@-rlmn That's called Pac-Man Syndrome lol.
Part 1 reminds me of the Telvanni from Morrowind.
Because fuck us stair-needing plebs.
"If you can't levitate like a normal person, you're fucked out of luck."
I already said in the comment of another video that the way I would write magic is that pterospheres would be magical organs of magical creatures turned into items for mages, and that's why they wear out after too much use. Then I would probably put a plot in an ep that they have to save a creature from being killed to make a pterosphere.
And the magic would work in the concept of charge, you are taking a part of the energy from the pterosphere to perform a magical effect, the greater the effect, the more effort you are putting on the pterosphere, which can cause its total depletion (breaking it completely) that's why several mages have to team up to do things like teleport. And magical creatures can do bigger magic effects because they were made for that, it's not like a mage who doesn't know how to calculate the right way to do it.
I think the idea that warriors of any kind are less useful than spellcasters, and that magic is compulsory for all students, is a pretty unique one that would've been really interesting.
Especially the "mage fighting a warrior without using a single spell, without an explanation" tells us how incompetent the writers are in terms of "how classes would fight".
Even when I designed a magic system for myself and a friend to play with, it was better designed that this. It even had teleportation magic, but it had limits. Like only a handful of people could generate the magic needed to cast it, and the range was based on how much magic you put into it. It had other aspects to it as well, like cities generating magic like wireless energy since magic was a replacement for electricity. So inside city limits spell casters felt recharged.
8:45 actually the spark petrify spell was single target spell, it just so happened that the shield spell cracked it up so it petrified almost everyone wich would have made more sense if it reflected back to sender.
Also since cat girl is working with the bad guys here that have no problem with killing people i´m pretty sure you wouldn´t find such a high level spark spell in your regular spellmart. But that never gets explained when a school setting is perfect for giving exposition
Also also they could have simply made catgirls staff run out of magic after using the petrify spell and it wouldn´t come off as weird for her not using the same spell again and instead running away and then fighting the madoka ripoff girl with her very inferior staff in a swordfight
I was thinking the same thing. Just have the damn cat girl run out of magic. One easy fix to an otherwise poorly written episode.
(Coming from someone who has just watched a few YT rundowns of the show but not the show itself) Personally while I agree that story wise, the lack of portals is mind boggling. I will say that in a worldbuilding sense trying to replace everything with portals could be reasonably explained as being prohibitive as for example in real life we have elevators so why do stairs still exist? In my opinion, just by actually assuming that terrospheres do actually have charge(as mentioned @8:00) meaning that every portal has a economic cost that makes them unviable for mass transport.
And to continue the charge concept, it makes sense to assume that new magic uses terrospheres as a sort external battery/ external processor that boost a mages capabilities by consuming the terrosphere. This would explain the spark spheres as they are a sort of dedicated processors that are built for one specific spell and thus are able to be uber optimized for that one specific spell. This would also help to explain the divide between new and old magic as the new magic proponents see the old way of doing things as archaic and the old magic people see new magic as a cheat/shortcut and not as someone's own actual talent. I mean consider in real life how in say the woodworking community there is a debate as to how complex tools can get before it is no longer woodworking, some people believe nothing but hand tools are allowed for proper woodworking whereas others use things like cnc machines to help them elevate their craft. So the divisiveness isn't that hard to justify from a worldbuilding perspective.
The final point however about the swords is just plain bad worldbuilding, falling in to the way too common trap of not thinking about how magic would actually affect society. I did rail against the idea that portals would be everywhere, but I do believe that in a believable world in this setting there would be dedicated teleportation hubs for premium travel (if not just general travel depending on how much it cost in terrospheres). Terrospheres and spark spells would probably be seen in a similar light to guns or at the very least similar to archery(depending on how difficult it is for the average layperson to be accurate/effective).
In the end I don't think the magic system is broken so much as it is just completely half assed. With a few minor clarifications or possibly tweaks(such as for instance some sort of way to ward against teleportation so that tele-thievery wouldn't be a massive problem that would necessitate a massive rework of the way business is done (and could explain why they didn't teleport in the plot situations)) it would be a perfectly serviceable magic system, definitely on the higher end of the power spectrum, but not completely broken. It is just that as is the definition for the magic system is half assed and there was little to no actual thought that went into how a magic system would actually change the way society was build.
This show is a trainwreck and I love it. Trashing it is half the fun.
Seriously, when y'all run out of episodes to abridge, can your team please just make new episodes. Like, maybe the the two ladies with the portal terraspheres are specifically trained in using portals, leading to an action sequence where they heavily weaponise it against Olive.
At 3:45 I think if the elf lady said a magic word or two and say there was a teleport rune on the plate that would make it less broken. Showing some level of limit and not just teleporting just cause.
Also for Terra Spheres I would say they only do one type of magic for each one. Like a fire sphere or a water sphere. Also yeah giving Terra Spheres a limit of how much mana it can use before breaking would be great. Plus casting time would make it less broken.
If they said some monsters were resistant to Magic that would answer why there are warriors in this world. A different type of Guardian for monsters resistant and not-resistant to magic.
Or have terra spheres have a limited number of uses, like the more expensive the sphere, the more spells you get out of it before you have to bring it in to reload it. Imagine the tension in a scene where Sage's 5 spell terra sphere has one spell left on it before it runs out.
Maybe teleporting is has a high chance of becoming carcinogenic or even a glitchy explosion or carcinogenic when unstable which happens due to overexhastion or incompatibility, incredibly expensive, and requires alot of energy and for you to put coordinates in a terminal?
If you do a video about the technology base, I want in!
Listening to this made me think of the Telvanni in the Elder Scrolls. Lore wise, they quite honestly can bend reality over their knees if they so choose. They even show this off when you talk with them as you have to cast flying spells to even talk to most of them, as though it's such a basic thing to fly for them. What holds them back is their own narcissism and lack of care for the greater world. They're too focused on how they can make reality whatever they wish that they can be bothered with the affairs of others most of the time. And when they are involved, it's usually with each other and for petty reasons. Petty reasons that they're ok justifying the murder of colleagues because it's legal and they're annoyed. It was all great fun to learn about them@
I think i like the magic system established over fire emblem games much more. It is never super clear but what you can gather in various games it is stated by that magic is only learned throughout dedicated training and by those with inherent talent or devotion.
Anima magic is most common form of magic due to being more accessible. Dark magic is an old form of magic that is described as dangerous to use due to being destructive in nature, while light magic requires additional associating to holy being. Mages cannot cast magic without medium like tomes and practice in magic is said to drain your own life which explains the frailty of most magic users. Mages who cast without tomes are said to die off from their own spell or drain their life without control.
Magic is also generally destructive and long range, but has little defense and takes time to cast and people can even deflect projectiles with weapons.
Altho in game contradicts the stories, but you can see a clear system regardless. Also things like warping are considered magic so high mostly gods or witches(described in some games as people who have borderline become detached from humanity in magic practice) can use it and it is only usable on human transportation
I'm waiting for the 'healing waters' part. That is a whole can of worms waiting to be tackled
It’s true, Magic in High Garden Spice is just so poorly defined and fleshed out. It’s pretty much just the writers excuse to do whatever they want. Swords broken, use magic. Creature problem, use magic. Too tired to walk up stairs, use magic.
One big element that the creators really wanted to include in the show is “transition magic.” But just like all the other forms of magic it’s incredibly loosely defined and with little explanation. There are plenty of characters that can transform using magic. The main girls transform into mermaids with magic. Neppy cat was turned into a bigger stronger humanoid cat with magic. Olive can switch from being a cat to a cat girl with magic. And Mandrake can turn into anyone with magic. So why is transition magic a thing? What makes it different? Why do you need to keep taking potions to stay in the form you want instead of just doing it once? No real explanation is ever given.
Despite High Guardian Spice being set in a magical world. Magic is just heavily squandered.
The part about portals makes me want to see a world where “portal magic” is something that you can specialize in. That would explain why portals exist but are not used most of the time.
It also opens up the possibility of a character that almost exclusively casts portals to solve all their problems (retrieving items, moving around, attacking & defending etc).
the only thing that would make swords have a purpose in the world of high guardian spice would be if they were all elemental and or enchanted weapons or the user themselves has a body that is elemental and/or enchanted, that would make their regular weapon useful for example lets say there exists a wind elemental basically looks like a living dense cluster of wind where you can make out the being's form somewhat but its a bit transparent and with this body the wind elemental can be as fast as the wind itself so give it a dagger or a sword and it could slash people to bits easily and also if it were to train itself more it could be even faster and thus being unbeatable unless it fights with someone that has a good counter to it or some time magic to make it slower
With the “why is there hallways/rooms/ transportation in a world with portals” you can theorize that it’s either a new thing and people just yknow, keep the trains n stuff since it isn’t like common yet? Or, you could theorize that it takes a lot of energy, but yea no magic is broken and neither of that is canon
"Accessibility" also comes to mind. Clearly not everyone is proficient in magic so some people need to be able to handle things nonmagically. Also "just in case" situations, like how we have elevators but require staircases near them. Surely things could go wrong. Although I guess the correct immersion would be ... brain empty.
love watching/listening to your hgs essays, about to rewatch them again👍
Ii more surprised about the fact that there is people that genuinely like this show.
I honestly need to make a playlist of hgs reviews/essays etc. to motivate me to write because everyone time I watch one of these it makes me want to flesh out my own magic system further (with the added bonus of making me feel better about my own fantasy universe because even though it’s not at all finished yet, it’s already better than the one in this show lol)
They could have actually tried to explain why martial arts are still taught. As visible in a lot of fights, New Magic is very prone to collateral damage, so they could have reasoned that martial arts are used in situations where you need to be accurate, like in civilian areas or a historical location, and New Magic is used where something is very powerful and there’s nothing around worth worrying about
Honestly I think old magic is actually balanced, you can't cast spells you don't know so the character needs to study and takes time and practice, you also need to make a ritual for it wich again takes time and resources and also considering nature's balance.
The problem is new magic and the teleportation thing wich is too OP, I think new magic can work but limiting with a magic use limit and money. The old teacher said "this is out of juice" for one of the orbs, so implementing they're like bateries wich acumulates magic and it's rationated when used on spells is one way to limit it. You can use a lot of simple spells, but for example a teleportation spell drains the terrasphere's with that single spell or are not strong enough to do it, for this you have the terosphere's by grades and be actually expensive with the price incresing depending on the grade. An amateaur's sphere being expensive limits the use on other classes and also requieres previous knowledge on how much magic one spell costs to not waste it away. The richest and most powerful elite has access to high grade terraspheres with more magic enough to cast spells nobody else can like teleportation, unless they have the knowledge on old magic to do so.
Also for Parsley going to school to learn things she already know, why not also introduce blacksmith enchantments wich make "regular" warriors more powerful and capable to repeal some spells?
On the scale and brokenness of their magic, you didn't mention that while Sage was going through her potion book she skipped over a potion of immortality. And its not like it was skipped out of skepticism. So there's also casually accessible immortality out there, also impacting the world (yet ... the healing water is special). It was definitely presented as humor, so I don't want to focus on it too much...
"Yandere Simulator Syndrome" - I fucking laughed so hard, I love it! 😂🤌
Was not expecting that Golem Tower theme from Wizard101 at 7:33 😳
This is what happens when you underdevelop your magic system because you think setting too many rules is "limiting" or "makes magic boring".
I just don't think they wanted to put too much thought into it
This is why a good Magic system needs limitations, even something as basic as "not enough mana, Experience or matherials to conjure"
I think the simplest fix would be to add a charge time. Simple mana blasts wouldn't require much, if any charge, but more powerful or specific spells require you to focus magic into what you need, requiring a longer cast time.
This also gives a reason for warriors to exist as they don't have that as a drawback
Music of the spheres is my favorite portal2 track, and it's so fitting to the topic as well!
They don't even stick with what few rules they do give the audience. After all, "New magic can do ANYTHING!" except heal mortal wounds, clear rubble, cleanse the rot, or tell us what the fuck a guardian actually does.
All they really needed to do was tell us the limitations. Requiring a certain amount of power to create and maintain them, making sure to not put in too much or too little, knowledge about the location they are placed and where they lead to and knowledge of how to create the portal itself. These would all be good ways to explain why they can't be used all the time.
Looking back on this over a year later, I realised something:
The only instances of portals being made are done by a new magic human x old magic elf duo and a demon. For the first, the show was probably trying to tell us that portals require new magic and the old magic of elves to be created. Mind you, I say “trying”, whether the show succeeded is not for me to judge. However, this would explain why Sage didn’t portal the group out of the cave, because she and Thyme had not learned that ability yet (though that would be great for first year students to learn right off the bat-). As for the second, it seems to be an innate ability to demons as no one else is shown to use such stylised magic let alone to teleport. (I think… I can’t remember tbh)
So, these distinctions in why portals aren’t used all the time fixes everything right?
Wrong.
If these were the case, why doesn’t Dretch teleport students to their quests instead of making them walk? We know she can not only teleport herself but create portals, portals that anyone should be able to traverse through, right? If only demons can pass through these portals then that was never explained! Oh, and where are the elf teachers? They would have been useful along with Carraway in transporting the students to the destination where the Scypith is wreaking havoc.
Seriously, every time you try to find reason in what little clues the show gives you, you end up either right where you started or even more lost!
Edit: just realised Aloe manifests pastries into existence without Anise…
I give up 😵💫
Edit 2: this comment keeps getting even more and more outdated with everything I remember from the show. Anise is able to make portals on her own in the first episode.
Did no one care about consistency? Not even Raye himself? He co-directed the episode why didn’t he see there being no point in having the show off of Alonise creating a portal together when they were going to follow that up with a nonchalant single person portal use?
I’m trying so hard to convince myself that he’s smart in spite of everything but it gets harder and harder the more I use my own brain 😵💫😵💫😵💫 I’m not trying to be insulting, I’m just so confused 😵💫😵💫😵💫
those are actually the reasons I thought watching the video- the only thing is that the cast could at least explain it in one episode, so that issues like this couldn't happened
Making a world where magic in theory is unlimited but it's incredibly hard to execute and also very physically draining and only limit is execution and your will to do it would ve cool... I think
They could’ve done something like a drawback like in my hero.
Like how bigger the spell, how more energy will be used or that it takes some health from you so if you use a very big spell that you’ll be sick at the end of it and that there were spell too big that you can from them that you have to combine old and new magic or do it with more people
There could also be areas where they put a spell that magic can’t be used, so magic users have to use something else than magic and warriors can have a moment to shine
It is that time again.
The creator of the show dared to compare Rosemary to HIKARU FUCKING SHIDOU and that is a crime.
first seconds of this videos, and already have a ominous narrative and Death Note soundtrack on the background... I already know this video is gonna be good
lol, Yandere Simulator Syndrome. I usually call it Shiny Object Syndrome myself, but I cannot deny that the boot certainly fits. xD
10:10 - The idea of The Rot being caused by New Magic just made me think "Oh no, it's a prequel to the Dark Sun campaign setting!" It would be very on-brand for some of these characters to end up being Sorcerer-Kings there.
No you haven’t raged on it enough!
You want the stairs just in case your magic get broken. Using boats when you could just teleport is solidly dumb.
The issue with this magic system is that, genuinely, it could be good. A good writer could make something interesting out of this magic system, the bones are there but you need ONE thing to make it good. You could make old magic worse but much cheaper and give the story a class divide angle. You could make old magic less powerful, but easier to control, so beginners use it (this is even almost in the show when Sage accidentally kills the dragon thing from the lake), making the jump to new magic a serious undertaking that requires you to go to a prestigious university. There's even potential to do this without stating it explicitly, show sage's family using old magic for basic household tasks, then show her being amazed at professors using new magic for unimportant things because of how unwieldy and dangerous it is. Another idea, to balance the magic/martial divide, have fighters use magical weapons (which makes a reason for these kids in a prestigious academy to be learning blacksmithing). You could give them weak magic because it's not their main focus, which requires them to use it creatively and work with their environment (For example, using magic to blow open doors or windows during an alley fight to knock down the enemy for an attack, or creating illusory doubles of themselves to confuse their foe, which would make for much better fight choreography and be much more interesting than "they hit each other a bunch") The LAZIEST way you could do this (which would STILL be acceptable) would be to say that, due to magic being incredibly powerful, fighters carry items that create a small anti-magic zone around them (which also has room for expansion with the caster needing to space themselves properly from the fighter to attack, and the fighter using magic to close the gap. It even leaves room for big, exciting plays like throwing the item, potentially giving a brief opening to cut through an enemy's defenses). Something like the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter would also work, where criminals are kept in check by a magic police force, which gives another angle for something the story could be about. It's almost as if the writers looked at all the amazing potential that the fantasy setting has, and how much they were given in terms of resources, but instead of making something of quality, they phoned it in because they knew if they focused on woke marketing, they could get people who don't care about quality to watch it. I am THOROUGHLY convinced that I have thought more about the magic system and storytelling in this show than the writers, and it is a fucking disgrace and an insult to all entertainment that anyone who calls themself a writer would be able to shit out such a thoroughly uncreative and banal show as High Guardian Spice.
I’m actually writing a fantasy story and I’m using these videos to determine what *not* to do
Also, I heard 2002 Morrowind battle music xD
The Death Note music is so good
Imagine if a hypothetical season 2 kills off some characters. (At least the ones are not animals) Not because I want them to die (even if some are more hatable than others) but it would be a bit of a nice change of pace. But that’s just me. lol
I'm surprised that Rosemary is still alive with how stupid the girl is.
I'm very late to this discussion. Anime, what HGS what's to be, has it pretty well down. I'll use Mushoku Tensei for an example. Mages draw there mana from their bodies to cause a physical change in the world, and Warriors manipulate the mana in their bodies to enhance their abilities, so they are faster, stronger, more agile, can do incredibly martial feats, and subconscious pool this mana in their skin to protect them from damage.
This is already been done in fantasy anime for so long and it's been done incredibly well there, most good fantasy anime uses this exact same system format in some way, they literally could have just used it. Since they already want it to so bad to be anime
It jusy hit me. Terraspheres, allow you to use absurd Magic, everyone and their mom use it, and may or may not be killing the planet. Terraspheres are FF7 Materias but stronger.
Overreliance on magic leaves someone physically weak, so if you can overcome their magic, a punch would be just as painful as it would be to a non magician.
A jewel is just one of many options for magical conduits, but one still must do the ritual for the spell.
wait no, that's Rayman, not Hogh Guardian Spice.
Watching your point about the magic and swordsmen thing actually made me think of a show that manages to do this: Black Clover. The protagonist in black clover, Asta, is someone who cannot use any magic at all in a world where magic is commonplace. Instead, he has a sword that negates magic. Its also stated that he isnt strong but is still trying hard to get to the top. You see him struggle to keep up with magic users but he manages to do it to some degree of success regardless
6:41 is that a hellsing abridged reference?
A simple solution to martial weapons being useless against Terraspheres: make weapons be magic too.
The best thing about "nitpicking" at poorly thought out magic systems, is when you think about all the series you like where they actually bothered to think it through. My respect for several solo-produced worlds having such sensible magic just skyrocketed after watching this. HGS is really good at that, at making you see the good that it usually invisible in other media, because when it's done well, you're not supposed to notice it. It's why videos like this are worth making. It's why "nitpicking" is not some shameful behaviour. Criticism and looking properly into what went wrong is the best way to know how to do better. So thank you for making these videos, even if it can seem like beating a dead horse.
One good series that comes to mind has teleportation rods to make fast travel viable without exhausting a mage, or leaving in the risk of teleporting to a wrong spot and getting hurt. But the rods are not just openly available. Whoever had them, are the same people in the real world who have guns. The military, the demon slayers, pirate gangs, and that one alchemist you get your special potions from. The magic exists and could make life easier for everyone, but is clearly restricted and witheld from the general populace. Add in that on top of the legal issues, there is the fanatic group of demon-magic haters that make new innovations in magic feel like a risk incase it's deemed to be demonic magic. And we got a world where anything is possible ONLY when you avoid the cops. A world where magic can do anything can work, so long as it just has rules and reasons for why everyone doesn't do it. Harry Potter and HGS really never think beyond the scene, the moment, and it's sad. Because there was potential for a decent world there. It's weird that I see real world building more often from hobby fic writers.
I also like when if an exploit is there, the author doesn't shove it under the rug, they use it. If there's an attack spell that uses low mana, and you're a powerful mage with lots of mana reserves then yes, you can use supressing fire for 6 hours and absolutely piss off your enemy until they figure out a solution. And if a character is meant to be a smart mage, they absolutely should do this. And when you add in anti-magic, be aware that you're not solving problems, you're creating a new set. When a scout cast a vision spell and caught the MC who was using anti-magic, and then said "Well yeah, I knew where you where because it was the only place I couldn't see." like that is the kind of common sense I don't think HGS would ever think of.
HGS really teaches us the mistakes to avoid.
My favorite magic system is eragon. I could talk for hours about it. It's a system where you could do anything but in order to get there, you need a huge amount of experience and knowledge. Teleportation is only used twice to my knowledge and in both situations it took high level magicians with an incredible amount of power and was used in an emergency or a ritual involving hundreds of participants. The system eragon uses is essentially a language that controls reality, but anything you do with it consumes an amount of energy from the caster. If you cast a spell to pick up a rock, it would tire you out about as much as it would for you to just go physically pick up the rock. It's a little more convoluted for things that aren't physical, like starting a fire, but it's the same concept. Casting spells consume energy and if you use too much, you'll die. Practice can raise how much energy you can consume, but if you're human and not a master, you'll probably kill yourself if you use it recklessly. The first case of teleportation is an elf magician. Specifically a high ranking official of her race that was chosen to protect an extremely valuable artifact. Casting the teleportation spell on its own consumed so much strength that she couldn't fight, and might have passed out if I remember correctly. And that was for an artifact the size of a football. The other case its used is by an entire race of people doing a ritual chant in multiple languages including the magic one to retrieve a crown. But magic in general does a lot more than that. People don't use it for everyday life despite the convenience because most people that did were hunted down by an immortal wizard. To use the magic you have to know the language, which means it has to be taught to you by someone who knows it or you have to discover words by an incredibly complex process in part using the words you already know. Nobody uses it because nobody knows how. Those that do know how to use it will use it in their everyday lives. Humans that know it will often only use it for starting fires or cooking. People learning it are told not to use it for everyday life because any mistake in wording might cause you to cast a spell that you don't intend or kill yourself or others in strange ways, and this happens in the books. You're told to shave with a razor instead of magic because you could accidently cut your head off. You could attempt to cast a spell to cure a disease and accidentally create super aids. Elves, who have a huge reserve of magical energy and use the magical language for speaking, use magic in their everyday lives because it's a part of them and they're incredibly powerful for it. Many of them have altered their forms either for function or aesthetics. Their food is magically grown in quantities that allow them to feast whenever they want. Their houses are grown out of trees because why build or hunt when nature bends to your will? They only do things without magic out of boredom. They live such long and easy lives that they pursue art and science sometimes without using magic just to give themselves a little bit of a challenge in life. It's a super interesting and well written system
The stairs thing is nit picky because any one who can’t use magic or is say a child would still need to be able to get from place to place. You can get rid of something so fundamental unless the magic doesn’t need to learned and is just known at birth.
I’m not actually trying to defend this show just arguing getting rid of say stairs and boats is difficult when u consider not everyone would be using magic
@@jayspencer4033 Okay, but, one idea, two words: Permanent portals.
Replace a flight of stairs, with one permanent portal.
An okay way to make swords better is for them to absorb magic like having the sword absorb the magic of the terrasphere making just a walking stick however it has a limit to how much magic it can wield and it is only good against new magic thankfully most people love new magic
i think the reason martial arts are taught at the school is the same reason in medieval days, it wasn't uncommon for a warrior or knight to also be decent at hand to hand or to have a backup dagger. the terrasphere is just an orb and you could lose it and be defenseless. BUT if you also had a sword you would at least have SOME chance. still no reason for rosemary to purposefully limit herself.
If you wanna see what teleporting can do to a fight, watch the shimazaki fight from mob psycho 100 season 2. The guy is one of the strongest characters for a reason.
One really cool thing they could have done for the swordsmen is make them have innate anti-magic. They can't be directly targeted by mana, and actually drain it on contact, and that also shields things they are directly touching. Can't teleport their sword away, can't throw them high into the air, etc. You can hit them, but only with attacks that hit other things or have indirect effects- like shooting the floor to blow them into the sky.
That would also make for a great way to ratchet up the danger level of more skilled magic opponents. Beginners would get absolutely annihilated as most of their attacks just do nothing, but then you throw someone who completely bypasses this weakness at them?
It could even get through the teleporting issue. Sure, Sage and the others can go through a portal, but then they'd just be leaving Rosemary behind because *she can't*.
Alternatively, give them magic items with a similar effect, or magic items that let them use powerful abilities similar to casters.
FMA has a better magic system than HGS. Hell Harry Potter had a better if somewhat lazy magic system aside from the Time Turner.
Fuck even ojamajo doremi has a better magic system than HGS...
Radical Rex had a better magic system than HGS.
I can imagine an interesting new-vs-old magic dichotomy plot that would be interesting in another story
Love the inclusion of Wizard101 music.
lol I thought it was from death note
The way to make swords good is so simple too, since magic is op af just use magic to reinforce your body/mind and layer your sword with a shield or something to make it sharper and more durable as well as able to block actual spells
I love how me- a teenager- actually tough about issues like this-
(about my wattpad book)
like teleport= yes you can teleport but you *must* know to coordinates or you need to focus of the place in your vision( well the teleport spell here is WERY hard to try and it tires peps easily)
The other thing is that when you look the door there's an actual spell that that's anti-teleport.
The other thing is about weapons- In mine Wattpad story they're made with a particular metal one that can break magic and can't be actually broke by it in the process.
And the magic- Magic is separated in various usage (like fight spells ecc.). to use a spell you must have a certain power level (like- you must have 1000pl to summon a certain spell)- it's litterally how strong someone's magic can be- then you need the magic production- that's how much magic someone's body product, to higher it you must eat well and do a lot of excercises, so that you have all the resources to product magic wile making sure you don't collapse from exhaustion. And the last but not least fact is that you need to learn that spell and making it yours.
"Why warriors exists in a world with magic?"
Oh sweet summer child, if DnD has taught me something, it's that the Guy with a Sword™ will always enjoy swinging his metal stick regardless of how immensely stronger wizards are.
In dungeons and dragons powerful spells require material components and take time to cast. The magic is powerful but it has certain limitations and restrictions which make warriors still useful in their world. Here however thats not the case, the magic barely has restrictions at all, and with new magic materials become almost meaningless.
Looks over at the 12 style magic system of my setting (note that evolutions or inspired by combining other styles to create something distinct are classified as separate magic styles in that number)
For example form 12 (scientific theory applied to abstract energy forming spells that can be taught as part of a physics curriculum for example) and form 7(holy/Devine magic formed from the belif in religious texts invoking phenomena that under standard physics isn't possible but by accounting for infinite theorical dimensions with slightly different laws it becomes possible) l have a destructive reaction of annihilation of each other's respective conceptual groundwork/frameworks with the person who's belief in there structure who's stronger coming out on top regardless of the spells strength
Really all they could have done is say that teleporting spells are revised only for certain people. That people need to train to be able to make portals and such for years.
That you need a LICENSE to use a teleporting spell.
It would have solved so many issues because THEN it would make sense why everyday people aren’t just moving about.