in a lot of fiction magic is pretty mechanical sure it may be weird and volatile but it more or
less Works how and when you want it to drink a health potion your wounds heal recite the
magic words summon the monster unsheath your fire sword fire more or less predictable outcomes some
stories even take that to the extreme and make an entire system out of their magic this table
you're looking at right now describes just one type of magic from Brandon sanderson's
mistborn series look how intricate this is and this is just a basic surface level
breakdown it gets far more complicated than this as creatives it's pretty easy to think
of magic this way a lot of fantasy authors do but when you break out of the conventions of
high fantasy and think more broadly about what magic really is what we mean by using this word
confusing phenomenon reveals itself throughout all of these systems fantasy Rule books magical laws
it almost seems like the more you know about the magic you're using the less magical it is [Music]
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got a really great idea for a story but don't quite know how to put it all together well there's
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here let me paint you a picture four little Hobbits Frodo Sam Mary and Pippin have found
their way to La valorian the realm of the elves they stand astonished surrounded by the ancient
empowering trees the Ethereal silver lights swaying from the bows The Impossible depth
of the night the countless stars shining down on them through the leaves there's not an elf
in sight but their magic can be felt everywhere taken with all of this Sam utters that he'd like
to see some true elf magic for himself first hand and fortunately for him galadrion the lady of the
wood is happy to oblige one evening while they're staying as guests in her realm Frodo and Sam are
beckoned to look into what she calls her mirror a mysterious Basin of water which according to her
will show them each a vision meant only for them perhaps it will show them their beloved
home the Shire which they are so very far away from perhaps it will show them something to come
on their Journey prepare them for when they must once again leave the safety of the wood
it's a gift she's offering them miraculous and Powerful but the two Hobbits hesitate
they are only Hobbits after all they aren't used to such things and galadriel's power scares them
did you not say you wish to see Elf Magic she says turning to Sam for this is what
your [ __ ] with call Magic I believe though I do not understand clearly what they mean
they do end up looking by the way and what they see impacts their Journey deeply but that's not
what I want to talk about here what's always stood out to me about this sequence is this
strange thing Galadriel says this moment where one of the most powerful magical beings in their
world admits to them that she doesn't know what magic is something even Hobbits the smallest of
all the world's peoples understand intuitively it's a fleeting detail in the three volumes in
more than a thousand Pages which make up the Lord of the Rings but also one of the most
poignant to me because I think this is how most people see magic think of a magician performing
a trick for a child with a sparkle in his eye and a theatrical flourish he removes his top
head the child watches as he demonstrates that it is in fact empty in sight she watches as
the magician puts it down on a table nearby and then she watches in pure Wonder as the magician
reaches his hand in a bit further than he should be able to and pulls out a live rabbit magic right
that was magic it had to be at least through the child's eyes to her this guy just shattered
the laws of physics a complete impossibility hats aren't that deep and a rabbit definitely wouldn't
be able to live inside of one for very long everything she knows about the universe thus far
tells her that what she just witnessed cannot be yet there it was magic for that moment this child
is a hobbit in the elves wood but like Galadriel the magician doesn't see it although he's the one
performing it to him it's less magic and more trick because unlike the child watching he
knows how it all works he knows about the hole in the table and the compartment underneath just big
enough for a rabbit he knows how to push open the bottom of the hat to reach through he knows that
the laws of physics are in fact still perfectly intact for him there's no leap of logic no seeming
contradiction in the nature of perception and the nature of reality he experiences no magic
both of these little case studies lead me to an interesting conclusion about the nature of
this thing that we call Magic it seems to me that magic is not just a matter of perspective but also
a matter of understanding the more empirical rational systematic it is in the mind of the
beholder the less magical it appears to be the trick is just an allusion to the magician but a
breach of physics to the child the mirror is just a powerful tool to Galadriel but Elf Magic to the
hobbits even the most mundane things can appear magical to someone who lacks context imagine if a
creature from some tiny isolated Woodland came to visit your modern industrialized world and
started calling things like water fountains and mechanical pencils human magic as Arthur
C Clarke famously put it any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
for Magic a phrase underpinned by the idea that magic represents a gap in understanding
but I also don't think that's the whole story it makes sense to mean that magic requires a gap in
our understanding but that also just kind of seems like a condition for it to exist rather than what
it actually is if not getting it where enough to make a thing magical then every beginner at every
task would technically be a wizard in training every student who ever failed a math problem or
a science experiment would technically be having a magical experience think back to our magician what
if he were to perform the same trick but this time for an adult he might wow them sure evoke a moment
of Wonder surprise curiosity Fascination but after that moment passes they'll almost certainly
immediately ask themselves how did he do that how is the trick performed they assume that this thing
that they just witnessed works that it makes sense that it's somehow possible even if they don't get
how it was done they know implicitly that it was done within the laws of physics unlike the
child unlike the hobbits the adult rejects the impossibility of what they've just seen out of
hand this time when the trick is performed between the magician and the adult there is not one single
Speck of magic and that's because magic is not a phenomenon it's not a thing you do not
an action or a system or a set of laws magic is acceptance the moment of true belief that you are
witnessing something which by your established systems of understanding should not cannot be
a gap in understanding can make that more likely to happen because a smaller less inclusive system
is easier to violate but the Gap itself is not the magic if you assume there's some rational
explanation for a thing you don't yet understand it's not magical it's just thus far unknown
but when you accept that you've genuinely observed something that really does
violate any model or system that you would otherwise use to explain it that is Magic
and that kind of puts magic systems in a weird spot because if what we've come to here is true
then that means magic cannot exist in a system magic is fundamentally system breaking that's
what makes it magical of course we also love a good magic system we've done a few videos on them
already and we're probably going to do a whole lot more in the future but if magic and systems are
kind of Polar Opposites that does make things a little awkward for these very explicit systemized
hard magic Brandon sandersonian approaches to it they are a fascinating spectacular narratively
they can do almost anything as softer less structured magic system like the one in Lord
of the Rings can do heck sometimes they can do a whole lot more but the one thing they can't
really do be magical any sufficiently advanced technology may be indistinguishable for magic
but likewise any sufficiently advanced magic is also indistinguishable from science these hard
magic systems with their rationality and rules and detailed inner workings are really a lot more
akin to an alternative secondary World science the story surrounding them tend to be a lot less about
experiencing magic and a lot more about exploring the fascinating what-ifs these alternative rule
sets enable and it really is a blast to watch the characters figure it all out turn these new rules
to their advantage it's a similar feeling to the one you might get when figuring out how to employ
a magical power in a video game it's not the Wonder of the hobbits in La Florian or the child
watching the magic trick we're feeling in these moments it's the very real moving gratification
of solving a puzzle if you do want to feel that magic look to less systemized approaches
soft magic instead of hard magic that has some like to call it when you leave the workings of
these new rules and Powers vague when they're allowed to be a little less rigidly defined and
a little more fluid it puts the audience in a headspace a little closer to that of the child
watching the magic trick in Harry Potter we're not following Dumbledore or Voldemort we're following
a child encountering Magic For the First Time In The Wizard of Oz We're not following the good
witch Glinda or Oz himself we're with Dorothy looking at this fantasy world with fresh eyes
most of the time in Lord of the Rings we're not following Gandalf or Galadriel we're experiencing
things as a hobbit would through eyes which see Elf Magic is strange and rule-breaking and awesome
enjoy World building enjoy magic systems enjoy finding clever ways to explain
all the weird stuff that happens in your stories but also remember that
the most powerful magic happens when we simply accept that it cannot be explained
however even an inherently magical world still has some rules being okay with magic just being
magical doesn't necessarily answer the question of complexity with all your other World building does
it it can be hard to figure out how this whole fictional World thing works but fortunately I
recently found something that will absolutely help you it's a 12-part video series called
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Michelle he walks you through how to begin your new world what the Ripple effects of that starting
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finished this class creating unique and Powerful worlds please come back and tell us the impact
it's had on you as a Storyteller I cannot wait to hear the success stories anyway that's all
for this one thanks for watching and keep making stuff up I'll see you next week bye
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