jonathanmoeller: magic in fantasy fiction

jonathanmoeller (

jonathanmoeller) wrote,
@ 2008-04-30 11:36:00

magic in fantasy fiction
Here is a fascinating post on the use of magic in fantasy fiction. I suspect that many of you (at least those of you who take an interest in the topic) will not agree with most of it, but it is nonetheless a thoughtful read.

-JM

(Post a new comment)

	kythiaranos 2008-04-30 05:39 pm UTC (link)
	That was fascinating--thanks for linking to it. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	jonathanmoeller 2008-04-30 06:32 pm UTC (link)
	My pleasure! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	paulskemp 2008-04-30 06:27 pm UTC (link)
	I thought the point about choice and moral decisionmaking relevant and well-put, but found the essay's emphasis on magic as a device for that exploration to be misplaced. But then I'm not looking at it through the lens of faith, so that may be the difference. (Reply to this)(Thread)

jonathanmoeller
2008-04-30 06:47 pm UTC (link)

I wonder if that has more to do with using the Forgotten Realms as a setting.

After all, the FR is a very mechanistic place, since practically everything has governing rules (as befits a game setting). Strictly speaking, I suppose the magic in FR isn't really "supernatural" at all, since it's no so much a non-natural force capable of overriding nature as it is an extended set of natural rules and forces that only a few people have the talent or training to exploit. (Maybe your Sojourner is actually Screwtape's Materialist Magician!)

In that sense, FR magic is less like magic in the supernatural sense and more like a form of science, in which case, like science, it becomes a tool that is morally neutral; the moral choice comes in the method the tool is employed. In the Forgotten Realms the act of learning a fireball spell may be morally neutral; the moral choice comes from choosing to fling that fireball at a group of bad guys or into an orphanage.

I think your fallen angel stories would probably make a better vehicle for using magic as a device for moral exploration.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

paulskemp
2008-04-30 06:57 pm UTC (link)

Strictly speaking, I suppose the magic in FR isn't really "supernatural" at all, since it's no so much a non-natural force capable of overriding nature as it is an extended set of natural rules and forces that only a few people have the talent or training to exploit.

Yeah, but that's true of many, if not most, fantasy settings. There's a "magic system," sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit. Even the Potterverse has a system not unlike DnD.

In any event, systematized or otherwise, magic is a good tool (but just one of many) for exploring choices and their moral/ethical implications (in the same way scientific inquiry, a "superweapon," or any number of other things you and I could name can be). Meaning, one needn't come to the table thinking that magic, ipso facto, has a certain moral character (as does the essayist) in order to use it as a device for exploring moral issues. In fact, I claim that thinking it has an ipso facto moral character necessarily limits its use as a tool for exploring moral/ethical issues in one's fiction (because you'll only use it in a certain prescribed way, e.g. with all the hedges the essayist notes).

(Reply to this)(Parent)

paulskemp
2008-04-30 07:05 pm UTC (link)

Incidentally, I alluded to something in my response to the essay that I'll mention here. I think fantasy is an ideal moral/philosophical playground (as I've mentioned often on my own blog) but not because it's a place where magic might be real, but because it's a place where good and evil are (or at least can be) made more or less objective (whether that's through explicit or implicit authorial stipulation, or through action of protag/antag). That is, there are clear moral poles within which events transpire. It is that fact, IMO, that brings the moral/ethical exploration element of fantasy into sole possession of the stage, not the existence of magic. Magic, I think, is merely the window dressing.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

jonathanmoeller
2008-04-30 08:14 pm UTC (link)

I do remember that post of yours; in fact, I thought of it when I read that bit in the essay.

Robert Howard was one of the founding fathers of modern fantasy, and I think he was some variant of atheist, but ironically his portrayal of magic pretty closely follows the essayist's views. In the Conan stories, I think there was a grand total of one or two wizards who weren't actively malevolent, and sorcery was almost always presented as a malign force. Though that may have had more to do with Lovecraft's influence on him.

I do agree with you that magic in fiction needn't be approached ipso facto as malign, but I don't think it's necessarily just the window dressing (like, say, laser pistols in space opera). In the FR, there'd be a world of difference between the magic of a cleric of Lathander and a cleric of Loviatar. It seems that the portrayal of fictional magic works best when it is a portrayal of Power (ill-gotten or not), and the Will To thereof, and all the myriad changes, responsibilities, and corruption it can lay upon a person. The fact that we could do the same thing with genetic engineering or nuclear bombs may just prove that Arthur Clarke was right when he said that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	paulskemp 2008-04-30 08:23 pm UTC (link)
	Fair point. I'm overstating it to call magic window dressing. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Mini Sitemap:

Username:		Create an Account Forgot your login? Login w/ OpenID
Password:
	Remember Me
	English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…