The release of Wise Man's Fear made me start thinking about this today.

People often talk about realistic magic systems, or science-friendly magic systems. I myself have said this. Rothfuss' Sympathy is one example. Dresden's magic system is also often claimed to be scientific in some sense, at least in comparison to Harry Potter. The Harry Potter system is perhaps the paradigm case of a magic system that people widely acknowledge to be unscientific.

But what do we mean when we say a magic system is scientific, or realistic?

For example, Sympathy. We look at it and we see the familiar concepts. The Laws of Thermodynamics are sitting there. That seems pretty scientific, right? There's a definite sense in which Sympathy feels realistic in a way that Harry Potter spells don't. But when it comes down to it, you've got a person influencing the workings of reality because of a strongly held belief, combined with a magical action at a distance.

A similar case holds with Dresden. You have conservation of energy. You have quantification of magical energy. You have stuff like shields only blocking one type of energy but letting others through, depending on the design of the shield. But again, at the end of it, it comes down to an arbitrary stipulation that "it's magic".

So, my question for all you fantasy lovers:

Is there such a thing as a realistic magic system? Is Sympathy a more realistic magic system than Harry Potter? If so, is it just a matter of appearance? Are we just being tricked in to thinking it's realistic by the author walking familiar scientific concepts on and off the stage? Or can there be a definite sense in which X magic system is more realistic than Y?

 

Yes. There is. In the real world we call it "Science." Or, when it's put into practice "Technology."

 

...science isn't a magic system. To try to turn your post in to a non-troll:

Are you saying that the closer a system resembles real world science, the more realistic it is?

(Seems to be a good, if a little obvious/tautologous, suggestion).

If so, what is the criterion of resemblance? Would it come back to the parading of quasi-scientific magical principles across the stage?

 

I was hinting at the "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" bit.

 

Could you elaborate? I'm not really sure how it applies.

 

The question is bullshit. Magic is by definition unrealistic. If it was realistic, it wouldn't be magic.

 

In which case, the question isn't bullshit. It's just that your answer is "no".

(By the question, I assume we mean this question:

"Or can there be a definite sense in which X magic system is more realistic than Y?")

Anyway, given that many people seem to talk about realistic magic systems, and given that people seem to understand in some sense what they mean, it doesn't seem completely obvious on the face of it that the answer has to be "no".

 

Systems of magic can be described as more or less realistic, but that's just shorthand for 'pays lip service to existing scientific theory before happily breaking it'. Harry Potter making fire by waving a stick and saying 'incendio!' is just as unrealistic as Harry Dresden apparently making Maxwell's Demon shunt heat around until fire happens, because neither could happen in reality. The only difference between the two is whether you put the break of natural laws right up front or put up a screen of scientific buzzwords.

The root of 'realistic' is reality. Magic does not exist in reality. Ergo, magic is not realistic. Quod Erat Fuck You.

 

So, in fact, you agree with me when I said:

And

I'm not sure why you're coming off as so aggressive as if you're attacking a position. I didn't actually take a stance on this matter. I just invited discussion.

(Translation: way to be a dickhead.)

Anyway, for the sake of discussion, as you yourself noted in IRC, one can have an idea of closeness to reality in terms of a sliding scale, not just a binary value. If it's binary, then I definitely agree with you. If it's a sliding scale then I think there's more room for manoeuvre.

For example, it seems like there is a way in which a magical system that consists only of physical energy is closer to reality than one that just has stuff happening without any explanation. In some ways it's definitely subjective, but you could perhaps phrase it in terms of the number of scientific principles broken, or how fundamental those principles are. All other things being equal, a magic system which allows perpetual fire is surely further away from reality than one that allows a character to ignite a fire via magic, but that fire obeys all normal physical laws.

 

I haven't finished The Name of the Wind yet, but I do consider Sympathy (from what I've seen of it -- I'm only at the part where Kvothe has been admitted into the University) and Dresden magic more realistic than Harry Potter magic, for the reasons you've stated. I also find them much more enjoyable because of that.

 

A good magic system in my opinion is where magic follows some set of rules (not necessarily scientific rules) and there are not any random quirks where you can't explain something without saying "because its magic" or "it just is."

 

I agree with Anarchy: the fewer exceptions there are to a system, the more internally consistent it is, the more realistic I'll deem it.

It ties back to Vir's near-quote of Clarke: because we, as a society understand (in broad terms) how electricity and, to a lesser extent, most technology, work, despite the wonders it produces that would be unthinkable to a lesser-developed people (We can fly! and send letters around the world instantly! and step on the motherfucking moon!) we don't consider it magic - we consider it reality.

In any story, the limits and consistency of the magic system are what make it interesting:

- In HP, I find the magic itself to be amusing at best, but not interesting as it's fucking limitless.

- In Dresden, using magic is a physical drain, like a muscle, and relative strength and skill are attained not just with natural talent, but with practice. Also, the ways in which the magic is used have limits; fire is uncontrolable once summoned, like real fire; zombies must have their heartbeat replaced; demons must feed to keep up their strength, etc. I find the magic and the capabilities it grants to be a huge part of the story.

- In Mistborn, skill and practice are again required to keep metal-burners alive, lest they get killed by others, though this is on top of their in-born skill, and the talents of individuals are limited by what metal they can burn. Also, metals burn at different rates. And a misting with no metal is powerless. The individual metals, at times, almost become characters themselves, especially atium.

tl;dr: The more limited the magic, I find the more realistic.

 

Consistency with the laws of reality as we know them is a must for any magic system, in my opinion.

Like, calling fire. Where does that energy come from? Energy can't be created or destroyed. Dresden achieves this by either drawing the energy from your environment, like the heat in water, or by channeling the energy of emotions and willpower. In Harry Potter the energy needed is just created out of thin air because you said something in broken Latin. No one and nothing nearby is drained of energy in the process. The whole series just says "Fucking magic, bitch! I ain't gotta explain shit!" And that's just lazy.

Or, say, shapeshifting. Where does the extra mass come from, if you're growing substantially larger, or go if you're shrinking?

If you find yourself asking questions like that, a well thought out answer that works with and along the laws of reality as we know them should be provided. Obviously it's not going to be totally realistic, as then it wouldn't be fiction. But it should be internally consistent enough to easily suspend your disbelief.

 

Is Magic A Is Magic A (sorry) the same, though, LittleChicago? Does internal consistency equate with 'realism'?

And for fuck's sake that term needs to be disposed of or at least nailed down as meaning something completely different to what's in the dictionary. 'Realistic magic' is a contradiction in terms, hence my initial barrage on Taure's stupid phrasing. Especially when you start to consider things like: if (ferinstance) Dresden Files explained that the universe works that way because (ferinstance) electrons spun in a different manner in that universe, would that be more realistic because it's been made completely scientifically plausible, or less because it's even further from our reality, which is being used as the baseline? Loaded bloody terminology that should be taken out back and shot.

Z-Space.

 

It's interesting that you connect it with suspension of disbelief.

Did you have problems with suspending your disbelief when reading HP?

While I would agree that HP magic is less realistic than Dresden magic, I never found that I believed either one more or less. In neither did I ever have the feeling "that shouldn't be able to happen". I just accepted that for that world, that was how things worked.

This is where I agree with Tehan. While I think that on some levels it makes sense to talk about varying levels of realism in terms of how you feel about a magic system, I would be cautious to say that Dresden actually is more real than HP. It feels more real because of the quasi-science, but when you get down to it it involves just as much arbitrary stipulation.

(Its not even that much more consistent. There are some serious inconsistencies with the source of Dresden magic. It's been both treated as if the source of the power is within the wizard (thresholds, drawing on the power of own emotions) and outside (Inability to draw magic in the circle in Small Favour, many descriptions of drawing power from surroundings)).

 

Provide me with a suitable alternative and I'll use that. I'm just going with the term because I think it's easily relatable.

That's... Animorphs, right? It sounds familiar, at least. >_>

When I first read it, when I was somewhere between eight and nine, no. I was a little too enamored with the concept to care, I think. Now, yes, I have trouble taking canon magic very seriously. I imagine a greater understanding of the universe (which isn't saying much -- I'm pretty terrible with science and math beyond the basics) and exposure to other ideas about magic and storytelling as I've grown has contributed to that.

I won't deny that. Really we're just indulging our personal preferences when it comes to this sort of thing, there's no real way to quantify one method over the other.

If you say so. I don't have half the mind for finding all these little inconsistencies and remembering details as you seem to.

 

I would agree with 'having enough internal consistency to limit disruption of my willful suspension of disbelief' as being the long-hand meaning of 'realistic' for the purposes of this discussion.

The same questions come up when dealing with technobabble in a sci-fi story/tv show. E.E. Doc Smith wrote some ripping adventures, as did Robert E. Howard, but modern authors wouldn't dare attempt to write such over the top manglings of our understanding of physics (except in Japan, and they've got nuclear-boom issues to work out).

If Star Wars wasn't such mind-blowing eye candy when it first came out, it would have been panned more widely than just by Harlan Ellison. Never mind sound in space, fiery explosions in space or the unlikelihood of planets actually blowing up; the space combat scenes are laid out like WW2 fighter engagements, where constant forward thrust was required to remain in motion.

(But it was delicious eye candy, oh yeah.)

Similarly, a magic system that lets the reader imagine themselves casting the magic and imagining what they could do with THEIR wand, an Imperius curse and that girl from 4th period Chemistry...

(excuse my mess)

Anyway, if the system can allow the reader to reasonably interpolate/extrapolate other ways that magic can be used, such that they can predict the awfulness the villains have in mind but not sit back and say 'well why didn't they just...?'; we would call that close enough to kosher for Pesach.

 

I'd argue that if we're going to be talking about 'systems of magic', we need to clarify a few things straight off the bat.

1. Magical 'systems' are fundamentally unrealistic because magic =/= science - and this is not a problem. It falls to the author creating/utilizing said system to convey believability, not an inherent property of the system itself. The magic of the HPverse tends to work because it is written for a universe that is like our own, but not enough to shatter my disbelief.

2. The more the magical 'system' is explained and kept consistent, the better it tends to be. Simplicity also tends to be a virtue here - over-complexity, particularly when tied to well-known conditions inherent to humanity (particularly if said system insists that 'humanity' is an absolute condition across universes and magic systems) ruins magical 'systems' (see: Final Fantasy VIII).

3. Conversely, the more magic/technology is tied to real-life science, the more difficult I find to suspend my disbelief. If the technobabble becomes entirely too close to physical/mathematical limits that I know for a fact are well-defined, particularly if the author is trying for emulate realism, then I find it harder to believe.

The key point comes down to what the authors or writers are trying to do. If they're trying to emulate realism with their magical system, I'll be far more likely to question it than if they choose the utterly fantastical.

To put this in fanfiction terms, buying Joe's Wastelands of Time is a hell of a lot easier than a story like Bexis' Harry Potter and the Fifth Element. In Joe's writing style, he's already made it quite clear he's telling a story that will be fantastic and extradimensional - and thus it becomes more believable than Bexis' work, in which he tries so hard to ground it in real history, culture, and science that it becomes far more difficult to believe and enjoy.

 

I can honestly say that as far as I can recall, I've never had any problems suspending my disbelief when encountering a system of magic.

Objectively I think you can look at a magic system and compare its realism with another, but subjectively I don't really think you can. The characters change, the settings change, the writing style and intended period change. So with all that change, how can you simply lift the magic systems out and compare those without any surrounding factors?

To use an example; we know very little of the mechanics of canon magic. However, the series is told from the point of view of a schoolchild, so why would Harry know about what I presume is a matter for academics? There are hints that there are certain laws of Transfiguration etc... that may well outline these things, we simply don't know because Harry didn't give a shit. I sit here on a computer, but I couldn't really tell you how it works more effectively than 'I press buttons and most of the time stuff happens. The other times something breaks.'

Dresden however has to know how magic works, because the laws of magic are pretty damn strict and it's a rather effective deterrant. Compare how Molly got herself into all sorts of shit because she didn't really know what she was doing. As for the rest of Dresden's knowledge, he was in an apprenticeship, which is a hell of a lot easier to impart an understanding than teaching a class of however many.

Edit: It comes to me that when writing this I was equating realism with the "bound by rules" idea that was bandied about.

 

Maybe it's just your wording, but I don't think I understand. He's going to school to learn about how magic works... so you're asking why should he know anything about how magic works? Am I getting that right?

Well that's awfully convenient, isn't it? "How about I make my character an utter moron so I don't have to actually spend time thinking about the mechanics of my universe?" :facepalm

Because you haven't gone to school for it, or made much effort to find out on your own. Harry has gone to school to learn about magic. He--and by extension we--should know these things.