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In Praise of the HP Magic System

Discussion in 'Fanfic Discussion' started by Skeletaure, Jul 7, 2012.

  1. Howdy

    Howdy Dark Lord

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    Taure, I understand and respect what you're trying to do, but this sentence is exactly what's wrong with this thread.

    You are basing your whole idea of JKR systemic magic on what you infer from reading the books. You are clearly very observant and have an active imagination, which is why your storytelling is so good. However, nothing that you infer has any merit in the face of what JKR actually gave us, which is quite frankly a bunch of hand-wavy nonsense.

    It's not logical, it's not consistent, and quite frankly it's nothing more than what the author needed to supply in order to further her plot.

    I get what you're going through. It's the same shit I had to deal with when I was writing my Naruto stories, and what I still do to rationalize how the plot has advanced (into fucking absurditude: I'm making that a new word, meant to describe Naruto canon). Naruto, on the upside, has actually explained many of the "rules" of its universe. The fact that many of those rules have been broken sort of sucks, but at least it's better than the HP world.

    JKR didn't create a good magic system. She didn't even try. Maybe that made the HP books better. It probably did. But trying to rationalize it with pure facts is asking for punishment.

    What can you really tell me about the HP magic system based on actual quotes from the books? Inferences are great, and I think they're necessary to truly immerse oneself in a story, but the fact remains that the bare bones of HP magic barely exist and trying to argue that something is there that hasn't been supported is just trying too hard.

    HP magic is great for expanding on the original universe. An author has no limitations. Yet you, Taure, seem to be trying to put limitation on the universe that had none to begin with. A better author than JKR could probably have done more with Harry Potter than she did, but isn't that true of any story?

    This will be my last post in this thread, I think. We clearly have opposing viewpoints. I never thought that you were wrong, Taure, but I think that you give JKR more credit than she deserves and yourself less than you deserve. If this is the canon for your stories, wonderful. But it just isn't what JKR wrote.
     
  2. Skeletaure

    Skeletaure Magical Core Enthusiast ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    And then he lost.

    Since we're on the topic: many criminals did go to Azkaban. No Death Eeater was too good to be caught: those that stayed out did so through corruption, and as we say after OotP, this was a one-time deal that they couldn't get away with twice. And on top of that, you have the many non-Death Eater criminals in Azkaban who demonstrate the normal functioning of the wizarding criminal system and the ability of Aurors to catch criminals.

    Voldemort was able to evade capture. But as we have said, Voldemort was exceptional. Using him doesn't aid your position at all. My position is that wizards cancel out their counterparts, and this creates balance. Voldemort, after Dumbledore's death, is a wizard with no counterpart. He thus was able to take over the nation, as you'd expect without magic of equal power to oppose him.
     
  3. wolf550e

    wolf550e High Inquisitor DLP Supporter

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    So you say the magical world works exactly like the real world, as long as exceptional individuals are balanced. I say I imagine magic to be such a force that would give the first to strike such an advantage, that a world with magic would not work like that. Any revolutionary weapon technology or communication technology or transportation technology or medical technology changed the world. Magic is all of those and much more. I think of all those hard sci-fi books about "what if such and such technology was invented, what would happen in the short term (someone would make money, a regime change, etc.), what would happen in the long term?". Then I look at magic. All these technologies exist, and nothing changed. Really? Free energy kinda implies a post-scarcity economy. Why would gold have value? What protects the tons of gold in the muggle world from wizards? I'm with Howdy. If you say I'm reaching, I say you're reaching at least as far. HP canon is not what you describe. Too many holes the size of the milky way galaxy.
     
  4. wolf550e

    wolf550e High Inquisitor DLP Supporter

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    Voldemort didn't lose. Divine intervention happened. This is irrelevant because apparently we've read the books very differently.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2012
  5. Striker

    Striker What's up demons?

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    Eh. Say what you will, but Voldemort got pretty solidly outplayed in the end. Yes, Harry didn't think he'd be around to capitalize on Voldemort's near mortality after taking his second AK to date, but his actions would have made it possible for others to do so instead. When the horcrux took the metaphorical bullet for him it just made everything easier because of Elder Wand shenanigans.
     
  6. Otters

    Otters Groundskeeper ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    Too many people seem to have the attitude of finding things they don't like and poking at them, claiming that they've found a plot hole.

    Trust the damn authors that you're reading some more.

    Rowling clearly didn't create a system. She didn't make hard rules, and craft an alternative Principia Mathematica. She's not trying to be a paraphysicist. But this is exactly why her magic can work well - there is one there. It exists for the world and for the characters. Not for us. We and it are on different levels and do not encounter one another.

    Don't like it?

    You're just pissed to be a muggle. o/
     
  7. Aekiel

    Aekiel Angle of Mispeling ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    And that didn't read like one big NO U at all. :p
     
  8. Inverarity

    Inverarity Groundskeeper

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    This is exactly right.

    My feeling about Sanderson's method constructing magic systems is similar to Taure's: I have liked his books, and yes, he's very good at creating logical, balanced magic systems that facilitate epic battles, but you know what? There is no law of fantasy fiction that says "magic should be 'balanced'" (whatever that means in the context of the world), and every time I read a Brandon Sanderson novel, I can practically see the character sheets lurking behind the page. His magic systems are very logical, organized, meticulously designed, and completely lacking in mystery or sense of wonder.

    Magic in Harry Potter, by comparison, is nonsensical, unbalanced, contradictory, and mostly plot-driven. JKR is given a lot of undeserved credit for "carefully working out" her magic system, but mostly she worked out a few general rules either because they sounded good or because they suited the needs of her story.

    But you know what? That's okay! Magic in Harry Potter is the magic of a children's story. It can be paradoxical and ridiculous and worrying about how the wizarding world even has an economy is kind of like worrying about political systems in Oz.

    The only reason writers create rules for magic in fantasy is so that magic doesn't become an unrestricted deux ex machina. Some writers spend lots of time crafting careful, "scientific" systems and that's fine, for readers who demand absolute logical consistency. Most readers of Harry Potter don't.

    I will point again to myths and fairy tales, which likewise have many "rules" about how magic works, how faeries behave, what the gods can and cannot do, whether or not the Devil can claim your soul in a card game, etc., rules which are contradicted and broken constantly.

    Rowling's magic "system" falls into the latter category, even if it has some superficial trappings of the former. Rowling didn't sit down and work out a magic system the same way Brandon Sanderson does. Sanderson thinks in terms of natural laws and "character balance"; Rowling thought in terms of "How should things work in the story?"
     
  9. Rin

    Rin Oberstgruppenführer DLP Supporter

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    That's not what I got at all. I got that the level of magic's comprehensibility is proportional to writer's ability solve problems with it. In this, I think he was right on the money with regards to the HPverse.

    In HP, much of conflict is resolved by humans doing what any one of us could do given that situation (the greatest example of which is Umbridge herself in book 5). Umbridge wasn't a good villian because she was magically powerful - in fact, magic had little to nothing to do with it - it was everything to do with her political power: something that anyone of us would have to deal with. Is that not essentially the argument you made in a post on this forum?

    I really didn't see anything in his link that was illogical with regards to good writing. Furthermore, I wish more authors would ascribe to the balancing characteristics of RPGs if they're going to implement magic to anything beyond a mere background ambiance-creator.

    I suspect that what most people mean when they say they want a fantastic environment filled with wonderment, is that they want shit that lets them escape the boring confines of their own shitty lives. You notice that they aren't complaining that people aren't bound by gravity (beyond using something to allow them to fly).

    For the most part, I didn't pay a lot of attential to the magic system in canon, until DH, when Hermione brought up that humongous, horrendous asspull, Gamp's Law, with regards to food. It was only there to add tension, and the books would have been better off without it. Books 1-6 would have been great for mentioning this shit. Book 7 was not. Book 7 should have been the culmination of everything we already knew about the system coming together in a coherent whole. Instead, we got this bullshit about Gamp's law to create some bullshit dramatic tension.

    Magic cancels Magic is a rule. Needing an incantation is a rule. Using a wand is a rule. And so on. Silent spell casting is still casting a spell with an incantation, done without speaking it. Wandless magic is, as canon demonstrates, just magic done without holding your wand physically.
     
  10. Teresoul

    Teresoul Seventh Year

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    1. I remember reading somewhere that the correct answer to the question "What is the incantation for trasfiguring...." on a Trasfiguration test Harry once took was "None. The spell is nonverbal".

    2. All wizarding children do magic without wands or incantations. Tom Riddle could even control it to a degree. While it is unknown whether or not a wand is needed for apparation, there are animagi, wizards that can transform themselves into a specific animal without needing a wand.

    You have to understand and accept the fact that all rules and laws of magic are on the level of "i before e, except before c". There are far more examples that go against this rule than there are examples of it. It's just that most of the examples that go against it cannot be found in standard educational books, or any books at all, and most people don't know them. Hell, most people with a complete magical education don't know your basic shielding spell, as evidenced by Fred and George's level of sales of hats and cloaks charmed for protection.

    The few "laws" that we know of have some to many exceptions. If the HP universe does have a system of magic, then it's pretty realistic, in the sense that even though some know more than most, no one person knows more than one percent of the rules.

    Just as we don't know more than one percent of the rules that govern the universe we live in.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2012
  11. someone010101

    someone010101 High Inquisitor

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    I don't think JKR uses a 'system' at all. There are no whys and hows in HP. Instead, she uses common images from fairy tailes and the middle ages.
    I mean, broomsticks ? parchment ? cauldrons ?

    It makes no sense, but it looks cool. Which is fine.

    Except when you wonder why no one turned Voldemort into a ferret.
     
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