On Narrative 2: Magic Systems

A number of different Youtube channels have recently done analyses of magic systems in popular fiction. As far as I'm aware, though, they all cover the topic from the same perspective: comparing "hard" magic systems like the bending system in Avatar: the Last Airbender, which have internal consistency and set up reasonable expectations for what characters can and can't do, to "soft" magic systems like the Force in Star Wars, which change their nature whenever the plot requires it.

I'm not gonna do that here. This blog will take as given that a good magic system is internally consistent and has rules that both the characters and the audience can figure out. I'm going to take a step further and break down the different types of internally consistent magic system in a way that might help some of my writer friends with their worldbuilding.

Dungeons and Dragons has, broadly speaking, three types of magic that are representative of the vast majority of fictional magic systems. They are:

• Innate magic, used by sorcerers
• Learned magic, used by wizards
• Granted magic, used by clerics and druids

The Harry Potter series has innate magic. Magical ability is hereditary, and wizards and witches are treated as a different ethnic group from Muggles. There's even been speculation in the fandom about what type of gene causes magical ability.

The Abhorsen trilogy has learned magic. Anyone can learn it if they study hard enough, and it is taught alongside other subjects as part of a normal school curriculum. Some people are better at it than others, but only to the degree that some people are better at math or writing than others. There are no chosen ones, only choosing ones (and those whose parents chose it for them).

Lord of the Rings has granted magic. Magical abilities come from gods or godlike nature spirits. Most granted-magic settings come with their own gods, or a variation on classical European pantheons; but some, including the Alpennia series, integrate magic into the mythology of Christian saints and miracles.

Many magic systems that look like a combination of these types are actually primarily one or the other. For example, not all magic systems that require training or active study are learned systems. In fact, most "school of magic" settings, such as Harry Potter, Akata Witch, and X-Men, are innate, and the purpose of the school is to teach magical children to gain some basic control over their power so that it doesn't kill them before they have a chance to learn to use it properly.

Likewise, not all systems that involve making contracts with extradimensional beings are granted systems. Young Wizards is, because becoming a wizard requires that you be sought out by the One Power and agree to accept its faith in you; but Bartimaeus is not, because even though its wizarding society is built on the backs of enslaved demons, the wizards themselves must study for years to even get to the point where they can bind the least powerful demon. It's a learned system.

Here are some settings that either have real hybrid systems or multiple coexisting systems:

• Terry Pratchett's Discworld series begins with rigorously academic learned magic and then introduces an innate system in which the eighth son of an eighth son is always a powerful wizard, and his eighth son is so powerful that there's a good reason for wizards to be celibate. These systems interact in interesting ways, especially in the early installments Equal Rites and Sourcery.
• Star Wars has gone back and forth between innate (anybody up for a blood test?) and granted sources of Force-wielding ability. The Last Jedi makes it officially a granted system with a large helping of Conservation of Ninjutsu: the more users of one side of the Force there are, the weaker each individual's power is. This explains a lot about the prequels: the Jedi were ineffectual because there were so many of them, while the Rule of Two allowed individual Sith lords access to much more power at any given time.
• Michelle West's House War series and its spinoffs have both gods granting magical ability and schools teaching it. This one might actually be a real hybrid, since the university faculty includes demigods who can call on their divine parents for help with their research.
• Avatar: the Last Airbender appears to be all three at once: there are four ethnic groups, each with a different innate elemental power, but those powers can be extended into new domains through training (think metalbending and bloodbending), but some of these powers are also believed to be divinely granted, and gods and spirits occasionally show up and interfere with the workings of the world.

The type of magic you choose for a story will affect your characters' relationships with other people, as well as the society they live in. For example, an innate magic system might lead to stronger ties between family members, or greater concern with the maintenance of bloodlines, or a society using a granted system might prioritize the religion associated with the gods doing the granting, or any number of more subtle results that the characters themselves might not be aware of. Again, I'm prioritizing internal consistency, so I want to see the effects of how magic is used on a society that uses it.

On Games Gone By 4: Ocarina of Time Part 2

Note: I am experimenting with moving my blog to an open-source host. You can also read this post here on write.as.

This week I continued my adventures through Hyrule on the Geek's old Nintendo 64. Having defeated the weird spidery monster poisoning the Great Deku Tree in my first session, I returned to Kokiri Forest to say goodbye to my friend Saria and all the other Kokiri who I never really fit in with anyway, and after some dicking around in the Lost Woods while the Geek hunted down his strategy guide, left the forest altogether to fulfill the Great Deku Tree's last wish: that I meet the Princess Zelda in Hyrule Castle and go save the world.

Never underestimate the power of putting your own name on the save file. I still feel incredibly personally invested in this quest. (And maybe that's why it took me to the end of the visit with the Geek to come back to the game--I get anxious about returning to stories I've left in the middle. Well, that and Desert Bus was finally over and no longer taking up all my brain space.)

I feel like I've forgotten a lot about the controls (note to self, right shoulder button raises the shield), so I'm glad this session didn't have much combat. I did have to fight off an endless wave of skeletons in Hyrule Field, though. Waiting for night to end so you can go to a new area is annoying.

Something that isn't nearly as annoying as I expected is Navi's reminders of where to go to follow the plot. It was actually refreshing, coming back after a month away from the game, to have someone dedicated to telling me what came next. (This is why I've never finished a main-series Pokemon game. I start it up after a few weeks away and immediately get lost.)

Another not-so-annoying thing was the stealth sequence that takes Link up from Hyrule Castle Town to the castle proper. The hardest part was at the beginning: finding the vines to climb up the cliff, going down into the guardhouse and then finding the exact right path up the second hill in the dark. After that, the puzzles with the walking guards weren't a problem at all.

I met Zelda and Impa, learned about Zelda's prophetic dreams and how Ganondorf is Obviously Evil and after the Triforce, and now I'm part of some kind of conspiracy to save the world. I need three Spiritual Stones and a better ocarina to get into the secret back room of the Temple of Time (which looks remarkably like a Christian church), and the next stone is somewhere on Death Mountain. On the way there, I stopped at Lon Lon ranch to meet Epona and make the Geek play the cucco lottery for me, because at that point my hands were too tired for me to be any good at a timed challenge.

Next stop, Kakariko Village, home of--guess what?--more cuccos.

Some irrelevant statistics:

• Link now has three potential love interests: Saria, Zelda, and Malon.
• I've learned two songs: Zelda's Lullaby and Epona's Song.
• I have one Spiritual Stone, given to me by the Great Deku Tree, 
• I've had one moment of intended inventory weirdness: the egg that Malon gave me before I snuck into the castle hatched into a rooster, which I had to remember to use to wake up her father. The rooster is labeled "Chicken," not "Cucco." (Note to self: tweet at Clyde Mandelin to see if he knows anything about this.)
• I have one bottle, which contains two quaffs of Lon Lon milk, and have had the temptation to try Reverse Bottle Adventure exactly once.
• I know where one Fairy Fountain is, but can't get to it.
• I have found one Easter egg: the portraits of Mario, Peach, and Yoshi in Hyrule Castle/

And some interesting animation choices:

• The Skull Kids in the Lost Woods stare at you solemnly when you climb up onto a podium without an ocarina.
• Ganondorf's red and green palette clashes appropriately with the yellow and purple livery of Hyrule's royal guard.
• When Link learns a song, he stares at his ocarina with the wide-eyed expression of a kitten producing its first hairball. The Geek says "You would too, if your ocarina started glowing in your hands!" Maybe the first time, yeah, but not every time thereafter.
• After I learned Epona's Song, when the cutscene ended Epona was walking toward me and pushing me along with her head. It took me a second to realize I was now in control of Link again and could just walk sideways. We're friends now.

On the Net 4: Desert Bus for Hope 2018

My favorite annual charity event is about to begin.

On Friday morning, at 10am Pacific time, a group of Canadian comedians and their friends will begin playing and livestreaming the most boring video game ever created: Desert Bus, in which you drive from Tucson to Las Vegas at 45 miles per hour in real time, in an otherwise empty bus with steering issues. It takes eight hours, at the end of which you get one point and the option to drive back. They will be playing this game for somewhere around a week; the more people donate, the longer they drive. All the money goes to Child's Play, a charity that gives games to children's hospitals and women's shelters.

But why, you ask, would I want to watch such a boring stream? Well, mostly because driving through the virtual desert is not all that's going to happen. There will be singing, dancing, skits, calls from cool people like Phil Plait, and most importantly, auctions and prizes. Many of the things being auctioned off or given away in random drawings were made and submitted by viewers.

And that's where I come in. This will be my fifth year watching Desert Bus (out of the twelve in which it has happened), and my fourth consecutive year of sending in something I knitted to be sold for Child's Play. This year's submission is a pro-wrestling-style Desert Bus championship belt. A good friend of mine has also gotten in on the crafting for the first time this year; she sent in four beautiful laser-carved deck boxes. Both of these projects will be available at some point during the stream as silent auctions.

There's a lot going on at Desert Bus for Hope. It's a lot of fun, with a great community, for a great cause, and it's a great relief these days to see a community getting together and having fun for a good cause. Hope to see you in chat! I can't wait.