On Magic...

Someone asked to write an article on fantasy writers and which ones use magic best, a while ago. This is article is very mildly related to the one I should have written! 'Cause of WiFi problems, now sorted, it's been stewing on my laptop for a few days now, but hopefully it does what that person asks, and isn't too meandering, or dull. And bedamn it: if I have to hit the spacebar any harder to get a space, there won't be a keyboard left...

The move lately in fantasy seems to be towards grittier, darker works, with a lesser importance placed on magic. Take Brian Ruckley’s Godless World trilogy for example. Sure, magic users, the na’kyrim exist. [The na’kyrim are, incidentally, the offspring of a Huanin (a human) and a Kyrinin (essentially, elves). Neither race can do magic, but their progeny -- who cannot reproduce -- can. This is similar to Katherine Kurtz’ Deryni series, another recommended read.] The na’kyrim are dying out though, and a lot of modern fantasies have magic seen as a thing of the past -- of course, when a character who can do magic goes crazy, no one is prepared! The same goes with George R.R. Martin’s excellent A Song of Ice & Fire series, though there’s dragons in that, so an exclamation mark is obviously required!

Some fantasies often include what I like to call magic by proxy -- which is probably a misnomer! -- where in whatever past the fictional world has, it was once populated by beings -- be they gods, elves, etc -- who did vast, mind-bogglingly powerful amounts of magic, and then somehow managed to die out/get lost/move away for some other impenetrable reason, leaving miraculous things behind -- things which bring powerful, kick-ass magic to a story where normal magic has declined. In Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, all sorts of nasty things are left behind! And some good things, too. The Trollocs -- OK, so maybe this isn’t a great example; after all, once these nasty guys were created they didn’t really do any magic or anything magical, they’re just gruesome human animal hybrids -- and, ipso facto -- very cool! But, ordinary though they are, they are a left-over from a previous age, something that cannot be created by the standards of the day when we begin the story. These types of creatures are perhaps bit of a cheat, something which, by the necessary rules the author has imposed over their world, can’t exist at the time of the story -- so it’s necessary that they’ve hung around from whatever Golden Age/Monumental Disaster occurred. That doesn’t necessarily diminish their awesome! factor, though =]

=== Incidentally, I think the “Golden Age left in the past, followed by immense disaster, with primitives trying to regain their former glory” thing definitely has overtones of Eden and Genesis, but that‘s a whole different discussion. And probably quite a fun one, too, so long as it’s done right. Religion plays a large part in fantasy, whether actual gods start appearing, or whether it’s just the religious mythology that influences the writing. **I say that as an atheist. (I‘ve had emails about this kind of thing, you know.) ** ===

A much better example of something magical left behind in the WoT world is the Myrdraal. When the story begins in the Third Age (I’ll try not to go too fan boy here!) the capabilities no longer exist to create something like this, and the Myrdraal are dangerous, puissant creatures, able to travel vast distances simply by stepping into shadow, and are somehow out of sync with the rest of the world -- which is why their cloaks flap all the time, even when it’s not windy, or is it the complete opposite?!

Of course, the Wheel of Time is an excellent example of the fact that at some point, Arthur C. Clarke’s famous observation that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” comes into play. (Which wasn’t famous to me until the wonderful Philip Palmer made it so. See left, for some shameless pimping.) The Myrdraal, as with a vast number of other fell dark denizens of the night were created in that long-lost Golden Age by science. Magic was around too, a lot of people were capable of it, and vast wonders were achieved, but the creation of the human/animal hybrid monsters was done by a micro-biologist! (Of course, such a thing no longer exists when the main story of the WoT starts!) As with most of the Forsaken, he’d had a fairly ordinary, respectable job, then turned out to be insanely evil. That’s life.

=== Another “incidentally“. There’s nothing not to trust about modern scientific advancements with the splicing (probably not the technical term!) of human cells with tiny amounts of animal DNA. Trollocs aren’t going to swarm up your garden path. And people aren’t going to turn into them, either; it’s almost the same scenes as when Jenner tried (and thankfully succeeded) to introduce his inoculation against smallpox by using bits of the cowpox virus -- nobody turned into cows. And small pox went away, too …. almost as if by magic! ;) ===

There’s also the question of how much can be done with magic, and why. In Steven Erikson’s epic Malazan series, magic can be phenomenally powerful, allowing unimaginable world-changing events. This results in scenes that are often too awesome! to express. I do like some rules, however, some order. For example, in The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss’ use of Sympathy, the relationship between two or more things (which is what the bloody word means in the first place, so why explain it, Swede…), was particularly cool, and introduced a quite scientific aspect to the ordering of magic, etc, even if it still allowed Angels, and other things to exist.

I’m not that keen on dead people coming back to life, either (unless it’s to consume the flesh of the living, in which case it’s fine), and even when Garion brought back that cute horse baby thing -- foal! -- in David Eddings' Belgariad (one of my guilty pleasures), I was hoping that the monumental power required to bring the foal back to life might result in the roof of the cave crashing in and crushing it, as a cool divine sign that dead people/fantasy horses must stay dead!*

*Don’t judge me. I meant no offence to the stupid animal.