Fantasy Novels: Do The Rules Of Magic Matter To You?

mattcolville · Oct 15, 2013

I was a guest on a friend's podcast and the topic was Fantasy Worldbuilding.

http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/...ast/id/2505006

But really, the topic was "how much do we care about the rules of the secondary world?"

And I guess I'm surprised to find that to some people (a lot? I dunno! That's what this thread is for) the rules are really important. When Penny Arcade makes fun of the fans of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series, that's what they're making fun of. That people love how he sets out these clear-to-understand rules, and then combines them in surprising ways so the reader goes "Of course!" Of course that's what would happen if you combined X + Y and, "oh no!" Oh no he's almost out of iron or tin or whatever.

The host argues that most fantasy fiction (like mine own) authors just pull stuff out of thin air. He contends that this undermines dramatic tension.

Is that true? The example he uses is Spiderman. If Spiderman could just pull a random power out of his ass whenever he wanted, that would be dumb. But don't superheroes do this all the time?

I get that, if you're a fan of the X-Men, part of the fun is watching them use their powers to solve problems in interesting ways. And I like that as much as anyone. But the main show is these personalities clashing and engaging. The soap opera quality of it.

My favorite fantasy novels...hell, I can't even remember what the rules were. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, there's almost no magic at all. The Lord of the Rings, there's almost no magic. Gandalf is like a 5th level D&D wizard based on what we see. Magic, in Middle-earth, appears to be all about creating and fighting fear and despair with hope and courage.

The Black Company, read it a million times, NO IDEA how magic works there.

Elric, Corum, Hawkmoon, Moorcock just pulls out of his ass constantly. And it's amazing!

This is relevant to me because I write this stuff and I enjoy pulling stuff out of my ass constantly. It's what makes writing the action sequences fun and I strongly feel like if I enjoy writing it, people will enjoy reading it and thusfar that appears to be the case.

So I wonder how common this attitude is. Do you know the rules of your favorite fantasy fiction? Does it matter?

Kramodlog · Oct 15, 2013

Consistency matters to me. If you pull stuff out of your ass, be constent about. I do not like it when magic is ajusted to fit the plot. So Mage X cast rays and wins fights with it. He needs to lose a fight so Vilain Y has a armor made of tin cause the rays do not work against it (this is pulled out of the writers ass cause he needs it for his plot). Later, that is ignored and tin doesn't block the rays anymore. Lame.

I do like the magic portrayed in the Saga graphic novel so far. The magic is constant (there is little of it). The same spells required the same ingredients and have the same affect from novel to novel.

mattcolville · Oct 15, 2013

SAGA (which is brilliant) is a good example because I have no idea how it works.

I wonder if what people really want is "I have no idea how magic works in this world, but I believe the *author* does."

The author has convinced you that there are rules.

mattcolville · Oct 15, 2013

Double post.

RSKennan · Oct 15, 2013

Rules are very important to me. I don't like arbitrary fiction. When you have rules, you can explore them. When you don't, any plot development from things like magic is essentially meaningless.

It's not always about magic either. Any fiction needs rules, whether those rules are the rules of the real world, or the rules of how Gremlins work. They address everything I said above, and help with suspension of disbelief.

Nellisir · Oct 15, 2013

The rules don't have to be explicit, but they should be consistent, and inconsistencies should be explained. Otherwise it's deus ex machina. You might not know "the rules" of magic in the Black Company books, but it's clear there are things that work and things that don't. No one teleports. One-Eye and Goblin can do big magic, but it takes them a week or a month to do something the Lady or Howler can pull out of their pocket in a minute - so speed is really the difference between high and low power. Things usually (often) have physical components: ie, you enchant an object, not a person, to fly. Non-mages can manipulate magical objects, such as a flying carpet or a boomstick.

Kramodlog · Oct 15, 2013

mattcolville said:
SAGA (which is brilliant) is a good example because I have no idea how it works.

I wonder if what people really want is "I have no idea how magic works in this world, but I believe the *author* does."

The author has convinced you that there are rules.

How do you describe "pulling it out of your ass"?

And how would you qualify the magic in Harry Potter?

Dannyalcatraz · Oct 15, 2013

Nellisir said:
The rules don't have to be explicit, but they should be consistent, and inconsistencies should be explained. Otherwise it's deus ex machina.

And when they ARE explicit, you REALLY need an explanation.

Most of the series' I've read over the decades have no really explicit rules, but some did. To the best of my recollection, my favorites of those that did were consistent, and exceptions to the rules were not throwaways, they mattered.

Dannyalcatraz · Oct 15, 2013

Double post.

Elf Witch · Oct 15, 2013

Personally I think the rules need to be consistent if not then I lose my ability to suspend disbelief. Now you can make exceptions but you need to make sure the reader understands that this is an exception and why it is happening.

Over the years attending various Worldcons and other literary cons I have talked to a lot of fantasy writers. I am friends with several here in the south Florida area and they all agree that they have rules for their worlds they may not have them actually written in the story but the author is are of how they work.

Readers for the most part tend to get pissy when writers just pull things out of their butt to solve a plot issue. Just because magic is not real does not mean that you don't need rules or an understanding on how it works in your world. When the writers themselves are not sure of how things works it shows and readers may not be able to exactly pinpoint why they are dissatisfied but they are.