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<blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 4869778" data-attributes="member: 3820">My perceptions of wizards were probably colored by my path into D&amp;D, but they don't accord with your theory. My mother gave me Middle-Earth, Narnia and Prydain to read before I got into D&amp;D, and I knew a few things about Merlin and mythological sorcerers like Circe and Medea. All of these wizards were strong, but limited: there just weren't all that many examples of how wizarding &quot;wins,&quot; particularly as the wizards weren't protagonists as such. They're either mentors who aren't going to (or can't) do all the important things for the protagonists, or antagonists who need to be stopped. The &quot;start weak, wind up really powerful&quot; approach wasn't one I saw until later; all the powerful wizards I was familiar with from fiction didn't have to undergo a &quot;start weak&quot; phase. And when I did start seeing it in fiction, the &quot;start weak&quot; phase had a lot of plot protection built in (prophecies and Special Heritage and bands of mighty people treating you as Terribly Important and all that). The actual process of low-level wizards being killed off more frequently than their compatriots, hoping one will survive to nigh-omnipotence, still strikes me as very much the creation of a game mentality rather than a literary model. It's sort of like hardcore Diablo. But I'm sure it all depends on what fantasy fiction you start with. Someone who begins with Wheel of Time is going to have a very different perspective than someone who starts with Prydain.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Barastrondo, post: 4869778, member: 3820"] My perceptions of wizards were probably colored by my path into D&D, but they don't accord with your theory. My mother gave me Middle-Earth, Narnia and Prydain to read before I got into D&D, and I knew a few things about Merlin and mythological sorcerers like Circe and Medea. All of these wizards were strong, but limited: there just weren't all that many examples of how wizarding "wins," particularly as the wizards weren't protagonists as such. They're either mentors who aren't going to (or can't) do all the important things for the protagonists, or antagonists who need to be stopped. The "start weak, wind up really powerful" approach wasn't one I saw until later; all the powerful wizards I was familiar with from fiction didn't have to undergo a "start weak" phase. And when I did start seeing it in fiction, the "start weak" phase had a [I]lot[/I] of plot protection built in (prophecies and Special Heritage and bands of mighty people treating you as Terribly Important and all that). The actual process of low-level wizards being killed off more frequently than their compatriots, hoping one will survive to nigh-omnipotence, still strikes me as very much the creation of a game mentality rather than a literary model. It's sort of like hardcore Diablo. But I'm sure it all depends on what fantasy fiction you start with. Someone who begins with Wheel of Time is going to have a very different perspective than someone who starts with Prydain. [/QUOTE]

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