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<blockquote data-quote="Shardstone" data-source="post: 9065089" data-attributes="member: 6807784">Alright, let's have some fun.Media literacy.In Lord of the Rings, Galadriel tells Samwise that what's magical isn't really magical, it's just a skill and knowledge gap, and sometimes a bloodline gap, between doing superhuman naughty word or being a nobody.In Elric, drugs give you supernatural fighting power, or attunement to cursed items, or pacts with elemental things.In Conan, literally being on the cusp of backwards evolution, living a wild life, and being a hedonist empowers you to be strong enough to slay demons, survive hundreds of sword wounds (see the story with the dreaming city), kill uncuttable people, and so on.In Game of Thrones, the people that are &quot;superhuman&quot; either have ancient lineage that crosses over to other species of being OR study a bunch of weird stuff (see Asshai, the Red God too) and use their &quot;knowledge skill&quot; to make impossible things happen. See Melisandre's PoV chapter in Dance of Dragons too where it turns out most of her &quot;&quot;&quot;&quot;magic&quot;&quot;&quot; is literally just smoke and mirrors....literal smoke and mirrors.Now let's turn to your examples.Star Trek? Magic. Do I need to drop the quote about sophisticated technology = magic? Speculative fiction? Yeah man, that's literally all magic, they just don't call it that.Wait, what? They don't call it that? Because the problem is aesthetics, not underlying principle.Magic is anything that isn't possible. Up until D&amp;D decided to arbitrarily redefine magic into being just &quot;spells&quot; and everything else is just &quot;&quot;&quot;&quot;&quot;fantastical&quot;&quot;&quot;&quot;&quot;&nbsp; but in reality, is just magic. Because magic just means an impossible thing suddenly being possible, with a number of conditions to how possible and how exploitable said thing is.You're trying to argue with me what we call &quot;Impossible Things&quot; and taking an intellectual superior tone while complaining that I used the word weaboo. This entire exchange is like a bad joke.&quot;Hey man, don't you dare call the fact that my barbarian can get so mad that he becomes immune to weapons 'magical.' It's clearly just normal, mundane stuff!&quot;You missed my entire point just to argue semantics too. The point being, D&amp;D is a game whose FANTASTICAL ELEMENTS are watered down narratively to be able to fit a vast range of aesthetics. The only reason Magic isn't called magic in Star Trek is for aesthetics — and I do admit that aesthetic concerns are important enough to call magical concepts different words in different worlds. However, it isn't a lack of media literacy (like, am I supposed to bust out my English Master's degree or something? weird to assume its just media illiteracy, man) that leads me to making this argument. I make this argument because you people get so wound up over semantics that you refuse to actually create a tangible solution to the problem OR to progress the conversation at all.Like, seriously? You expect me to sit here and argue even more about what we call our FANTASTICAL ELEMENTS? How much of the thesaurus do I have to consult before I'm allowed to talk about made up naughty word?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Shardstone, post: 9065089, member: 6807784"] Alright, let's have some fun. Media literacy. In Lord of the Rings, Galadriel tells Samwise that what's magical isn't really magical, it's just a skill and knowledge gap, and sometimes a bloodline gap, between doing superhuman naughty word or being a nobody. In Elric, drugs give you supernatural fighting power, or attunement to cursed items, or pacts with elemental things. In Conan, literally being on the cusp of backwards evolution, living a wild life, and being a hedonist empowers you to be strong enough to slay demons, survive hundreds of sword wounds (see the story with the dreaming city), kill uncuttable people, and so on. In Game of Thrones, the people that are "superhuman" either have ancient lineage that crosses over to other species of being OR study a bunch of weird stuff (see Asshai, the Red God too) and use their "knowledge skill" to make impossible things happen. See Melisandre's PoV chapter in Dance of Dragons too where it turns out most of her """"magic""" is literally just smoke and mirrors....literal smoke and mirrors. Now let's turn to your examples. Star Trek? Magic. Do I need to drop the quote about sophisticated technology = magic? Speculative fiction? Yeah man, that's literally all magic, they just don't call it that. Wait, what? They don't call it that? Because the problem is aesthetics, not underlying principle. Magic is anything that isn't possible. Up until D&D decided to arbitrarily redefine magic into being just "spells" and everything else is just """""fantastical""""" but in reality, is just magic. Because magic just means an impossible thing suddenly being possible, with a number of conditions to how possible and how exploitable said thing is. You're trying to argue with me what we call "Impossible Things" and taking an intellectual superior tone while complaining that I used the word weaboo. This entire exchange is like a bad joke. "Hey man, don't you dare call the fact that my barbarian can get so mad that he becomes immune to weapons 'magical.' It's clearly just normal, mundane stuff!" You missed my entire point just to argue semantics too. The point being, D&D is a game whose [B]FANTASTICAL ELEMENTS [/B] are watered down narratively to be able to fit a vast range of aesthetics. The only reason Magic isn't called magic in Star Trek is for aesthetics — and I do admit that aesthetic concerns are important enough to call magical concepts different words in different worlds. However, it isn't a lack of media literacy (like, am I supposed to bust out my English Master's degree or something? weird to assume its just media illiteracy, man) that leads me to making this argument. I make this argument because you people get so wound up over semantics that you refuse to actually create a tangible solution to the problem OR to progress the conversation at all. Like, seriously? You expect me to sit here and argue even more about what we call our [B]FANTASTICAL ELEMENTS? [/B]How much of the thesaurus do I have to consult before I'm allowed to talk about made up naughty word? [/QUOTE]

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