Story Wednesday February 27, 2019

[The Old Hack 2,489]

http://egscomics.com/comic/tsos-45

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,619]

http://egscomics.com/comic/tsos-45

 

 

So once again, if someone had just been honest and straightforward, a lot of shenanigans could have been avoided.

Let us all be grateful that humans will rarely if ever be honest and straightforward.

[Tom Sewell 268]

Do we know anyone else close to Grace who might also want to give everyone the same spell? Perhaps someone whose middle name is "Drew"? Someone whose very first wand has a spell very much like this spell? Or maybe exactly like Sam's spell, if the same Immortal gave the mark to this mysterious person as well as Sam?

Maybe the next subject for a Grace vs. Grace internal debate is what she should tell Tedd's dad. A new wizard and rather childish wizard is a bigger issue than just someone who can change their gender. For that matter, should Grace tell Tedd? This is exactly the kind of mystery Tedd will want to know more about. I can even see Grace asking Mr. Raven what she should do.

 

[Scotty 1,061]

3 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

So once again, if someone had just been honest and straightforward, a lot of shenanigans could have been avoided.

Even if "Smoke" was up front about who he was and why he was asking to see transformations, Grace would be in a tough position of having to tell Edward which would probably jeopardize Sam's secret, Grace probably felt that Sam wouldn't be likely to tell anyone else but that just kinda got thrown out the window.

3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Do we know anyone else close to Grace who might also want to give everyone the same spell? Perhaps someone whose middle name is "Drew"? Someone whose very first wand has a spell very much like this spell? Or maybe exactly like Sam's spell, if the same Immortal gave the mark to this mysterious person as well as Sam?

I think Grace does need to take Sam to meet Tedd now, if just to be able to show how important it is that people don't start passing spells around just yet. We don't know if Tedd's gotten his new lab yet or if he's even started working on the magic resistance issue, we know his objective is to hopefully make magic safer to use before too many people become able to use it and "Smoke", an inexperienced wizard who's main interest seems to be gathering spells from other people, might prove to make Tedd's job a little more urgent.

3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Maybe the next subject for a Grace vs. Grace internal debate is what she should tell Tedd's dad. A new wizard and rather childish wizard is a bigger issue than just someone who can change their gender. For that matter, should Grace tell Tedd? This is exactly the kind of mystery Tedd will want to know more about. I can even see Grace asking Mr. Raven what she should do.

Not sure if Adrian could do anything about it, unless "Smoke" turns out to be one of his students, Edward might be the best choice with the resources he has, he'll probably be upset at how Grace handled things though, like she could have just walked away and reported "Smoke" without transforming herself, I think she was trying to get more info about him first which is why she thought she'd indulge his request or maybe thought he would become more dangerous if she tried to refuse, but I dunno.

 

Dan's commentary seems to shed some more light on the difference between Wizards and Seers though in how they look at Magic. It appears that Wizards, even with tools and spells for making wands, are still unable to learn some spells, like Sarah's as Dan used as an example. This suggests that Sarah's spell probably can't be seen by regular wizards, Tedd being a Seer, allowed him to look at Sarah's spell and he likely could make a wand with it, that would make being a Seer more valuable to people who would desire spells that can't normally be obtained.

[ChronosCat 158]

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Dan's commentary seems to shed some more light on the difference between Wizards and Seers though in how they look at Magic. It appears that Wizards, even with tools and spells for making wands, are still unable to learn some spells, like Sarah's as Dan used as an example. This suggests that Sarah's spell probably can't be seen by regular wizards, Tedd being a Seer, allowed him to look at Sarah's spell and he likely could make a wand with it, that would make being a Seer more valuable to people who would desire spells that can't normally be obtained.

The way I read it, there are some spells that can't be copied at all (whether by normal Wizard or by Seer), even if a Seer can see how they work. From a storytelling perspective, this helps to preserve the uniqueness of each character's power set by preventing Tedd from passing out wands to all his friends giving them any spells any one of them has that any of the others would be interested in.

[Scotty 1,061]

Just now, ChronosCat said:

The way I read it, there are some spells that can't be copied at all (whether by normal Wizard or by Seer), even if a Seer can see how they work. From a storytelling perspective, this helps to preserve the uniqueness of each character's power set by preventing Tedd from passing out wands to all his friends giving them any spells any one of them has that any of the others would be interested in.

But also from a storytelling standpoint, it puts more value on Seers post Magic "non-change", if Magic had changed, Seers would have been the ones that got working spells to people who's spells no longer worked. But now? Yeah Tedd can make wands, but other wizards can and have learned to make wands as well, so aside from a Seer's ability to shrug off enchantments or their seemingly endless energy capacity, there wouldn't be much that would make Seers really special. But if Seers could copy spells that regular wizards couldn't, then that makes Seers like Tedd much more desirable.

[ChronosCat 158]

32 minutes ago, Scotty said:

But also from a storytelling standpoint, it puts more value on Seers post Magic "non-change", if Magic had changed, Seers would have been the ones that got working spells to people who's spells no longer worked. But now? Yeah Tedd can make wands, but other wizards can and have learned to make wands as well, so aside from a Seer's ability to shrug off enchantments or their seemingly endless energy capacity, there wouldn't be much that would make Seers really special. But if Seers could copy spells that regular wizards couldn't, then that makes Seers like Tedd much more desirable.

Has it been stated that non-Seer Wizards can make wands? This could be interpreted to mean either that Seers are a sub-set of Wand-Makers, or that Seers and Wand-Makers are just different terms for the same thing.

[Tom Sewell 268]

My morning guesses (GMT-8) are that:

• Smokey learned his/her smokey spell from Camdin.
• Camdin doesn't know Smokey's got magic, and may not even know Smokey
• While Smokey's all about learning neat new spells, Camdin basically wants to date Cheerleadra.

[Scotty 1,061]

Just now, ChronosCat said:

Has it been stated that non-Seer Wizards can make wands? This could be interpreted to mean either that Seers are a sub-set of Wand-Makers, or that Seers and Wand-Makers are just different terms for the same thing.

This pages clarifies it more that Seers were the ones to make the tools that other wizards learned from.

[AFNB 40]

Am I the only one that is getting a bad feeling about Smokey? Like, he doesn't just want transformations, but POWERFUL transformations?

[mlooney 3,594]

57 minutes ago, AFNB said:

Am I the only one that is getting a bad feeling about Smokey?

Nope.  I assumed he was either evil or at least an antagonist from the first time he showed up.

 

[hkmaly 490]

15 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Or maybe exactly like Sam's spell, if the same Immortal gave the mark to this mysterious person as well as Sam?

Same immortal, so what? I think the immortal's influence on what spell to give is not that big. Also, Tedd's spell is rather powerful, but it doesn't matter as he has enough energy to cast it. Sam might get something simpler.

10 hours ago, Scotty said:

Not sure if Adrian could do anything about it, unless "Smoke" turns out to be one of his students, Edward might be the best choice with the resources he has

Wouldn't it be better to give Nanase and Ellen chance to catch him first? They do have some experience ...

8 hours ago, Scotty said:

9 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

The way I read it, there are some spells that can't be copied at all (whether by normal Wizard or by Seer), even if a Seer can see how they work. From a storytelling perspective, this helps to preserve the uniqueness of each character's power set by preventing Tedd from passing out wands to all his friends giving them any spells any one of them has that any of the others would be interested in.

But also from a storytelling standpoint, it puts more value on Seers post Magic "non-change", if Magic had changed, Seers would have been the ones that got working spells to people who's spells no longer worked. But now? Yeah Tedd can make wands, but other wizards can and have learned to make wands as well, so aside from a Seer's ability to shrug off enchantments or their seemingly endless energy capacity, there wouldn't be much that would make Seers really special. But if Seers could copy spells that regular wizards couldn't, then that makes Seers like Tedd much more desirable.

Seers are the ones who see how the spell works and are able to work with this knowledge. I suspect that normal wizard can only copy spell as-is, not modify it.

However, I wonder if the inability to copy some spell is absolute or if it's just that some spells are so complicated so while theoretically they could be possible to copy in practice  it's too hard.

8 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Has it been stated that non-Seer Wizards can make wands? This could be interpreted to mean either that Seers are a sub-set of Wand-Makers, or that Seers and Wand-Makers are just different terms for the same thing.

I think that non-Seer Wizards can make wands because they copied the spell from seers (and then from each other). There are even wands capable of creating wands ... again, with the original wand for creating wands being made by seer.

8 hours ago, Scotty said:

This pages clarifies it more that Seers were the ones to make the tools that other wizards learned from.

... yeah.

8 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

My morning guesses (GMT-8) are that:

• Smokey learned his/her smokey spell from Camdin.

Obvious.

8 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Camdin doesn't know Smokey's got magic, and may not even know Smokey

Or at least don't know he's wizard.

8 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

While Smokey's all about learning neat new spells, Camdin basically wants to date Cheerleadra.

I think Camdin means it when he said he really want to know the immortal motivation for giving him the spell. However, his list of methods of interaction with women is probably starting with "dating them" and is rather short.

2 hours ago, AFNB said:

Like, he doesn't just want transformations, but POWERFUL transformations?

Seems so. Still may not be that much malicious.

 

[Tom Sewell 268]

10 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

2 hours ago, AFNB said:

Like, he doesn't just want transformations, but POWERFUL transformations?

Seems so. Still may not be that much malicious.

That's why I said Smokey seems childish, not seeming to realize how dangerous playing with magic can be. Maybe they got the message from Grace's transformation, since they ran away.

[Scotty 1,061]

11 hours ago, hkmaly said:

19 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

My morning guesses (GMT-8) are that:

• Smokey learned his/her smokey spell from Camdin.

Obvious.

19 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Camdin doesn't know Smokey's got magic, and may not even know Smokey

Or at least don't know he's wizard.

19 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

While Smokey's all about learning neat new spells, Camdin basically wants to date Cheerleadra.

I think Camdin means it when he said he really want to know the immortal motivation for giving him the spell. However, his list of methods of interaction with women is probably starting with "dating them" and is rather short.

If Smoke is one of Luke's friends, specifically the known(by Luke) non-marked magic user then it's probably likely Camdin knows them as well. When we saw Camdin talking to Luke, Camdin suggested that he go spy on Grace which Luke suggested that Camdin couldn't be stealthy. Either their friend overheard it and decided to go spy on their own, or maybe Camdin asked then to do it because Luke wasn't willing to.