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animalia

Who else thinks Magic is a d*ck?

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If Physics acted like Magic does (i.e., anytime a significant amount of belief/understanding started to get made the rules would reset) humanity wouldn't make much progress. And if Chemistry acted that way say goodbye to anything even resembling MEDICINE. Needles to say I think Magic is being a huge d*ck and I hope we will get its reasons explained at some point, cause otherwise this plot point seems like the first real misstep in El Gonnish Shive to me. That being sad Dan as done good so far so I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

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7 minutes ago, Xenophon Hendrix said:

Perhaps magic is like a plant. The right number of magic users keeps it nicely pruned, but too many and it starts getting overgrazed.

Given that there is currently an EXCESS of Magic I don't think that applies here. But I could be wrong.

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Just now, Xenophon Hendrix said:

There is excess magic in one spot.

So you think it's a Passenger Pigeon thing? A Huge amount of something that is slow to replenish?

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14 minutes ago, Xenophon Hendrix said:

I don't know what the author has in mind. I was just giving you a plausible reason for why magic might want some magic users but not too many. A few keep it fit and trim, but too many make it emaciated.

Like I said I'll give Dan the benefit of the DOubt as he has been shown to know what he is doing I just hope we get a decent explanation for this.

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A thought occurs that this exists entirelt to explain why magic doesn't pop up in their history so it's justified that their world resembles ours...

 

And maybe magic is... Very combat oriented. Fireballs. Transhuman augmentation and transformation. Even levitation of objects can be dangerous, as Matilda fans can attest.

 

Once again, EGS reminds me of Wildbow's Worm. Superpowers drive people towards conflict.

 

Perhaps there's a system in place within magic to prevent annihalation of the life forms that use it?

 

Magi-Nukes would be incredibly possible with certain magic systems...

 

Once again, it begs the questions: Who's writing the spellbooks, and why is magic something suited to that person? What happens if a destructive murderer type gets ahold of magic? What happens, if anything, if you cast a spell from another's spellbook?

Where does the energy come from?

 

(I'm betting right now it's soul energy. Most magic systems in fiction end up fueled by the dead eventually.)

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14 minutes ago, RainbowWizard said:

A thought occurs that this exists entirelt to explain why magic doesn't pop up in their history so it's justified that their world resembles ours...

 

And maybe magic is... Very combat oriented. Fireballs. Transhuman augmentation and transformation. Even levitation of objects can be dangerous, as Matilda fans can attest.

 

Once again, EGS reminds me of Wildbow's Worm. Superpowers drive people towards conflict.

 

Perhaps there's a system in place within magic to prevent annihalation of the life forms that use it?

 

Magi-Nukes would be incredibly possible with certain magic systems...

 

Once again, it begs the questions: Who's writing the spellbooks, and why is magic something suited to that person? What happens if a destructive murderer type gets ahold of magic? What happens, if anything, if you cast a spell from another's spellbook?

Where does the energy come from?

 

(I'm betting right now it's soul energy. Most magic systems in fiction end up fueled by the dead eventually.)

However since Magic has a will it could simply choose that evil people can't use magic. See Atop The Fourth Wall for an example of that. There if someone with magic lets it go to their head and becomes evil they lose the power to do magic. As a result I don;t buy that excuse.

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15 minutes ago, animalia said:

However since Magic has a will it could simply choose that evil people can't use magic.

If Magic really has a will, then Magic is essentially a god. This can work in fiction; Demon Xanth has fueled about three dozen novels so far. But it's pretty clear that magic doesn't withdraw itself from "evil people" in the Moperverse, as exemplified by the perfectly average guy who used Magic that almost anyone could learn to become not-Tengu. Not to mention Aberrations/Vampires who rely on Magic for their very existence. "Evil" is somewhat subjective, but Spider-guy is way beyond "somewhat."

This is why I hope The Shive will eventually reveal that Disco Wizard really isn't really speaking for "Magic itself." Why would Magic need to work through a single human who didn't have any spells at all when it can change all spells? Not enough midichlorians?

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Just now, Tom Sewell said:

If Magic really has a will, then Magic is essentially a god. This can work in fiction; Demon Xanth has fueled about three dozen novels so far. But it's pretty clear that magic doesn't withdraw itself from "evil people" in the Moperverse, as exemplified by the perfectly average guy who used Magic that almost anyone could learn to become not-Tengu. Not to mention Aberrations/Vampires who rely on Magic for their very existence. "Evil" is somewhat subjective, but Spider-guy is way beyond "somewhat."

This is why I hope The Shive will eventually reveal that Disco Wizard really isn't really speaking for "Magic itself." Why would Magic need to work through a single human who didn't have any spells at all when it can change all spells? Not enough midichlorians?

Like I said Magic is a d*ck

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Several comments:

1. I've seen the idea expressed that our reality changes according to our understanding, possibly because we are actually a computer simulation and the programmers keep tweaking the system. As one example of this, you can find DECADES worth of old biology books which say that humans have 22 chromosome pairs, with no dissent or disagreement... and have photographs of human cell nuclei where you can count 23 chromosome pairs. Suddenly, apparently in one abrupt change, everyone who counted the chromosome pairs started counting 23 instead of 22.

2. Honey badgers are not dubbed "honey" for their disposition. That would be "rat-ass-vicious-bastard badgers". (Which is a pretty accurate description of all badgers. And wolverines are about the same.)

3. From what we've seen of spellbooks for Awakened individuals (Wizard spellbooks might be different; we haven't seen any), a spellbook does not contain "how to cast this spell". Instead it contains a detailed description of the spell's effects and how much the individual can choose to vary them. This doesn't seem like it would be of much use, on its own, to someone else - even a wizard - wanting to learn how to cast the spell. Although it would be useful alongside some other source of "how-to" information, such as maybe a suitably competent observer watching it being cast.

 

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9 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

2. Honey badgers are not dubbed "honey" for their disposition. That would be "rat-ass-vicious-bastard badgers". (Which is a pretty accurate description of all badgers. And wolverines are about the same.)

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8 hours ago, animalia said:

If Physics acted like Magic does (i.e., anytime a significant amount of belief/understanding started to get made the rules would reset) humanity wouldn't make much progress.

You haven't heard the joke about what happens to physicists when they die?  The get the job of changing the laws of the universe whenever someone successfully understands one to make them more complex, but without contradicting the results of any previous experiments.

 

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7 hours ago, HarJIT said:

I'm a little disappointed that Dan implied that each half of the world had different wills governing how magic worked. Before I saw this post I was wondering if maybe Magic was trying to create a certain balance between the two halves, like in the main half Magic was limited in it's use and knowledge so Science could thrive, but in the Griffin's half, Science was limited so that Magic could thrive.

It could still technically be the case, the fact that magic energy flows between the two halves could suggest that the 2 wills are working together to maintain balance.

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10 hours ago, animalia said:

If Physics acted like Magic does (i.e., anytime a significant amount of belief/understanding started to get made the rules would reset)

Douglas Adams said:

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

It might actually already happened TWICE. Originally, the world was flat. Then in was round. And then the thing with speed of light and quantum physics ...

10 hours ago, animalia said:

Needles to say I think Magic is being a huge d*ck and I hope we will get its reasons explained at some point, cause otherwise this plot point seems like the first real misstep in El Gonnish Shive to me.

Agree, this is Magic being a huge d*ck. Although, there is long history of deities being huge d*ck (and sometimes, having a huge d*ck as well). So, alternatively, instead of reasons I would accept plot ending with convincing magic it should change ... or else.

5 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

If Magic really has a will, then Magic is essentially a god. This can work in fiction; Demon Xanth has fueled about three dozen novels so far. But it's pretty clear that magic doesn't withdraw itself from "evil people" in the Moperverse, as exemplified by the perfectly average guy who used Magic that almost anyone could learn to become not-Tengu. Not to mention Aberrations/Vampires who rely on Magic for their very existence. "Evil" is somewhat subjective, but Spider-guy is way beyond "somewhat."

Spider-guy? Why? I would understand Sirleck being beyond "somewhat", or you can say that Aberrations in general, but why single out the spider guy?

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

like in the main half Magic was limited in it's use and knowledge so Science could thrive, but in the Griffin's half, Science was limited so that Magic could thrive

There is a big problem with that. Actually two. First is that you can't stop science without stopping thinking straight. You MAY stop technology, if you make physical laws strange enough. But you can't stop science.

The second problem is that Andrea is scientists. I'm not sure if she ever described herself that way, but it's obvious from her behaviour. She seem to be using this science mostly on magic, which is what Tedd though he is doing before he found he's dangerous rarity, but she is scientist anyway.

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Didn't Tedd's dad give a really good explanation for why Tedd shouldn't expose magic to everyone's gaze? Bomb suits and rocket launchers?

Might be nice to hear the griffins opinion on the matter, but I don't know if a world so horrifying that a magic griffin that could easily defeat a hippo does not get considered a warrior is necessarily a vote in favour of open magic.

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Yeah. My take is magic might potentially have a similar opinion. A given person may be able handle the responsibility inherent in such power but people in general, not so much. The last time a large cohesive group group gained magic they tried to wiped another group off the map and were destroyed because magic tried to prevent itself being used that way. I highly doubt it wants another similar tragedy.

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32 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

There is a big problem with that. Actually two. First is that you can't stop science without stopping thinking straight. You MAY stop technology, if you make physical laws strange enough. But you can't stop science.

The second problem is that Andrea is scientists. I'm not sure if she ever described herself that way, but it's obvious from her behaviour. She seem to be using this science mostly on magic, which is what Tedd though he is doing before he found he's dangerous rarity, but she is scientist anyway.

Science doesn't have to be nonexistent in the griffin's half of the world, but a lot of what they do could be powered by magic instead of electricity, spells instead of circuitry.

If someone were to start splitting atoms in the griffin's half of the world, the will of magic there might not like it.

As for Andrea, It seems like their knowledge of the world as a whole, the fact there are two halves and such, seems common enough, or maybe only certain organizations there know about it. Andrea and Tara could be part of basically the exact opposite of DGB where they know the laws of physics and such, but make sure only enough is known by the public to explain things magic can't.

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