I hadn't really given The Magic Goes Away trope much thought for this. In many senses, it's fitting for the period, as the rise of Enlightenment thinking takes all the "wonder" and "mystery" out of the world. It's a theme that Terry Gilliam's films have touched on pretty consistently, particularly in the The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. However, the fleeing of magic from the world is a fairly common trope in a lot of literature, and I don't want to retread already covered ground.
It's much like how I want to attack the trope of the individual hero saves the world through the power of his own will. Men do not make history as they please. Although there is room to explore the idea of the magic goes away, in how a changing worldview alters how people perceive magic, from divine to natural - that: "Is the conception of nature and of social relations which underlies Greek imagination and Greek [art] possible when there are self-acting [spinning] mules, railways, locomotives and electric telegraphs? What is a Vulcan compared with Roberts and Co., Jupiter compared with the lightning conductor and Hermes compared with the Crédit mobilier? All mythology subdues, controls and fashions the forces of nature in the imagination and through imagination, it disappears therefore when real control over these forces is established. (emphasis mine)"
It's much like how I want to attack the trope of the individual hero saves the world through the power of his own will. Men do not make history as they please. Although there is room to explore the idea of the magic goes away, in how a changing worldview alters how people perceive magic, from divine to natural - that: "Is the conception of nature and of social relations which underlies Greek imagination and Greek [art] possible when there are self-acting [spinning] mules, railways, locomotives and electric telegraphs? What is a Vulcan compared with Roberts and Co., Jupiter compared with the lightning conductor and Hermes compared with the Crédit mobilier? All mythology subdues, controls and fashions the forces of nature in the imagination and through imagination, it disappears therefore when real control over these forces is established. (emphasis mine)"
-Marx again, but this time from Capital
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