"Why Magic in a Story Should Make Sense" up at Fantastic Worlds
N. K. Jemisin argues, in "But, but, but - WHY does magic have to make sense?"
http://nkjemisin.com/2012/06/but-but-but-why-does-magic-have-to-make-sense/
that magic in a story shouldn't have to make sense, because
This is magic we’re talking about here, right? Force of nature, kinda woo-woo and froo-froo, things beyond our ken, and all that? And most of all, not science? Because sometimes I wonder. Sometimes, whenever I see fantasy readers laud a work for the rigor of its magic system - we’ll come back to this word “system” later - I wonder: why are these people reading fantasy? I mean, if they’re going to judge magic by its similarity to science, why not just go ahead and read science fiction? Science fiction has plenty of its own magicky stuff to enjoy (e.g., FTL, “psi” powers). Shouldn’t fantasy do something different, not just in its surface trappings but in its fundamental assumptions?
The reason why is that, in the story universe, magic is being presented as real and able to affect other real things which are presumably internally consistent. If the magic is not internally-consistent, then the magic is not going to be perceived by the readers as "real," and hence neither will the other aspects of the storyverse.
====
read the rest at
http://fantasticworlds-jordan179.blogspot.com/2012/06/why-magic-has-to-make-sense.html
http://nkjemisin.com/2012/06/but-but-but-why-does-magic-have-to-make-sense/
that magic in a story shouldn't have to make sense, because
This is magic we’re talking about here, right? Force of nature, kinda woo-woo and froo-froo, things beyond our ken, and all that? And most of all, not science? Because sometimes I wonder. Sometimes, whenever I see fantasy readers laud a work for the rigor of its magic system - we’ll come back to this word “system” later - I wonder: why are these people reading fantasy? I mean, if they’re going to judge magic by its similarity to science, why not just go ahead and read science fiction? Science fiction has plenty of its own magicky stuff to enjoy (e.g., FTL, “psi” powers). Shouldn’t fantasy do something different, not just in its surface trappings but in its fundamental assumptions?
The reason why is that, in the story universe, magic is being presented as real and able to affect other real things which are presumably internally consistent. If the magic is not internally-consistent, then the magic is not going to be perceived by the readers as "real," and hence neither will the other aspects of the storyverse.
====
read the rest at
http://fantasticworlds-jordan179.blogspot.com/2012/06/why-magic-has-to-make-sense.html