Hrmm

[jengiftw]

kathleenfoucart has me wondering now. If vampires don't (usually) have to be trained (but see The Silver Kiss [novel] and Moonlight [television] and some new series called Vampire Academy [novels]), and werewolves don't have to be trained, and ghosts don't have to be trained (though I started writing a story once where they did... maybe I'll work on that this

Comments

Alan Garner is another you should add to your list

[tlluria]

"The set up:

Albanac says.. "'... The Old Magic is moon magic and sun magic, and it is blood magic. ...'
'You keep saying the Old Magic has been woken,' said Susan, 'but if it's as strong as this, how did it ever come to die out?'
'That is the work of Cadellin,' said Albanac. 'To wizards, and thir High Magic of thoughts and spells, the Old Magic was a hindrance, a power without shape or order: so they try to destroy it. But it would not be destroyed: it would only sleep. ...'
'So there's nothing bad about it at all,' said Susan. 'It just got in the way.' ... 'But it's more natural than all these spells,' said Susan. 'I think I understand it better than anything here.'
Albanac looked up. 'You would say that. For it is woman's magic, too.'

The bang:

'There you see the difference between the Old and the High. The High Magic was made with a reason; the Old Magic is a part of things. It is not for any purpose.'"

~ Alan Garner

Re: Alan Garner is another you should add to your list

[jengiftw]

I likey :)

[rockysoap]

(I promise I'm not stalking you - I just also on the hens with pens group on LJ, and I happened to recognize you. Unless, of course, you happen to be an entirely different person than the person I am conversing with on facebook. In that case, ignore this disclaimer entirely.)

I think that maybe training magical characters also allows the author to train the reader. Whereas many fantastic beings already have accepted abilities and limitations, such as vampires and werewolves, "magic" is very vague; the spectrum of possibilities is infinite. If the reader experiences the training along with the characters, they have a clear idea of the world that the author is creating.

-Nic

[jengiftw]

Nope, same girl. You caught me. (Yet another reason I shouldn't work for the CIA: I really thought my LJ names were cryptic enough to not get me connected. Ah, well.)

You make a good point, though my claim about vampires not being educated is thoroughly without base in retrospect. The Vampire Academy and Twilight series throughly wrenched my bit about the bloodies not needing education. (Wolfies are still kind of okay, though I might change that, too, if I ever get around to reading the werewolf books I've set aside.)

oh, ha. whoops

[jengiftw]

No critical Shirley Henn for me! I forgot I wrote the post about the Facebook FBC page over on H_w_P.

[jenna_byrde]

Also, if you want to stalk me, I'd start over here. At the writerly journal. If you can stomach me/my style/my temperament there, I'll friend you as jengi... but it's a lot of crazy. I'm not very big on self-censoring (nor, indeed, much censorship at all), so between the facebook, what you see here, what non-friend-locked ones you can see at jengi, and the comments I've left you, if you still wanna stick around, friend away. :)